To his left sat... the same orc. Only he looked ten years older, with clear, amber eyes, sharp fangs, and powerful muscles. A scarlet tattoo of his Name shone proudly on his chest.
Further to the left — the same orc once again, only wise and battle-hardened now, calm like a rock that had withstood a hundred storms. They’d knocked the rock down, even leaving deep scars on its surface, but they hadn’t been able to dump it into the raging ocean.
The last of the four was an old orc. His skin was no longer red, soaked with the blood of his prey and the sun of the steppes, but gray, the color of dry, dying earth. His muscles, once hard and defined, were now sagging and wrinkled. His scars looked like disgusting, pink worms. The only thing that had survived the flow of time was his thick hair. Once the color of a crow’s wing, it was now the color of moonlight.
“Sit down, human,” the youngest of the orcs said. He was the only one who wasn’t staring at the fire.
Hadjar realized that he was now alone with the shamans, stranded in the middle of the plain. Bear’s Rage had left. The exit looked like a shimmering strip of light, a cut in the fabric of the universe. It swayed in the wind, assuring him that he hadn’t left the world of the living just yet.
Hadjar sat down on a plaid blanket similar to the ones that the shamans, or the shaman, rather, were sitting on.
“I’ve seen you before,” the old orc said. The young orc’s eyes had dimmed, and he was now looking at the flames. “I was wandering through the Spirit World, looking for anything that could help us win against the Dah’Khasses. Among the winds that rolled like stones across the glass rivers, I saw a dragon dancing with a wind that brought solitude to where the most beautiful of flowers bloomed.”
Hadjar swallowed and blinked a couple of times. By the Evening Stars, if he hadn’t met the Tree of Life all those years ago, he might’ve gotten lost in the shaman’s words.
The old orc took out some herbs from a pouch tied around his neck. He rubbed them in his wrinkled hands and tossed them into the fire. A thin, white strip of smoke rose into the sky. Following the movement of his hands, it took the form of a dragon and swirled around Hadjar. He reached out and tried to touch it, but his fingers simply passed through it.
“Which one of the four of you am I talking to?” Hadjar asked.
“Right now, you’re talking to Wisdom,” the old man replied. “The young one is Curiosity.”
Hadjar didn’t ask about the roles of the other two.
“They prefer to remain silent.” The old orc took another bundle of herbs and tossed it into the fire. “Pride and Freedom... The more wisdom an orc has, the more often they turn away from them, preferring to recall their childhood curiosity, rather than dwell on youthful freedom or the pride of an adult hunter.”
Hadjar tried to look into the old orc’s eyes, but the latter kept looking away. Perhaps what he’d said was full of deep wisdom, but Hadjar didn’t share Einen’s love for philosophy. He was a simple man.
“Is it difficult?”
Hadjar didn’t understand the question. The shaman, noticing his confusion, pointed at the tattoo on Hadjar’s forearm. He quickly covered it with his sleeve.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Just as I thought.” The old orc nodded.
He threw a third bundle of herbs into the fire. “You humans once knew the ways of the Spirits, but you forgot them, deciding to replace real power with Techniques and artifacts…”
The shaman kept throwing various herbs, roots, and flowers into the fire. There was something mesmerizing about his simple gestures.
“Your hunter was strong,” Hadjar agreed. “But I’ve never heard of an orc who reached the Nameless level or higher.”
“Level?” the orc repeated. “But we’re still alive.”
“As are humans.” Hadjar retorted. “We’re thriving, in fact.”
“Like parasites. If the host dies, the parasites will also die.”
Hadjar decided to stay silent and let the orc think he had won their little verbal duel. It didn’t take a genius to compare the cultures of the two races and figure out who was at the forefront of progress in this world.
“Your Name was given to you,” the old orc said in a calm, even tone, but Hadjar heard the contempt hidden behind it. “What is given is as light as a feather. It comes, and it goes. Time is given to us, and we lose it. Life is given to us, and we lose that, too. Love, anger, sadness, and joy are all feathers. They hover around us, sometimes touching, and sometimes flying away into the distance.”
The orc waved his hand and a huge column of smoke shot out into the night sky.
“But there are also things that we gain ourselves and that are very difficult to take away. Honor, freedom, family... Names. There is nothing difficult, human, about being yourself when no one is against it. But can you be yourself when you have to fight for your Name?”
The column of smoke stretched across the sky like a thick veil and then turned into a funnel.
“What are y-”
Before Hadjar could finish speaking, he was lifted off the ground and sucked into the vortex.
***
“Heart rate is back to normal!” A voice came from the darkness.
“The neural network has been successfully installed!”
Indistinct shapes and figures flickered in and out of his vision.
“Neural conduction is at one hundred percent! Colleagues, the operation was a success!”
He opened his eyes. He was in an operating room. He couldn’t move... or even breathe on his own.
“I dreamt,” he wheezed.
For the first time in his life, he heard his own voice.
Chapter 553
He opened his eyes and saw the white ceiling of the hospital ward in which he’d spent the past seven years. The walls were covered with posters of different landscapes — the glaciers of Iceland, the Great Wall of China, the Sphinx, and many more. In the center was an old, rusty sign from Route 66. It was his childhood dream to visit North America one day and drive down that highway, but…
“Dark-”
He turned his head abruptly and felt a lump rise in his throat. For the first time in his life, he saw the bright lights of the city at night. Long avenues and streets snaked between huge buildings made of glass and iron. But despite all that splendor, he gazed at the empty sky. He missed the stars, even though he had never seen them. The smog was so thick that they were invisible.
“Hello,” a voice sounded from the hallway.
The doors to his room slid noiselessly apart. Made of glass, they were more transparent than a clear mountain stream. That was a weird thought. He’d never seen a mountain stream before…
“Hello,” he replied.
He liked the sound of his voice.
Paul Koval sat down on the edge of his bed. He took out a strange laser pointer from the breast pocket of his white lab coat. It lit up with a dim, white light that Koval directed at his patient’s eyes, making him blink.
“The operation was rather complicated.” Koval said, getting to the point. The patient was grateful for that. Unlike a certain friend of his, he hated small talk and beating around the bush. Wait, friend...? I have no friends. “After we installed the neural network and connected it to your nervous system, your heart failed. We almost lost you.”
He looked at the tired doctor. The man probably hadn’t slept at all in the last few days.
“Something went wrong with the anesthetic and you woke up. It’s good that the neural network took control, otherwise you would’ve died from the shock.”
The patient nodded and reached for his laptop, which served as both his only way of communicating with the outside world and a workplace where he could write his music. He felt a surge of panic when he couldn’t find it at first. Looking around, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it lying on his bedside table.
“Use your words,” Koval said with a smile.
“Thank you,” he answered. “W
hy can I talk and move? My muscles must be atrophied,” he asked, even though he didn’t really care. He just wanted to listen to more of his own voice.
“You’ve been in a medically induced coma for about a month, ever since you woke up on the operating table,” Koval said, taking the patient’s wrist. Looking at his wristwatch, Koval nodded to himself, got up, and closed the window, keeping the wind that kept whispering things into the young man’s ears away. “We worked on your body while you were out. We put everything we could in order and accelerated your neural connections to their natural threshold value.”
The patient raised his right eyebrow in puzzlement.
The room was silent for a moment. Koval didn’t offer to explain anything.
“What does that mean?”
Koval chuckled.
“All of the module’s computing power is focused on maintaining your ability to control your body. To be precise, you control the module, and it sends commands to your nerves.”
“Meaning?”
“It means that there’s an additional link between your mind and muscles. However, that doesn’t make you any less human or any more robot.”
After giving it some thought, the patient exhaled and nodded. He wasn’t afraid of becoming a cyborg. As a child, he would’ve given everything for such a chance, for that faint glimmer of hope that he’d one day be able to walk the streets of the city. However, he’d never gotten the chance to take that risk.
“I had an unusual dream,” he suddenly said.
“That’s normal for a medically induced coma.” Koval nodded. After checking the numerous monitors, he sat down on the edge of the bed again. “Can you tell me what your dream was about?”
Clutching the white sheets, he tried desperately to remember what he’d dreamt about. But all he managed was to recall a couple of vague images and give himself a headache. “I can’t remember… Why can’t I remember?”
“It was a drug-induced dream,” Koval tried to calm him down. “It’s okay if you can’t remember it. It was your past, anyway. Now you have a bright, new future ahead of you.”
But he wasn’t listening, feeling like he had forgotten something important. Something vital. Damn it!
“By the way,” Koval continued, getting up from the bed, “The reporters are eager to speak to you.”
“Reporters?”
Koval, still tired but smiling happily, went to the door.
“Of course, everyone is interested in hearing about the famous musician’s miraculous recovery. Although, to be honest, I’m not a fan of electronic music.”
With that, he left the room. Winking as he did so, he allowed the doors to remain open for a moment, so that the man could see just how many reporters were in the hallway. The hospital was probably getting good PR from them. He shouldn’t have refused to be placed in a VIP ward. He waited until the doors closed and looked out the window. The city, not caring about his rebirth, continued on with its life.
“Damn it!” He gripped the edge of the bed and tried to get up. “Damn it!”
His legs were still weak, and he immediately collapsed to the laminated floor. Just before he did, he reflexively put out his arm in front of him. It hurt. Lying on the floor, he both cried and laughed with joy. It was nice to feel again. Even if what he felt was pain.
Another gust of wind blew the window open.
“Dark-” it whispered again.
The noise of the city began to grow louder. Out there, in the nightclubs, his music was being played. People loved each other, quarreled, made up, found and lost each other, all of it accompanied by his music. He could finally reach them. He could leave his cramped prison and discover what was behind the horizon and even farther beyond that. He could stand in the spotlight and say, “Hey! It’s me!” He refused to let his stupid, weak legs stop him from achieving that dream…
He gripped the edge of the bed.
Nothing would stop him: not his weak legs, or the reporters, or his lack of power, or the doctors…
By straining every muscle in his body, he was able to sit up.
...because he would overcome any obstacle in his way…
With a jerk, he rose to his trembling feet and, swaying forward, grabbed the edge of the window, then fell out onto the small balcony. He stared up at the night sky. Blood trickled down his bruised face, but he smiled with joy. With a sigh, he raised his hand and, holding on to the railing, got up. The wind ruffled his hair. He could barely keep himself from tumbling into the cold night.
...because no one could stop him, or his name wasn’t…
“Are you crazy?” A voice came from behind him.
Startled, he turned around.
In the room, holding a notepad, her hair disheveled and her robe slightly rumpled, was the graduate student who’d asked him what he wanted to do first after his operation.
“Oh, it’s you.” He turned back to the city.
It was bathed in cold neon and warm electric lights, waiting for him to fall into the open arms of the stone jungle.
“What do you mean?”
“I remember you.”
He heard the clicking of heels on the floor, and then the balcony door opening. She was at his side. She was angry and resentful, and her head barely came up to his chest. He wondered if she was that small, or if he was just that tall.
“Do you understand what you’re doing? You have forty stitches in your spine and in the back of your head! If they open up-”
She smelled of flowers, shower gel, and perfume. His head was a little fuzzy...
“...or do you think that just because you can move now-”
He leaned down and kissed her sensual, red lips. Clumsily and rudely, but with the passion of a thirsty man who’d just been handed a waterskin. Why did he remember drinking from a waterskin?
“What are you-”
His hand slid down her back, then went lower still. She moaned. Her notepad fell to the floor. He had always suspected that she liked him.
“Please, stop-”
He didn’t. His movements were practiced, almost like a habit. Had he seen a lot of this on the Internet?
Barely able to stand, he took her right there, on the balcony of the ward that served as his prison. She moaned and left deep scratches across his skin. He held her by the hair, but never took his eyes off the city.
A new life awaited him.
Chapter 554
He jerked the steering wheel to the right. Screeching, the car turned without slowing down. Skirting another car, he stepped on the gas pedal with all he had. The engine revved up and roared, like the jaguar whose muzzle glinted above the bumper, as it sped across the asphalt.
The music coming from the car’s speakers was so loud that it shook the vehicle. Heavy and sharp, it thrummed through the city from the wide-open windows. Many curses and insults were directed at him, but he didn’t care. He heard the police sirens coming from somewhere behind him. So what? He had enough money to pay the police off, as well as the Hague Tribunal if necessary.
With one hand on the wheel, he opened another bottle of whiskey with the other. He’d thrown the previous one out of the window, hitting a trashcan, although he had been aiming at the windshield of one of the cars chasing him.
“Black Jaguar, license number-”
He turned the music up so that he couldn’t hear the police officers anymore. Didn’t they want to see the city’s lights for themselves? To look at the proud spires of the skyscrapers against the backdrop of heavy clouds? The music roared as he raced. Sometimes, the tires screeched and the suspension creaked, but he greeted all of it with cheers and gulps of fine whiskey.
“...pull over to the side of the road!”
But he didn’t. Going even faster, he felt like he was trying to catch up to something. Or was he trying to run away from something?
His phone rang. It was the newest smartphone model his last assistant had bought for him. He pressed a button on the wheel and the screaming music
changed to an equally loud, screeching female voice.
“Where are you?”
He looked around.
“Not far from High Garden.”
“Damn it, Dark-” A hiss came from the speakers. “There’s a crowd of reporters waiting for you!”
“Really?”
“Are you out of your mind? We agreed to hold a conference today to talk about your latest release!”
He jerked the wheel sharply. The tires screeched and the car tilted slightly, but it stayed on the road. The policeman who’d tried to cut him off slammed his fist against a lamppost in frustration and radioed something to the others. He watched him turn into a distant dot in his car’s rearview mirror.
“Are you driving?” The voice from the speaker asked.
“Yep!”
“You lost your license a month and a half ago!”
He choked on the whiskey, cleared his throat, looked reproachfully at the half-full bottle, and with a curse, threw it out the window. This time, he hit his target — the police car behind him. The driver hit the brakes. The car spun out of control and did a couple of spins before crashing into the side of a store. He wondered where the cops had gotten cars that could keep up with his.
“Oops,” he said.
“Oops! What does that mean? If you hadn’t been high as a kite while listening to the verdict, you would’ve remembered that you aren’t allowed to drive for another decade!”
He didn’t specify that his ‘oops’ had been uttered because of a completely different mistake he’d made far more recently. Fortunately, none of the officers had been injured, and there were no pedestrians on the sidewalk at this late hour. His assistants could probably get him out of any charges, but it wouldn’t be easy to get away with murder. Had he actually killed someone, he might’ve been sent to jail. By the Evening Stars, he would never be locked away again!
“By the Evening Stars…”
“What? Evening stars? Are you completely drunk?”
Dragon Heart: Land of Demons. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 7 Page 8
