by Dean Murray
"That's all true, but there's one more piece. We aren't meant to be alone, Selene. There have been rumors for centuries, but I dismissed them. I thought I could endure the isolation, but it turned out that I couldn't."
"You've been making trips out of the bunker for supplies and equipment."
Kyle nodded. "Yes. I tried to tell myself that it was just a matter of upgrading my capabilities. The video feeds and computers have been a tremendous boon, but the truth was that I was just too lonely not to leave this place."
"That's how Mephistoles found you."
"Yes. I thought that I was leaving my bunker at random times, but he'd tracked me down and detected a pattern to my trips. He was waiting for me at the grocery store and it took everything I had to get away with my life. My next trip out was more than a year later and I never went back to that particular town, but there was a message waiting for me on a billboard when I finally did go back to civilization again."
My mind was spinning in shock. I felt so stupid. Of course Kyle had left. There wasn't any other way for him to have agreed not to interfere with Mephistoles' hunt of Kat and I back when my last incarnation ended.
Kyle waited as though hoping that I would say something, but eventually the silence grew to the point where he continued.
"I reached out to him by solving a riddle that only an Awakened could have, and he told me that he was closing in on my position."
I wanted to pick up the flowers and throw them at him—vase and all. "You're so high and mighty, but the truth is that you didn't exchange my last incarnation for a few extra decades of uninterrupted research. You could have easily had that if you'd just stayed hidden underground like you originally planned."
Kyle reached toward me as though trying to comfort me, but I slapped his hands away. If it had been Jace—even if we'd been fighting—I would have let him hold me, but Kyle hadn't earned that right.
"No, don't touch me. You traded my life in, traded twenty years of happiness that I could have had with Jace so that you could have a high-speed internet connection and a big-screen TV."
I turned to run away, but Kyle grabbed my arm and this time there wasn't anything comforting about the gesture. He was amped and the pressure of his hand on my arm was just this side of painful.
"You don't get to run away from me yet, Selene. Once I've finished telling you everything you can run away if that is still what you want to do, but until then you will hear me out."
"Why, what else could you possibly tell me?"
Kyle didn't answer. He pulled on my arm, marching me down the stairs until we were standing outside of the level that I hadn't been able to enter. It was only a few seconds' work for Kyle to rekey the ward and then he pushed the door fully open and pulled me into what I could only assume was his research lab.
The walls were covered in chalkboards full of cramped writing that formed a complicated array of equations. One corner of the room was nothing more than a ten foot square chunk of bare concrete enclosed by the shimmering field of an active ward. There wasn't anything but a table inside of the ward, so I could only assume that was his testing area, the place where he performed experiments that might otherwise destroy the contents of the room.
Kyle let go of me and unsheathed his sword. For one terrifying moment I thought he was going to attack me, but instead he reversed the sword and offered it to me hilt first.
"Go ahead, take it."
"Are you really that stupid? Only an idiot would hand me a sharp object after manhandling me down all those flights of stairs."
"You're not going to stab me."
"It sounds awfully tempting right about now…"
Kyle just shook his head. "If you were going to attack me you would have done it already. Take the sword and then work the most powerful effect you know how."
I gingerly wrapped my hand around the silver and leather handle, and then nearly dropped the sword when Kyle stepped back and I had to support its entire weight on my own. It was a lot heavier than I expected it to be.
There was enough residual anger still floating around inside me that it was a simple matter to amp my strength up to six times normal. It wasn't the most powerful effect that I knew, but it fit my circumstances the best. I waved the sword around a couple of times, enjoying the fact that it now felt like it weighed no more than a couple of ounces, and then shrugged.
"It's shiny. So what?"
"Can you feel the difference?"
I started to tell him that there wasn't any difference, but before I could get the words out I realized he was right. It was hard to describe. The closest I could come was to say that the imaginary hole in my forehead, the one where my memories streamed out to power my effects, felt…smaller than it should have.
I grabbed the sword with both hands so that I wouldn't drop it, and then canceled the strength amp as I explored the crystalline vista of my memories. I'd used my ability a lot recently so it took me a second to catalogue all of the missing bits and pieces inside of my head.
It made me want to be sick. Ever since I'd nearly lost myself inside of my own head back when I'd first awakened, I'd been purposefully trying not to examine my past too carefully. Now that I was delving deep in an effort to identify all of the missing pieces there wasn't any way to avoid coming to terms with how much I'd traded away in just the last few days.
Five minutes here, ten minutes there, it was starting to add up. Big parts of Ari's fifth birthday party were gone, as was part of a trip to the state fair when I was ten.
The glittering plain inside my head where my memories were stored these days was bigger than it had been—I'd still been creating memories faster than I'd been consuming them—but that was cold comfort. I'd been creating memories of being pursued by Mephistoles and being locked up by Kyle. A million years of those memories could never be as important to me as the memories I'd already lost.
"So much…I've already lost so much."
My knees started to buckle, but Kyle made it to my side before I hit the ground. He wrapped his arms around me, easily bearing my weight over to a utilitarian metal chair as his sword clattered against the floor.
"I know it's hard, Selene, but you have to remember that the alternative was death. This world we live in is more unforgiving than the one you grew up in. If you hadn't used your abilities Fenrir would have killed you before I could make it there to help you. You sacrificed a few memories to save the rest."
"I know, but what happens in ten years or a hundred years? How am I going to feel when I've sacrificed everything that makes me who I am today and all that's left of me is something that I wouldn't recognize?"
"I don't know, Selene. That's the hardest part of being like us. All you can do is try to make sure that you sacrifice your memories in the service of something you believe in, that you write down the things that are the most important to you and resolve never to go back on them."
Something about what he'd just said pulled me back from the edge, made me think that there was a solution to the problem that was overwhelming me.
"You don't just mean journaling my experiences, do you?"
"No. I mean recording rules that you are resolved never to break. I mean listing the things that make you who you are, the lines that you can't cross without becoming someone else altogether."
"What are your rules?"
The question popped out of my mouth before I'd had a chance to really think about what I was asking. I'd just asked for the keys to his soul.
For a second I thought he wasn't going to answer me, but he took a deep breath and then nodded. "I won't tell you all of them, but I can share a few of them. You've probably already guessed some of them. I chose to stand outside of the normal fighting between the pantheons. I decided that I was always going to choose the course that would let me make the greatest long-term contribution to our people, and I swore that I would never again help out my brother."
I jumped back to my feet, breaking his hold around my arms. "
That's it? Five or six hundred years of life and all you have to show for it is a bucket list to make sure that you bow out of every possible fight while carrying around a grudge the size of Antarctica?"
Kyle grabbed the chair I'd just been sitting on and threw it across the room with enough force that I half expected it to put a hole in the concrete wall.
"You have no idea what I've been through! You have no right to judge me—you're like a petulant child throwing a fit because you've just been told that the clouds will never rain down money and lollipops!"
"Then stop lecturing me and just tell me what's going on. You're right, I don't know very much about how the world works for us Awakened, but I know that Jace is a good person. I can feel it, just like I can feel that you're not supposed to be the villain of this piece.
"For some reason you're determined to do everything possible to make me hate you, but I don't think that's what you really want. I think deep down inside you want to be the good guy, you just don't remember how."
I'd short-circuited his rage once before, but I wasn't expecting to do it again. He went from incensed to calm instantly.
"Who are you?"
"What are you talking about?"
He walked over to the chair he'd just thrown across the room and picked it up. I felt him work a strength amp and then he straightened out the chair and turned back to me.
"You claim to be Selene, but it's like I'm living inside of one of my journals again. The things you are saying are the same things you said to me right after my wipe. They are the things the old you would have said. It's like you never died, like you just dropped off the grid and now are back pretending like you're some innocent seventeen-year-old."
There was such an element of longing in his voice that I couldn't maintain my anger either. "I'm sorry, but she's gone. I'm exactly what I claim to be."
Kyle extended his hand towards his sword and it zipped through the air as though on wires. He inspected the edge and then resheathed it without looking back up at me.
"I'm sorry about your sword—I hope I didn't damage it."
He gave me a bitter smile. "It's the next best thing to indestructible. Think nothing of it—I only wish that I'd managed to unlock its secrets enough to armor my soul with the same material. Did our fight at least distract you from the memories you've lost?"
It had, but before I could tell him as much, I realized what he'd been trying to tell me by giving me his sword. I could feel the block of memories that I'd lost when I'd amped my strength a few seconds before. The gap was just as painful as the rest of the spots where I'd lost part of who and what I was, but it was shorter than I'd been expecting.
"That's what Mephistoles was so worried about. He recognized the sword and knew it was capable of making it so you didn't have to burn as many memories. How does it work?"
Kyle laughed, and the sound was part bitter and part boisterous. "And you instantly divine the heart of the matter. If I knew that I wouldn't still be locked away inside this bunker, I would have already set forth to unite every pantheon under my rule."
"You don't know—you must have theories though…"
"Some. I'm confident that I know what it does, I'm just not sure how it does it. Jace apparently told you about the fae. Did he tell you how they grow?"
"Yeah—oh, I see. It's the 'wasted' memories from effects. Your sword eliminates the waste that is otherwise a natural part of every effect."
"Yes. I haven't done any experiments to confirm that, but Excalibur is a known quantity in that regard. The fae by and large despise this particular artifact. They fear a world where every Awakened wields a similar weapon."
"I can understand why. That would mean there would never be another fae born—it would mean that most of them would never grow any stronger. They would be consigned to an existence where they could never change."
Kyle shrugged. "I'm not convinced that would be an entirely bad thing. For thousands of years we believed that we had a symbiotic relationship with the fae, believed that they thrived off of something that we couldn't use, but it was a lie all along. They are parasites pure and simple."
I thought of Bethany, of her loyalty to the version of me that had created her, and I shook my head. "They didn't ask to be created; they didn't choose to be parasites. Most of them are doing the best they can with the hand that they were dealt."
"The same thing is true of any parasite, Selene. The common cold virus doesn't desire to do us harm, but that doesn't stop it from infecting every host it can find."
"That's where you're wrong, Kyle. The fae can be helpful. They can offer value in exchange for the memories they need from us. Maybe the exchange rate won't be what they are used to, but then again maybe it will."
"You would sacrifice memories that you don't have to sacrifice in exchange for some service? You who was just sobbing over the hours you've already lost?"
I met his gaze without flinching. "Yes, for the right price. If doing so saved someone I cared about then I'd do it in a heartbeat. Even if every Awakened were instantly equipped with an…artifact…like Excalibur that wouldn't mean the end of everything for the fae. There would still be room for all of us."
"I didn't expect you to refute my argument using the language of cold commerce."
"Commerce doesn't have to be cold, Kyle. Just because you're making a trade with someone doesn't mean you don't care about them."
"I detest people who use sentiment to change the terms of an agreement to suit them at the expense of the other party."
"Even if I give you that point, a trade between two people who feel…sentiment…towards each other can still be mutually beneficial."
Kyle started to respond and then stopped. Apparently I'd given him more to chew on than he'd been expecting. I looked at the sword—once again hanging at his waist—and some of the pieces that had been bothering me finally snapped into place.
"That's why Fenrir hasn't ever come after you before now. There wasn't any upside to a fight between the two of you. He knew you had the sword, which meant he wouldn't be able to absorb any of the memories from your attacks."
"Yes, exactly. As things stand right now—even after having absorbed my first two wards—he's come out worse off than he started. He's only continued the assault on my defenses because he rules primarily through fear. If he were to let Awakened or other fae challenge him without consequence he'd soon be overwhelmed with challenges."
"This is about more than just your sword. I would have eventually pieced all of that together just from your last conversation with Mephistoles and Fenrir."
"Indeed. There are plenty of fae who would love to see me dead and Excalibur tossed into the deepest part of the ocean, but that is nothing compared to my true purpose."
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, and then it hit me like a bolt of lightning.
"You're trying to create more artifacts. You're trying to create more swords like Excalibur. Oh, my gosh. How could I not see this before now? The field that bends time—that's not something you're actively maintaining—not while you're asleep. You've succeeded, you've figured out how to create artifacts!"
Kyle shook his head. "No. I wish I could confirm your hypothesis, but the truth is that I'm still missing something. The pantheon that lived above us—I've taken to calling them the lost pantheon—succeeded. They left a single artifact behind them and a dozen prototypes that showed their early efforts, but even that hasn't been enough.
"Completed artifacts are incredibly self-contained. I can't just open up Excalibur and snap some pictures to use as a blueprint for my own efforts. There are tests that can be run, but they don't tell me as much as I've been able to learn from the partially-completed prototypes."
"I don't understand. You have all of those prototypes from the lost pantheon. What's the problem?"
"The problem is that they seem to have made some kind of dramatic breakthrough between their last prototype and their artifact. It was something wildly diff
erent than their earlier efforts, something I haven't stumbled upon yet."
"So it's all been for nothing then?"
That earned me a proud smile, and Kyle pointed to an egg-shaped metal sphere that was roughly as big as my fist.
"Not all for nothing. I managed to create this. It's not an artifact—it doesn't power itself like a real artifact would—but it does have its uses."
"That's what bends time, isn't it?"
"Yes. Right now it doubles the flow of time here inside of the bunker, which is a huge advantage."
I walked over so I could get a better look at it. The metal had an iridescent sheen that was unlike anything I'd ever seen, but other than that it was unremarkable. It was amazing to think that such a small, innocuous device was responsible for not only speeding up the flow of time over such a large area, but also for figuring out where to end the field so that everything around it didn't crumble as a result of being subject to two different aging speeds.
"So you effectively bought yourself twice as long in which to finish up your research. That was brilliant!"
"Yes, but that's not even the best part. The best part is that the power draw that my device needs to run is only about an eighth of a day's worth of baseline memories for each day that passes outside in the normal world."
"So you're gaining memories faster than everyone else."
"Exactly. It's not a huge number, but it still amounts to a significant advantage over the competition, so to speak, and it uses almost nothing in the way of emotional strength, so it means that we can hit Fenrir twice as often as he expects us to."
A huge grin forced its way out onto my face, but it crumbled away just as fast as it had appeared.
"Not us. You. I'm worse than useless."
"That doesn't have to be the case forever, Selene. I could teach you at least a few basic attacks. Between that and the fact that you already know how to create a time amp, there's every reason to think you could help put the hurt on Fenrir."
"You would do that?"
I wanted to cry. Kyle had already offered me my freedom, and it seemed like he really was legitimately willing to let me leave. The only thing keeping me here now was Fenrir. That meant I was free to hunger after something else. It turned out that what I wanted was more knowledge. I didn't agree with a lot of Kyle's views, but he had one thing completely correct. Knowledge was power, and right now I needed power in a bad way.
