Axiom

by Dennis Vanderkerken

  “One can’t be an Elder when there is nothing to be an Elder of. The village is gone. All gone, Switch. Burned to dust seasons ago, along with most all its people. Our people. Our community. None got away, and my only grace is that some were taken instead of slain. Even that small reprieve turns my stomach. No, Switch. I’m not dead. I have to stay alive. I won’t die until I’ve fulfilled my one, last promise.”

  “W-what promise?” Switch slurred out the words, just trying not to wet herself at this impossible titan in front of her. He felt so much larger than life. An unseen Aura oppressed her by sheer proximity, and she didn’t understand how or why. The crone felt crushed. It was difficult to breathe.

  The Aura that oppressed her increased in pressure as Artorian spoke. It wasn’t that she couldn’t breathe but rather that something was making it nearly impossible to do so. Artorian didn’t realize he was causing the effect and just spoke with a voice filled with sadness, “I told them I’d be there for them. Those children are my world.”

  The effect relented and released, the mental image Artorian had been upholding crumbling at the thought of their gleeful faces. He couldn’t hold on to hate when love tackled him from behind with such a comforting hug.

  “Then… then why are you here?” Switch stammered.

  A sigh came from the old man as he looked at the open palms of his hands. He spoke slowly and with deliberate intent, “Unfinished business. See… at first, I wanted to ask… no. Demand answers to a thousand questions. As the seasons flew by, that fell to hundreds. Then maybe ten. Eventually, I was content with just… one. Now… now, I need none.”

  “I no longer care why you did it. I have a decent idea after finding the vellum you so disgustingly scratched your name on. I no longer care why you sanctioned the slaughter of everyone we held dear. I only care that you did. I’m not here to admonish you, Switch. I am here for something that will satisfy a hypocritical, terrible, old man.”

  Their eyes met, and he finished his rant. “I’m here for justice.”

  To Switch’s confused relief, Artorian turned and began to walk away but stopped short at the door. “Pick up your walking stick, you old toad. We’re going on a walk.”

  The door opened, and the old man stepped through, his shadow visible through the opening while waiting on the other side of the threshold. It took several minutes for Switch to collect herself or even consider moving her legs out of the bed.

  Night terrors had plagued her for what must have been seasons. Her mind had been trapped in the endless loop of mind-breaking, day-long nightmares that she found no way out of. No amount of repetition made the grueling agony dampen or hit her any softer, leaving her either unable or unwilling to interact with what was real.

  The thick, old lady had thinned significantly, and she only really noticed when her feet finally hit the ground. The walking stick was taken from the table, and she leaned on it to support the majority of her almost nonexistent weight. The first rays of sunshine blinded her vision, but the sight that met her was nothing like what she remembered.

  The hills and green plains were all the same—a similar landscape with a different fate. Nothing was left to show the village had once been here. Almost nothing. A new apiary was in place, the stone mill still stood, and the flats still reflected sunlight off of its thin sheet of water in the distance. She kept her hand in front of her face and saw Artorian had moved a good ten feet away, waiting on her to catch up. She wanted to talk, to say something meaningful.

  Something that would make this all better. Her thoughts found nothing. So, they walked and walked. It was just to the stream where people washed, but the journey was draining. She was furious that the old man wasn’t the least bit tired. He actually looked healthier than she remembered. Far healthier.

  He was waiting at the stream, his back turned to it as he looked up at the cloister in the space they’d crossed. It was simple but pretty, the way the buildings were organized. Even a simple few buildings were pleasing when they were placed in a harmonious formation. Supposedly, it helped with a cleric’s cultivation, to lengthen the amount of time they could cultivate their blessing from the heavens. He didn’t quite believe it, and he wondered how someone had come up with that idea. Was it architecture or faith that had come up with this layout?

  Artorian looked down and noted Switch was still taking her sweet time staggering her skeletal frame over. Artorian stole another look a short while later, and Switch was almost at his side. She was so full of flaws, Artorian shook his head and found that he was losing himself to thoughts again since Switch was taking the extra time of his silence to catch her breath.

  “Why… *wheeze*… why the stream?” Switch’s question was answered by a finger firmly pointed at the cloister.

  “Look,” he ordered.

  So, she turned and looked. The scene was the picture book representation of a religious compound, filled with plenty of buildings that all seemed rather small, save for the main cloister construction closest to the center. “It’s just a church now.”

  Artorian shook his head at her words. A solid, dissatisfied no. “You’re looking, but you didn’t see.”

  This was immediately frustrating to the old bat, and if she wasn’t leaning so heavily on her walking stick, she would have swung it at him. “See what? It’s buildings, walls, a big church, not a person in sight.”

  “That’s right.” Artorian nodded. The unexplained agreement made Switch’s teeth clench, and she just about found the energy to chew him out. “Not a person in sight indeed. So, you looked, but did you see?”

  A terrible thought struck the old toad. Balance nearly lost, she couldn’t feel the grip on her walking aid. She turned to firmly look again, hoping to see a person. A single someone. Anyone. Anyone at all who might be looking this way. She found no one. “Oh… oh… no… witnesses.”

  Artorian again quietly nodded. Switch swallowed. It dawned on her what he’d meant by justice and hypocrisy. She was going to die. “I take it you’ll tell them I didn’t make it.”

  The walking stick clattered to the ground and rolled down the dike. It plopped wetly into the stream, and the piece of wood floated off and away. She was afraid and yet… felt relief. She wouldn’t need to suffer anymore. There would be no lengthy question and answer segments that slowly unveiled how she’d betrayed and murdered her entire community. The punishment that could come upon her from that felt worse than her current fate. Rather the abyss she knew than the one she didn’t. She fell silent.

  “You stepped into the stream, lost your footing, and were dragged away. One of the hollows in the deeper sections pulled you under, and you were gone,” the slow, tired, old voice filled in. “The only kindness I’m willing to give you is one you did not provide to the people we were responsible for.”

  Switch felt out of it, like she wasn’t quite present in her own body. The will to live fled from her. Still, she caught his meaning as she closed her eyes. The haunting metal flavor still filled her mind, her taste, and overpowered any other seasoning. If the Elder was going to look for his Fringe children, she needed to relay the horror she’d caused.

  “She took them. One by one. She made me watch as her gilded knife opened them up like pigs for slaughter. She bled them, ended them, and only silenced them when they could no longer make the screams she demanded.” Switch shuddered and brought her hands to her face as she stood still, tears of regret fell down her wrinkled, bony, scrunched-up face. Her words broke apart, as did her breathing. Artorian stepped behind her to place hands on her shoulders, and she found strength.

  “The woman you’re looking for is called Hakan. She leads a raider and mercenary group named the Reapers. Her humor was as unbearable as her laughter. It’s easy to recognize her. She wears more blades than actual clothing and speaks with the smoothness of a healer performing bloodletting as he calms you.”

  “I can’t recall her face. Only the laughter and the smile. Every single one of her men fears her. She slashe
s their faces at any hint that they might have been disobedient, but I remember the girls were all untouched. She gives them leadership positions and makes them do her cutting for her while she watches and directs. Don’t let the way she stands fool you; she’s fast. Uncannily fast.”

  “Boro was the middleman. All the traders are in on it. All of them. There isn’t a single merchant who operates in the Fringe who doesn’t have to pass through raider territory, and I imagine it’s only gotten worse. Their numbers were more than I could count, but most of them were young and not at all smart. A select few tell the rest of that horde what to do. Most of those boys could barely think for themselves.” She staggered and nearly fell. Artorian kept her upright with strength she didn’t understand. She took a deep breath, the crisp, warm air beaten away by the ever-present, soft Fringe breeze.

  The sky was blue, and barely a puff of cloud hung in the vast sky. She’d grown up here, lived here; it was only fitting she’d die here. She knew nothing else to get off her chest that might give any semblance of recompense. Switch stood there moments longer, looking at the sky.

  She didn’t even feel the hands that sent her into the stream. Only the sensation of falling was noticeable, then water rushed to surround her.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Artorian wasn’t doing so well. He’d been quiet and had holed up in his abode for days. Yvessa came to check on him, and a few of the Initiates dropped by his window. He gave some weak handshakes, but even the Initiates could tell that something had taken the wind out of the man when the old lady had the accident.

  The otherwise daily addition of his presence to the Initiates’ training left a sore spot, as there was just that much less… mirth. The Head Healer had come to do a check-up on long beard as well but found nothing physically wrong and had to assess that the drain was mental.

  Artorian was excused from needing to start his support-healing duties right away, and the Head Cleric had a hunch that maybe killing all those raiders hadn’t done him any favors. All in the same day no less. Well, it had been two days, but none of the healers nor Artorian had gotten any rest that night. Over the next few days, all the old man did was cultivate. His efforts were focused on patching himself up. Something to keep busy, to keep occupied, as he let the mixed emotions of Switch’s passing wash over him. Pull, Refine, Move, Refine, Move, Refine. Repeat.

  He had no hope of counting how many circles he currently had in his Center. At any point where it remotely felt like he was reaching some sort of refinement limit, he added more circles. All the good refined Essence still held a hint of starlight to it, regardless of how pure he seemed to get it. Everyone had a tinge of coloration in their Centers that differed in minor ways, usually based on the Essences they refined from.

  Then again, almost everyone else was using the main cultivation technique that went around. There had to be more than he could glean from the basic information he had. So again, from the top. A cultivation technique encompassed the knowledge of how to consciously ‘pull’ Essence from the heavenly and earthen sources, how to control the Essence, how to ‘allow’ it to flow through the body, and how to circulate it to your ‘Center’ without damaging yourself. This included how to do so without gaining too much corruption.

  All these separate aspects lent themselves to the practice of how to build a Chi spiral, so Essence gained was not Essence wasted. Those who gained the knowledge from a Memory Stone also got a clue on how to look into their own Center. ‘Clean’ energy was better, and when Essence was poorly processed, it retained some features of its source. That showed up as some kind of color based on a person’s affinities.

  Combined Essences had different properties than singular Essences, and that let him make sense as to why instead of a single color, his Center diffused a shining resplendence. Once you had a spiral going, the next step seemed to be opening the governing and conception meridian sets.

  A total of twelve vital organs separated as six Yin and six Yang. Acupuncture charts had somehow figured that out, though they listed the governing and conception meridians as independent from the twelve vital organs. He’d figure out later which practice was correct. Artorian checked his notes from his early days when corruption ran rampant, running down the list to refresh himself. He licked his thumb and turned the page.

  “Alright, so. The Yin heart meridian—it receives flow upwards and then turns and flows downwards to the Yang small intestine meridian. The Yin lung meridian—upwards, then downwards to the Yang large intestine meridian. The Yin pericardium meridian—up, down to the Yang triple warmer meridian.”

  Artorian shuffled to the next page. Now the reverse ones. “The Yang stomach meridian—receives flow downwards, then turns and flows upwards to the Yin spleen meridian. The Yang bladder meridian—down, then turns up to the Yin kidney meridian. The Yang gallbladder meridian—down, then up to the Yin liver meridian.”

  He put the pages of notes side by side and then ruffled through a collection of healer’s scribbles he had compiled from the Acolytes. This listed what all those words meant, what body part it was, where it was, and what it did. The notes from acupuncture on the governing and conception organ—if there even was one—were confusing. It supposedly served as the source for connecting the kidney, heart, brain, and… uterus? He didn’t have that… He was pretty sure.

  Artorian had learned too much about anatomy this last season. His head hurt. The document described the flow as ‘branches’ that veered off and connected everything together. Did it mean the spine, by chance? Artorian furled up the documents and bound them neatly for stacking. He had enough of that. He picked up his notes on progression. “Opening your meridians is dangerous with any corruption in you. It is like opening the front gate of a castle in the middle of a flood. In relation to water corruption, everyone would drown. Fair enough.”

  “A clean system is necessary, and once a vital organ is opened, it likely uses Essence for a majority of its support rather than what you eat. Getting the Essence to them properly… hmm.” He hadn’t figured that one out. His previous idea to flood the channels with Essence had been a bad one. After you have your meridians taken care of, your body ought to be able to hold more Essence than ordinary, your health improves, and your resiliency increases slightly, or at least, it should.

  Once the meridians were open, a lack of Essence would kill you. It was a one-way road. Stopping your Essence cycle after such a point was suicide, but surely, nobody would want to do that after they’d gotten this far? He waved off the thought and worried about consequences. Opening a meridian was going to forcibly cleanse it of all the things negatively affecting it, which is why his heart meridian was such a concern. With help, only less so.

  If the Head Healer could keep him alive, then Artorian could focus on opening meridians and keeping his circles going. If he had to keep himself alive atop of controlling the process, his attention would be too split and had a significant chance of sending his entire system into a cascading crash. Sure, most of his Center ran on its own without his direct guidance now, but the weave on the corruption he was holding needed daily care. He’d gotten rid of a hefty chunk by pushing it into that raider, but the very act had been horrible.

  Artorian would rather not do that again if he could help it. “Once all your meridians are good, normally, you’d turn your Chi spiral into a ‘fractal’. A fractal is leaps and bounds better than the ordinary spiral by a factor of at least threefold. How can I use this information?”

  Irene had given him a headache, as she had hundreds of fractalized spirals when he’d looked. His math was good but not that good. Still, it had added additional leverage to the idea that Essence was additive. Much as his own rings added improved gain as he kept tacking them on, fractalization had much the same effect. The latter was better for Essence-influx, but it was a tradeoff he was willing to take… even if you’d need a gargantuan amount of Essence to keep improving.

  Given his discovery that you could remake yourself,
Artorian figured that the next steps would ordinarily be to enhance or infuse your body and your organs. This would make them even more Essence dependent, but you’d gain natural resilience to a higher degree. Then there was the matter of Aura.

  It had been let slip that his wasn’t built or developed. So, more than just a convenient storage area? He supposed it made him an external rather than internal cultivator. A problem for later. Currently, he depended on it to survive, as it stored all his ‘good’ Essence due to his body being… unreceptive. He could try to store it in his cells but, abyss, did it hurt. There must be a solid reason older people didn’t normally become cultivators, and this was definitely a sizable part of it.

  You could simply not rely on your body anymore. After Aura… he didn’t know. Although, there was a chance building up his body and internals would mean that he could finally begin storing Essence in it. That was a good while away.

  Then there was the mystery of that infinitesimally small hole at the very innermost foci of his Center. He’d found it by accident when he was still working with Essence motes. A few of them just… disappeared. When he looked for the exact spot, he found that when Essence was passed over it, motes just vanished. He’d not had the courage to explore that just yet and was going to wait until he finished what he’d been learning about.

  Artorian laboriously slid from his bed, bringing the work to the cabinet bench to neatly stack them. Somewhere along the line, you learned tricks that made you better at something temporarily, such as cycling Essence to your eyes. He’d found you could do it to more than just your eyes, having cycled it to his brain as often as he could handle.

  Particularly on days like this, where a little extra all-around clarity went a long way. So long as it didn’t leave your body and the effort was slow and sustained rather than released in a burst, the Essence could be recollected to one’s Center. Big bursts of Essence were great for sudden increases in performance, but you lose the Essence because of it. Much like the incantations his caretaker had spoken of.