He didn’t seem bothered, so he clarified. “Are you a warrior, a knight of some kind?”
“No.” I almost chuckled when he said that, but his expression and voice was dead serious, as were all the faces staring on from the pews. And, of course, a long stare and silence followed. I gently eased Neepa’s arm off and stepped forward. “I don’t mean to be rude, uh, what was your—”
“Sigemond, head of the Arms of Earus,” he boomed.
“Sigemond. Well, I would like for you to answer some of my questions before I answer yours.” I let out a heavy breath and rubbed my temple. “I am, very, very, very, confused, and I would love some answers.”
He nodded in approval and urged me with a wave of his club-like hand.
“Is this heaven and are you God?”
He looked taken aback by that, waiting to see if I was serious. “No. I am a man and you are in the world of the living. Why ask such a thing?”
“Just… checking.” I sighed heavily and ran a hand down my face. “I’m sorry, I’m just…I’m really losing my shit here.” I chuckled a little manically in some weird coping mechanism. “If I’m not in heaven, then where the actual fuck am I?”
Some people gasped and others scowled at my language, but I didn’t have it in me to humor mild conversation. Answers were promised and I wanted them. My mental state was worn paper thin, a full breakdown feeling very possible.
I dropped my head and squeezed my eyes tight, trembling as I struggled to stay calm. A part of me was actually hoping that all of this was just some super lucid nightmare while my body dozed peacefully in econ. The other part knew better, knew that all the things I witnessed happened.
Neepa drew back into my side and rested a hand on my shoulder.
“Al…” she whispered soothingly.
However, a firmer grip on my other shoulder brought me back from the fringe of an emotional breakdown. Sigemond had stepped down from his bench and stood before me, his face bore nothing but sympathy.
“From what I’ve been told thus far, you’ve had an incredibly troubling time. You are right to feel distraught,” Sigemond assured. He released my shoulder and stepped back. “I know nothing of the world you hail from, and I know you know nothing of my world, but I will expound on the details so you feel less muddled.”
“World? W-what—what are you getting at?” I asked.
“There are many worlds, Al. Far more than you can imagine, and many, like yours, were oblivious to this fact. Except for my world, for we are the descendents of the first to receive the gift, the beginning that permeated throughout the cosmos that banished the darkness and brought forth the light that breathed life into many shapes and forms.
“We are the first descendants of the First. The First was the first; the first thing to ever be from the nothingness. And that single point of being became three. Those three points are the three principles of existence: matter, spirit, and energy. With those principals came the One, the first one. The One was our mother and father, the one who birthed all, and the one who protected all from the darkness. For you see, as something came from nothingness and evolved, so did the nothingness itself.
“The great void served as the womb that birthed the Null: the very embodiment of contradiction. The Null is, but isn’t. Its sole purpose is to reduce everything to naught. Whenever the One birthed a world, the Null would appear and envelope it in darkness, undoing all.
“The One was mighty enough to vanquish the Null and return life, but it always returned, and they would wage this war of attrition for eons. To end this violent cycle, the One devised a way to ensure that life would carry on forever.
“The One went off into the void where the Null thrived. It offered itself, which the Null greedily accepted in the hopes to render the One into the primordial dust. But the One intended to embrace the Null, which would bring forth the One’s greatest revelation: polarity. Being and nonbeing; light and dark; positive and negative; man and woman; life and death. And with that, the One would create other beings that were the embodiment of the three principles and polarity. That was how we, you, and all sentient life across all lands came to be.
“With matter, came form; with spirit, came the soul; with energy, came the mind. And with polarity came balance. Those that came to be would come to end, only for them to be again. Following that cycle, the first true world came to actualization, and then the first inhabitants, and then the first civilization. This true first world was impervious to the Null. Where there is balance, the Null cannot go. So with its children safe, the One could keep creating more and more worlds across space and time.”
Sigemond drew in a heavy breath, his face crestfallen.
“However, since the One gained something from the Null, so too did the Null gain something from the One. The Null took the two principles of matter and energy and would mimic what the One accomplished. However, it would produce bastardized forms that mimicked true life. As the children of the One would grow, so did the children of the Null. The One knew that in order to avoid another never ending cycle of beginning and ending, it needed to make its children stronger. To do that, the One fragmented itself amongst all life.”
Sigemond and everyone else in the room clasped their left and right hands together and held them close to their chests, then they pushed their hands out and spread them in a wide arch.
“One for all,” they said in unison.
“The One was weakened by this,” Sigemond continued, “but it secured life in the face of the Null’s children. The very last remnants of the One came to the first world, and tasked us as the first descendants with the responsibility of ensuring that existence would continue to be. And with that, the One drew itself back into the first point.
"The One started as a seed that served as the catalyst for all life, and it would go back to a seed, waiting to sprout once more if need be. This is the Great Seed of Life, which we are all tasked to protect.”
Once again, everyone outstretched their arms before bringing them in and clasping their hands together, holding them close to their chest and saying in unison, “All for one.”
With some much to unpack, I stood there with my mouth open like an idiot.
“…okay, th-that’s…wow,” I said. I took a moment to get my thoughts straight. “Epic lore aside, what does that have to do with the monsters and me being here?”
“In the last several thousand years, the Null have devised a way to bring about the end of everything,” Sigemond said grimly. “Since the Null cannot end the children of the One, they've learned to use its own children against itself.”
“What? That doesn't… what?” I asked, trying to fathom all this.
“The One distributed most of itself so that all would have power and protection from the Null, which in turn diluted the power of the One. But, if life would cease at the hands of the Null, the power would return back to the Great Seed. If all life and existence was in danger, the One would be whole again. However, instead of destroying the traces of the One, the Null have been seizing it, corrupting it.
“The monsters you speak of are corrupted beings created by the children of the Null. The force driving a person’s body is corrupted, stolen to suit the Null needs, producing a monstrous husk, disrupting the balance and threatening the order of everything. The One’s power came in many forms not limited to living creatures, and it would often be imbued within physical objects. Null forces seek out artifacts to add to their own might. That is where my raiding teams come in, some of which you should already be familiar with.”
I assumed he meant Neepa, Eva, and Iason.
“They are sent to other worlds such as yours to secure artifacts that possess a collection of the One’s power. Such artifacts are dangerous in the hands of the Null because the power within them is potent, even catastrophic. By collecting them, we deprive the Null of resources while bolstering our own forces.”
I was beginning to make connections, but there was still one glaring detai
l. “But why me? I mean, why did you bring me here?”
Sigemond clasped his hands behind his back and directed his gaze out the tall, leaded windows. “You see, Al, in the past several hundred years, our forces have taken up the policy to not intervene in worlds that are oblivious to this war. I hope you can understand how fruitless of an endeavor that would be. It may be cold, but that is the state we are in. It is forbidden to take natives from their world to ours.” He rubbed the gray stubbles of his chin while his dark eyes looked fixedly at me. “However, Neepa insisted that you be brought back.”
I looked at Neepa and she dipped her head slightly, giving me a nervous smile.
I shook my head. “Why?”
“You killed a Caster, did you not?”
The memory sent a rile of pain in my gut. “Yeah, the pasty guy, right?” A quiet murmur coursed through the room at my confirmation.
“That is no small feat, Al. Casters are dangerous beings that have learned how to harness and use the corrupted power of the One; black magic, as we call it. They too hold the capacity to wield artifacts they have corrupted. If it not for your intervention, then my unit would’ve fallen and I humbly thank you for that. However, there is one detail I’ve been told that is more pressing.”
My palms grew clammy. “What?”
Sigemond turned and ushered someone from the crowd forward with a wave of his hand. It was a woman dressed in dignified blue robes, holding an ornately carved wooden box. Sigemond opened the box and pulled out a pendant identical to the one Neepa had. The stone pulsed with an effulgent golden glow.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
After a moment of hesitation, I held out my arm. Sigemond took my hand, mine looking like a toddler’s in comparison, then rotated my wrist till my palm faced up. Carefully, he lowered the pendant.
The pulsing, faint golden glow was snuffed out by brilliant white light, the sight earning gasps and shouts as people crowded around for a closer look. Sigemond’s hardened expression looked incapable of showing surprise, but his thick eyebrows shot up to his graying hairline.
What the fuck is going on?
Chapter 6
Due to circumstance, there wasn’t a whole lot of time to think about the remnant, but it gained my undivided attention when it lit up like a bulb under my touch.
“What does the light mean?” I asked, my eyes locked to the mysterious stone.
My eyes followed the stone as Sigemond pulled it from my palm, then lowered it back into the box. He turned back and considered my question for a moment.
“I don’t know,” he said unceremoniously.
I stared at him and said, “Huh?”
“We don’t know why it glows white because we have never seen such a thing before,” Sigemond said.
“Well, if…” I trailed off before I realized that I got ahead of myself. “Wait, what is it anyways?” With the plethora of shit thrown at me, no wonder I almost overlooked the magical, glowing stone.
“What you held is what we call a remnant—a stone that has been transfused with the power from the Great Seed. Armed with remnants, our mages are able to seek out artifacts that contain potent amounts of the One’s power. Once fed with the user’s magic, the stones react to any latent energy by the pulse and intensity of the glow; the closer one is, the more solid and bright the glow.”
“So sort of like radar, then?”
Sigemond furrowed his thick eyebrows. “Pardon?”
Right. Haven’t seen any advance technology anywhere.
“Uh, never mind. But, if you don’t know what it means, what am I supposed to do?”
“If I may, Sigemond?” the woman in the blue robes stepped up and asked.
Sigemond nodded and gave her the floor. The woman handed off the ornate box to another woman in blue robes and stood before me. She was striking, like Neepa, but she had more years on her. Still, that hardly detracted much from her in that regard; if anything, it added an alluring sense of maturity about her. She had eyes like the ocean, vastly blue and sparkling like when light dances off rippling waves. Golden locks spilled down to her back, a portion of it in a braid and slung over her shoulder. The robes she wore was heavy, but I could still make out an hourglass figure beneath it. She bowed her head and addressed herself.
“I am Julika of the family Evasse and apprentice of the Grand Mage. The radiance of the remnant may be new, or it may be knowledge long forgotten and buried within the archives. Normally, the Grand Mage would be the one investigating this phenomenon because of her vast knowledge, knowledge that has yet to be transcribed. Her Greatness’ responsibilities require her to travel all over the worlds, so she isn’t present at this time. I am overseeing our kingdom’s mages in her stead.
“Since I lack the knowledge about this phenomenon and the Grand Mage is absent, we will need you to remain within capital until she returns. Ten days or so. That said, Sigemond is offering you a bunk in the barracks, or, if you would prefer, you may stay at the Mage’s Hall.”
I put up my hands and said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves here? You just informed me on some grand, mystical war––which I’m still processing here––and then you go off to tell me that I’m causing some sort of unknown effect to that infinity-looking stone and just expect me to go with it?” My tone sounded a touch too heated, but they were dragging me through a field of knowledge and I had no which way was up or down, and they just expect me to go with it.
Julika took a few steps closer and looked up, locking her steady ocean eyes on mine. She got down to her hands and knees and pressed her forehead to the floor, groveling at my feet.
“I understand it may appear very inconsiderate, but this of great significance. All unknown phenomenon concerning the One is of grave importance. Anything and everything must be thoroughly investigated. Please, Al. I, and all mages, beg of you to heed our request.”
On queue, other men and women who wore similar attire to Julika prostrated themselves before me. And in unison they said, “Please.”
Sigemond got down on one knee and bowed his head. “And I humbly ask of you on behalf of all my brothers and sisters in arms to help further our cause.”
The other stout men and women of the crowd mimicked Sigemond’s gesture and all said, “Please.”
A coordinated bunch, I’ll give them that.
Neepa hiked her long dress over her shins and knelt down next to me. “Please,” she said, then pressed her forehead to the ground in a gesture of great humility.
A look around the room showed that I was the only one standing, everyone else regarding me either on their hands or knees as if I were a king. Such a thing might have seemed appealing in my imagination, but in reality it was just awkward.
I blew out a long, self-suffering sigh. “Please get off the floor.”
I proffered my hand to Neepa, which she looked at for awhile before accepting. I directed my attention back to the people and saw their eyes boring into me. “Fine, I’ll stay. Just stop the theatrics.”
Julika rose to her feet and clasped both of my hands in hers. “Thank you, Al, thank you. You may very well hold the key to salvation.”
Sigemond slapped me on the back and guffawed loudly. I almost screamed, but managed to chalk it down to a grunt. It felt like someone had slapped my back with an ore.
“Good lad! Now, would you like me to show you to your bunk? The barracks aren’t lavish, but you’ll have plenty of people to get you comfortable.”
“Uh––” I said before Julika cut me off.
“He’s still injured; perhaps a bed at the Mage’s Hall would be better suited. We have rooms that are meant for high-ranking officials, but we can make an exception for you. Our beds are very plush,” she said enticingly.
“Well––” I started before Sigemond cut me off.
“Nonsense, the lad needs to rest, he won’t be doing that with all you mage’s fussing over him.”
“Oh? And he’ll fare better with a
ll if room full of roaring brutes?” she said snidely.
“Actually,” Neepa murmured.
Julika and Sigemond stopped their small tirade and turned to her. Neepa dropped her head and tugged at her dress.
“Actually… I wanted to… offer my home to Al…” she said, her voice gradually lowering in volume till it tapered off to an almost inaudible murmur.
Sigemond’s features tensed slightly as he cocked a brow, but Julika seemed overtly appalled to the idea.
“I don’t think that would––” she stopped when I put up my hand.
“I would prefer that arrangement, actually,” I said. Neepa lifted her gaze from the ground and looked at me. “This is a lot for me to handle and Neepa is the most familiar person here, I would feel more comfortable in her company.”
Julika had her mouth open like she wanted to speak, but Sigemond spoke for her and said, “If that is what you desire.”
Julika’s mouth pressed into a thin line and she held her chin up at Neepa, who looked away and fidgeted with her dress again. “Very well,” she conceded bitterly. She directed her gaze at me. “If anything happens, my mage’s will be ready to aid you.”
“Thanks…” I said unsurely.
Why the hell did she say it like that? A palpable air hung between the two women, Julika making it obvious with how much she was forcing her features to remain steady. Sigemond spoke before the thought could go further.
“If you need anything of the guard, feel free to ask. If you make your way to the main door, one of my men will be around with a carriage.”
Carriage? What was I expecting; of course they're not going to have cars. I’m surrounded by the knights and wizards, and just spoke to Conan’s swole grandpa and Galadriel from Middle Earth.
Sigemond offered his ham-sized hand, which I took. Thankfully, he didn’t crush it. “Farewell. Until the next time.” His face wrinkled more with a large smile. Despite the rugged appearance, he was surprisingly well-spoken and kindly.
“And I as well,” Julika said, giving me a small curtsy. She glanced at Neepa, a sneer drawing down her eyebrows before she willed them into a straight line, most of her robed cohorts following her departure.
Heart of the Resonant: Book 1: Pulse (Resonant Series) Page 8
