She leapt at me, aiming a blade straight at my heart. I knocked her arm aside, and she swung the other blade around at my neck. I ducked, strafing backwards. I pulled my dagger out and turned my hips to the side, trying to make myself a smaller target, but she was impossibly fast, and one of her blades sliced across my bicep, drawing a thin line of surface blood.
She leapt again. I blocked the first blade with my long dagger, but the second found my shoulder, cutting through my jerkin and deep into my skin, much worse than the first strike. I gritted my teeth in pain, and stumbled out of her reach, expecting the death blow to follow. But she was just standing there, staring at me, smiling.
“You are not living up to your reputation, oh great and mighty Helgar.”
“Damnit, why are you doing this? Why are you provoking me?”
“You know why. You know who I am. You know my destiny. You have read it in the books that have not yet been written. So you were torn away from your family? So people died that you should have protected? Who hasn’t faced some version of that pain? You are a sad, hurt, little boy pretending to be a king. I cannot let you lose yourself in this way.”
My shoulders were tense, and my jaw was tightening up. “This is all I know,” I cried.
She shook her head. “You have forgotten. All this time bickering and fighting over imagined tribal territories has taken you away. But the promise of our future, the promise of a whole universe, is still out there, waiting for you. It’s all there in the star charts on the ceiling of the tombs beneath the dead city. You have so much more to offer the world than to waste your life on petty games.”
She was looking past me as she spoke, and I realized that my women had come out of the tent. They were standing in a semicircle behind me, watching us, shawls and blankets draped over their shoulders, covering their naked bodies.
I turned back to Yaohanath just as she charged at me again, holding her arms out wide. For a moment, her blades flashed with light, blinding me. My right arm hung limp at my side, but I held my long dagger in my left hand, and I raised my arm up to block the light from my eyes.
Her right blade came down in a big arc towards my head. I blocked her swing, and that gave me the opportunity to step inside the wide sweep of her left blade, which was coming around towards my neck. I rammed my shoulder into her chest, pushing her backwards, and used her momentum to pull her right blade out of her hands. It clattered onto the ground.
“Please. Do not make me kill you. I will.”
She did not reply. She just kept smiling, a wild, toothy grin, scrunching up her wrinkled face, and with her remaining blade, she leapt at me.
In that moment, I knew it was over. I ducked in, and brought my dagger up into her chest. I felt it catch on her rib, then slide between, into her lungs. I held her there, her weight leaning on my blade, her face just inches from mine. Blood bubbled and dribbled from her lips. She looked at me, still smiling, and then the light faded from her eyes, and her body slumped, lifeless and heavy.
I lowered her down to the ground, and pulled my dagger out of her chest, wiping the blood on my pant leg. I turned and saw the women from my tent, still standing there, staring at her dead body. They looked angry and shocked. Although my position of authority did not oblige me to say anything, I took pity on them and said, “She forced me to kill her. I am sorry you had to witness that.”
One of them, I could not remember her name, walked next to me, and knelt down at Yaohanath’s side, making some sort of gesture of genuflection.
“Leave her,” I said, but she ignored me.
Then, in one fluid motion she lifted Yaohanath’s Noourn blade off the ground, spun, and plunged it into my stomach.
She did not say a word. She just watched me sink onto the blade as I had watched Yaohanath sink onto mine. Instinctively, I reached out for her neck, trying to choke her, but the strength I had depended on for so long was gone. The images began to dissolve, and two words floated up into my consciousness. Two words that seemed so strange and far away from the life I’d built for myself. Two words that changed everything. Game over.
* * *
I was drawn back into the choosing space. An image of my final moments swept across my visual field, repeating on a short loop. I watched as the woman lifted the blade and drove it into my stomach.
Linnea. That was her name. She had seemed so real.
How long have I been under? I wondered.
My memories came crawling back. After I returned to Forsara, I became obsessed with Lord of the Tribes. The game was a virtual recreation of the time of Shugguth’s Curse, when civilization was shattered, and the early Forsarans broke up into tribes, warring over the dwindling resources in the blistering solar heat.
I made the decision from the outset not to play in the shared, participatory world with other gamers. The artificial intelligence that powered the characters of the virtual world made them indistinguishable from real players, and by playing alone, I was afforded privacy, and the ability to shape the whole story and its outcomes. Every choice I made had the potential to alter the course of history. The fate of my life was in my hands. I chose who lived, and who died.
But if that was true, then Yaohanath could not have known my real name. Someone was encroaching into my private gameworld. I reached out with all of my senses.
“You know I am here, don’t you?” she asked, revealing herself, overlapping her field halo with mine.
“Saiara?” Her mere presence was uplifting. “Saiara! It’s you!”
She did not immediately reply.
“I thought you were deep in the Coven, training with the Farseers,” I said.
“They let me come to see you, Oren. I heard what happened on Lin Den.”
Droplets of my shame and sadness stippled my halo, but her compassion was morning sunlight on cool skin.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” she said.
My sadness deepened.
“Oh, Oren. I wish I could have saved you from this. I truly do.”
“What good are the Farseers and our great Worldheart if we are still so blind?” I asked with bitterness.
“‘Our eyes are only as clear as our intelligence. Our reach is only as fast as our light.’ You know this.”
I said nothing.
“We all knew there was risk involved. Risk is inevitable in situations like this. Even if the data had not been falsified by the secessionists to lead us astray, the three-month light gap from Linstar to Molroun meant we were always operating with imperfect knowledge.
“It also meant that any intervention we made from afar was delayed by the gap of time. That’s why Thol and Divider were elected to go. Steady hands to respond in real time. You were chosen as the ship’s second for that same reason.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” I whispered. “We weren’t enough.”
“Is that what you think?” Her incredulity showered me like cold hailstones.
“I know it.”
“You’re wrong, Oren. You’re seeing it all wrong.”
“So your farsight sees what I can’t, then?”
“I don’t need farsight to see it, Oren. You’ve always been too hard on yourself.”
“Well, I can’t change the past, and I can’t help how I feel about it.”
“So you’ve been spending the past four months playing war games instead?”
Four months?! I thought to myself. Has it really been that long? I forgot that she could hear my thoughts.
“Four months playing the vengeful hero,” she confirmed. “For what?”
It dawned on me then. “That was you in there, wasn’t it? Yaohanath. But… but you attacked me!”
“The field is a great gift. It provides us with a near-infinite well of knowledge and experience. But you were wasting it all on a silly game. I had to wake you up.”
“Eledar’s breath. You certainly did that!”
“The gamescript made it impossible for me to appear as myself without a signfic
ant rewrite. I didn’t have time for that, and you were probably too deeply immersed to recognize me anyway. I had to meet you in a skin you couldn’t ignore.”
“Well, I’m awake. So now what?”
“That’s up to you. But you can’t hide here forever.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“You’ve abandoned your training! It’s time to come back. Or do you want to get expelled from the academy?”
“I… I just can’t face them right now. Not anyone. All that… all their judgment.”
“Oren. Listen to yourself. No one will judge you more than you’ve judged yourself. Don’t you realize what a special blend of arrogance and self-doubt it takes to blame yourself for the failure of the whole Fellowship? That’s what Lin Den was: the Fellowship’s failure. Not yours alone. As you wallow here in your self-imposed exile, you risk destroying everything… everything we dreamed of building together.”
The red heat of anger evaporated my shame and sadness. “I haven’t seen you in over a year, and when you finally decide to show up, you lecture me about what we were trying to build?”
“Oren!”
“Where were you when I came back to Forsara? With all those deaths on my head? Where were you then?”
“Oren. You know-”
“I know that we used to believe in the same things, Saiara. But I’m not so sure anymore. Not after what I’ve seen. You accuse me of arrogance, but the sheer existence of the Fellowship is one mighty act of arrogance. We tinker with the universe as if we made it. We believe that we know the right way to live, and that, in time, everyone will simply accept our greatness and fall in line.” My sadness came flooding back. “But we ruined them, Saiara. We ruined them.”
“Maybe, Oren. Or maybe not. It is too soon to know what the future holds for the Linden. But whatever comes next, hear me now: what happened was not your fault.” The cool blues and warm pinks of her loving kindness surrounded me like a field of alpine flowers.
“So many dead. For what?” My misery wilted her flowers to burnt charcoal.
“It’s not your fault.” Hues bloomed again, copper and dandelion.
“So many-”
“It’s not your fault.” Her colors enfolded me.
* * *
Light filtered through my eyelids. I squinted my eyes open, then I sat up with a jolt. My bedroom. Mine and hers. Sunlight was coming in through the windows.
“Saiara?” I said to the empty room. My throat felt weak. My voice was feathery.
“Oren? Is that you?” she called. “It’s about time. I’m in the kitchen.”
We were home.
I turned, sliding my legs off the bed. My whole body ached.
“How did I get here?”
She walked into the bedroom. “I chartered a hopper to bring us back from the dream fields.” She chuckled. “I swear, even with the weight you’ve lost, you’re still heavier than a noa bull. The caretakers were not pleased. But they didn’t seem surprised either. I’m guessing it’s not the first time they’ve had to extricate an unconscious patron who’s overstayed his welcome. They summoned a hauler right quick. The burly automaton hefted you without grinding a gear.”
I didn’t know what to say.
She knew me enough to recognize my embarrassment. She gave me a soft smile. “It’s nice to be back here with you.”
“It feels different,” I said. “Our room. Smaller. Or… I don’t know. Strange.”
“Maybe because we’re different.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You should see yourself.” There was mirth in her eyes. “You look good with a beard.”
I reached to my chin and discovered that I had indeed grown a scraggly beard.
She laughed. “It needs some trimming, though.”
I lifted my arms above my head, then brought my right palm down gently against my back. “Eledar’s breath. I’m so sore.”
“Four months’ immersion will do that,” she said. “The body needs to move, Oren. Really move. And twitching and shuddering in a simulation tank doesn’t count. Even with the steady run of nutrients and the haptic stimuli, your muscles are still atrophied.
“Nothing some food and exercise can’t fix, though,” she said. “Let me finish with breakfast.” She turned and walked out of the room.
I stood. My legs were weak, but they held. I hobbled over and up the seven stairs to our balcony. I waved my hand at the sensor and the glass canopy slid open. The breeze was cool and searching, tickling the whiskers of my beard. I stepped to the edge of the balcony, and looked down.
Five levels below, the pavilion that connected to our neighboring building was alive with foot traffic. It occurred to me that residential complexes like ours might be filled with people one decade, and empty the next, transformed into desiccated cities, waiting for a transfusion of fresh lifeblood once the previous tenants moved on to new lives and new worlds.
I wondered if there were any people below that I might still recognize. I wondered if anyone would recognize me. I was a stranger in my own skin.
Out past the edge of the concourse, I could see the ground, far below, and the river, glittering like a talismanic rune inscribed in the earth. I had a sudden urge to leap. To let the breeze take me. Let the river swallow me.
“Oren,” Saiara called. “Come in and eat.”
I stepped back from the edge.
When I walked into the kitchen, the food was already out. She hovered her palms up above the table, and pointed at each item in turn like an auctioneer. “Egg bisque with shallions and crushed alio. Biscuits with mellata. Sliced kew fruit over fermented kevas. And sparkling jos.”
“Wow. It all looks fantastic.”
“You better believe it. Now sit and eat before it gets cold.” She flapped her hands at me, and we both sat down.
She dug in to the food, focused and unselfconscious. I stirred the bisque with my spoon, watching the liquid swirl.
“Saiara?” I said.
She looked up at me.
“Oren? Why aren’t you eating?”
“After all this time, why did they finally let you come see me now?”
She set her spoon down, straightening up in her chair. “You should eat, Oren. We can talk later, once you have your energy up.”
“Why, Saiara?”
She sighed, pushing her hair back from her forehead. “I’ve been dreading this.”
“Dreading what?”
“I don’t know how else to say it… I’m leaving, Oren.”
She was never one to dance around tough issues. Looking back now, that was one of the reasons I loved her. But right then, I was stunned. “What?” I said. “Leaving for where?”
“Come tomorrow, I will walk the garden of forking paths.”
Emotions swirled through me. Joy. Jealousy. Sadness. Pride. “You’re graduating,” I said. “That’s… that’s incredible.”
“I came back for you because I want you there with me. I need you to be. Will you come to bear witness?”
“I… of course. What’s… what’s your mission?”
“Frontier work. The astronomists found a potential life star! They’re calling it the Hadeth system. Eight planets and counting. There’s a good chance at least one can support carbon-based life. We’re going to find out.”
“Where in the names of the Scions is the Hadeth system?”
“The Cthlonian arm. Deep space. I have been asked to serve as the ship’s farseer. Senpausha is leading the expedition. He made the request himself, and the coven of the academy has approved.”
I looked down at my uneaten food. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Oren. Even without the field, I know what you are feeling. I always have. That’s what makes our connection so special. And it’s why I love you. But this is an incredible opportunity. I can’t say no.”
She was right. How could she say no? This was everything we had been training for since the moment we stepped on Transc
endence. “I know, Saiara. I know. If I were standing in your place, I would make the same choice. I’ve always known, since we first met, that you were destined for great things with the Fellowship. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could go with you.”
Her eyes grew watery, and she laughed, trying to hold back the tears. “Oh, Oren.” She reached across the table and took my hands. “I wish you could come too. I will miss you. But you have your own destiny to discover.”
* * *
We didn’t leave our living quarters at all that day. It was her last day on Forsara before the ceremony and her departure, and all we wanted was to be together. We swapped training stories. We looked at old photos and mocaps, laughing at our younger selves. She listened as I tried to make sense of what happened on Lin Den, holding my hand when I faltered on the painful parts.
And we talked for hours about the implications of her appointment. The first leg of the journey would go quickly. Their frontier ship would jump from Appollion to Tasches, the starhub closest to the Hadeth system, near the base of the Cthlonian arm of the galaxy. From Tasches, they would enter a stretch of several months of quiet routines, preparing themselves for coldsleep as the ship accelerated to near-light, each of the seven members of the crew navigating the psychological solitude of a small group of people living in close quarters, until they passed into the imperceptible moment, into the compressed corridors of relativistic velocity.
In that moment, time would curve and fold, and they would face their past and their possible futures in a fever dream of passage where time could not be reckoned by a human mind. Then, in the next imperceptible moment, their shipheart would wake them from coldsleep, and they would be there, at the edge of a newly discovered solar system, pioneers at the ever-growing boundary of the Fellowship.
Over six hundred years would pass here on Forsara while they traveled the corridors of near-light. In that time, the Fellowship would begin building the network of starhubs that would ultimately connect Forsara to this new world, eventually allowing us to travel to that sector of the galaxy in months when it once took more than half a millennium. The starhub construction project would take many centuries, but with the full will of the Fellowship behind it, it could be done.
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