Awakenings

by C. D. Espeseth

“Oops, apologies, John. You were a bit too close. I haven’t quite figured out the effective zone of the blasts. I’m quite sure you’ll live. It does have quite a kick though, doesn’t it?!” Thannis was grinning like some deranged child with a new toy. “This one is my own design, something my new protégé and I cooked up from some of the more recent parts of rediscovered Jendar technology, combined with some rather ingenious modifications so we could incorporate santsi.”

  The air came back to John as he tried to recover from his shock, yet it was Esmerak who looked the most shocked.

  The witch’s hand searched the sizzling hole in her torso where her left lung had been. The witch’s mouth tried to form a question, but then whatever had been keeping her up gave out, and she collapsed to the floor.

  “Hold that thought.” Thannis held up a finger to the witch. “I can see you’re all confused. Let me explain. Esmerak, I did tell you not to touch my mind again, didn’t I? But you didn’t listen.” Thannis strode over casually, unhooking one of the clasps that kept the santsi globe on top of the horrible weapon. Thannis popped the santsi globe from its holster and knelt down above the witch. He pointed to the miniature coils of copper wrapped around the iron rods on the strange weapon. “See these, Esmerak? These are apparently what the Jendar used to call ‘step-up transformers’. Mr Sanders and I made some modifications and improvements by adding covellite crystals and a few other goodies the Chroniclers had collected. Pair that with these new santsi, a competent siphoner and voilà – a weapon which can spit out a burst of pure plasma. The Jendar called it the fourth state of matter.”

  It was then Thannis noticed the lack of response from the near-dead witch. He slapped her face and shook his head in disgust. “Listen to me, ranting. You’re fading fast, and I need a refill. One moment.”

  Thannis put his ungloved hand onto the throat of the dying witch, closed his eyes and began to concentrate.

  The santsi in the device began to glow, the witch’s eyes snapped open, and her mouth screamed in silence.

  Thannis’s head snapped back, and John watched in horror. Ecstasy and pain contorted the monster’s face, and Thannis moaned and gasped in some sort of orgasmic convulsion before finally letting the witch’s corpse flop to the floor. He rolled away from the body and lay panting on the floor.

  John had wanted to know what left the victim’s eyes so horribly alert, and now he did, and he could never again un-know what he had just witnessed, an abomination against everything living and holy.

  It was then John saw someone move behind the bar.

  Miranda!

  Her legs and torso were covered in blood from the gaping hole of a sword thrust in her upper abdomen. She crept towards the enthralled Thannis, who was still twisting in rapture on the floor. Miranda pushed herself into a sitting position. She had something in her hand.

  John could do nothing but watch, his body was still numb from the discharge of Thannis’s weapon.

  He watched in shock, horror, and triumph as Miranda raised one of the pistols from Seraphim Wong’s guards and aimed straight at Thannis.

  She had him.

  White smoke puffed as the shot exploded from the pistol’s end.

  Blood spurted from Thannis’s back, and he screamed. The santsi globe he had been holding dropped onto the floor and rolled away.

  Miranda coughed, and blood speckled her lips. She reached to her left and pulled another pistol from the floor and raised it.

  Yet as her hand raised, Thannis twisted like a feral beast. Reflexes from hundreds upon hundreds of hours training under great masters snapped through Thannis’s muscular body like a whip-strike, and he rolled onto his feet, uncoiling like a snake straight at Miranda.

  NO!” John’s breath finally came back, but too late.

  Thannis’s gloved hand slammed into Miranda’s ribs with such force John heard bones crack, a flash of pure white exploded through her side and he saw blood spray from Miranda’s mouth. She crumpled, with a small charred and smoking hole through her lungs. Thannis slapped the pistol from her other hand as she went down.

  The contraption on Thannis’s hand had been ruined with the massive punch. Components from the contraption dangled from swinging copper wires. The once god-like weapon had been reduced to a pile of scrap. The only thing which looked intact, strangely, was the santsi globe which still shone with a dim light.

  Thannis wobbled on his feet as his free hand went to the wound on his stomach. Though he stared at his ruined toy still attached to the glove. “What did you make me do?” But then the full pain of the pistol shot hit him, and he fell to his knees. “What have you done to me?” he asked Miranda’s limp body.

  “No!” John wept, trying to crawl towards his partner, not accepting what his years of experience knew to be true.

  “Why did she do that? It was over. I was a victim in all this.” Thannis coughed and, with shock, held up his fingers to see blood. He bobbed his head to look down and only then seemed to see the hole in his abdomen. His voice took on a tone of panic, “No, no, no. Risk of exsanguination. Possibly nicked the femoral artery, blood in my lungs. No. John. She’s killed me. Not possible.” Thannis coughed, and blood touched his lips. Thannis stepped back and grimaced as he dropped to a knee. “Gods-damn it! John, she’s killed me!”

  “Good,” John spat.

  “Have to get out of here,” Thannis said to himself. He groaned and somehow got to his feet.

  No, John thought. “You need to die,” John said coldly. He tried to make his muscles move, and as he managed to get a foot under him, he rose and swung a heavy fist at Thannis’s jaw.

  “Stay down, John. You’re not thinking clearly.” Thannis coughed, and even with a hole in him, Thannis moved faster than John thought possible.

  Thannis hissed in rage and pain, but then an open palm slammed into John’s nose, and John’s feet were taken out from under him. His head hit the floor, and all John could do was watch as Thannis hobbled out of the back door.

  John tried twice to get his hands under him before he could sit up.

  “Ah good,” a weak voice hissed beside him. “You’re not dead.”

  John’s heart leapt at the sound. He turned and saw Miranda smiling at him through bloody teeth, as she leaned awkwardly against the bar watching him from where she had fallen. The hole in her lower chest still smoked.

  “I got him, though.” She chuckled and coughed up more blood. “Didn’t I? Made the bastard bleed.”

  “Miranda …” John crawled over to her and took her hand. “I’m sorry … I–”

  “Quiet, old man,” Miranda shushed him, but she wore a smile on her face.

  “Healer! Get me a healer!” John screamed into the air.

  “So fast.” Miranda looked up at John like she wanted to explain. “And strong … like fighting a hurricane. Did you see him move? How can a man so tall be … that … fast? That’s not fair, is it? I got him though, he’ll die slow, John, he’ll die in pain. Put a hole in his guts.” Miranda’s voice weakened with every word, but unbridled pride was painted on her face, as her life ebbed away.

  “You did, you got him,” John said sadly. “It should have been me.”

  “Damn right it should’ve been. But you’re too slow, old man.” Miranda smiled, her last words a whisper, and then John saw the light go out in her eyes.

  She was gone.

  Another dead partner. Another dead Xinnish face which would haunt John for the rest of his days.

  The door slammed open behind him. “Sir!” someone said.

  Within moments, John was surrounded by brown cloaks.

  “Miranda … is she?” one of the new faces asked.

  “Dead,” John snapped. He had no more time for tears.

  He brushed his fingers down against her eyelids, closing those windows of intelligence and determination forever.

  He gently undid the carved bone ring from her brow, and he placed it in his pocket right next to his notepad. John found the wooden pip
e in Miranda’s coat pocket and put it in his other pocket next to his heart. The family will want those, he told himself.

  John Stonebridge stood, and pain throbbed in his leg. He looked down and saw blood pumping out of a round hole in his trousers. When had that happened?

  “Sir, you’ve been shot!” someone said beside him.

  John grit his teeth against the sudden wave of vertigo, forcing himself to stay upright just as he had done this so many times before. Leave the dead behind. Focus on duty.

  It was all he had left.

  “Get me something to wrap this with, and get the damn dogs.” John pointed to the trail of blood leading down the street. “If the dogs get to him first, let ‘em rip the bastard’s throat out. Send word to the Red Tower and take me to the Academy. We’re hunting a prince, and we need to watch him die.”

  28 - Compulsion

  There is a young woman, who has Key two of three, who has shown signs of enhancing resonant frequencies in different materials through the use of her voice.

  Truly remarkable. Despite these abilities, however, I am no longer seeing signs of the Tiden Raika manifesting itself. In fact, the keys I have sent out into the world are becoming too important in the events of those who survive.

  I wonder, after all these years, if I have only had the illusion of control over what I’ve started, akin to a child rolling a rock down a mountain.

  - Journal of Robert Mannford, Day 315 Year 49

  Thannis

  Xinnish District, New Toeron, Bauffin

  “AAAHHHH!!!” Thannis screamed as he forced his hand to apply more pressure to his abdomen. “I told father this would happen! Damn him! I told him!”

  He had known everything would go terribly wrong if his father had insisted on seeing this fool plan to its end. He had told him not to use Esmerak any longer, told him to stop.

  She was dead for it, he had found a way to get her, but it had cost him everything. Now he was going to die as well.

  A thought hit him. Had he been meant to die?

  Was he too just another sacrificial piece in his father’s game to overthrow the Mihanes and take control of Salucia?

  It didn’t matter now, did it? He was dying, the wound to his abdomen was fatal. He calculated the angles involved, and he was quite certain the bullet had torn diagonally through his intestines, from lower left back to the upper abdomen. He was going to die, most likely from sepsis, and it was going to take days.

  “No, no, no!” He had so many things left to do. So many more tastes to find. He was on the verge of discovering something beautiful in his work with Professor Attridge and Dennis. The boundary between life and death in all its kaleidoscopic brilliance was on the cusp of being understood, and his greater work, his master plan of bringing the world back into an age of brilliance and technology had only just begun. His projects had the potential to change the world, possibly to change humanity.

  Now it was all undone. Because of his father and because of … “John Stonebridge,” Thannis said aloud. The old prefect was another person his father had underestimated. Thannis had seen the calculating intelligence behind those hard eyes all along. Stonebridge would be coming after him now, the death of his partner would send the senior prefect over the edge.

  Damn it! He had wanted to use Stonebridge, had wanted him for the next phase of his plan. He had sown just enough doubt in that old veteran to make him susceptible to the possibility that Thannis really was a non-complicit victim in all of this.

  Pain ripped through him once more as his foot jarred in a dip of the cobblestone street.

  Thannis sank to his knees, struggling to pull in a breath.

  Then he heard an angry and excited bark of a dog behind him.

  Of course, John would have dogs ready. Just in case I got away. Thannis should have known it.

  He had to get to the tunnels, back to his domain.

  The dogs would find him eventually, but it would be slow going for them in Thannis’s rediscovered labyrinth beneath the Academy, as he had set up a series of trap doors and other surprises along the way for just such an occasion.

  He just had to make sure he didn’t bleed out before he got there.

  Thannis rose and put his hands back over the wounds in front and back and gritted his teeth against the pain.

  Maybe ... maybe if he could just get back to the laboratory. Maybe there was something there, and if nothing else, he would have his collection of souls within his santsi globes. His collection, floating and sparking within the strange conductive gel Professor Attridge had made for the globes. He had to feel them one last time, taste them once more before the end.

  Thannis limped onwards and found the hidden entrance behind a lean-to on the side of a tannery. He squeezed behind the old wooden structure and found the latch of the door he had put there. He grunted as he forced himself through the small space and slipped into the darkness of his caves. He put the latch to the door on his side but knew that wouldn’t hold the constabulary for long.

  Dogs barked far too close for comfort, and Thannis turned and fled into the depths of the tunnels.

  He had to get to the laboratory, had to feel his collection one last time.

  29 - Symbiosis

  The use of covelitic compounds within the new electrically conductive gel (produced with the help of several of the new Chroniclers in ‘Mr Euchre’s’ laboratories in the new wing of the Artificium) has shown some very promising results so far. If my instruments are correct, the power levels with which my new assistant can siphon are actually creating highly dynamic proton gradients within the gel. A Jendar scientist wrote of similar high energy environments found near deep-sea vents which they believed could be where life on this planet originated.

  The ramifications of our discovery could be momentous given what I have read in the newly unlocked Jendar relics. We may be on the cusp of discoveries that even the great scientists of the past could not replicate.

  - Laboratory Notes of Professor Attridge

  Thannis

  Research Wing, The Academy, New Toeron, Bauffin

  A cabinet against the wall of the laboratory, one which had stood there perfectly still for an age, suddenly exploded forward into the room from an electric blast to its backside. A hole in the wall was revealed once the remains of the cabinet finally settled, and out of that hole, a man fell then slowly got to his knees and crawled his way over the fallen piece of furniture.

  “Dennis!” Thannis yelled. “I need you now. Professor Attridge, are you here!?”

  Blood dripped from his lips onto the floor as he yelled. He was beginning to feel cold.

  Thannis listened for a moment, but only his echo answered him from the depths of the laboratory. He couldn’t see any lights on. It was late in the evening, yet that didn’t exclude the chance of his two fellow scientists being still at work. Quite often, they had spent most of the night huddled around a particular experiment. However, it seemed no one was here tonight.

  Thannis looked around the room and found a thick wooden workbench. He strained with everything he had, and eventually, the workbench scraped across the stone floor. He wedged it against the largest remaining piece of the cabinet partially to block the hole in the wall, but as he inspected his work, Thannis knew it would only slow the constabulary down a fraction.

  The effort had cost him. His wound was gushing now, he could feel the blood soaking through his makeshift cloth dressing. His head spun, and his vision whirled. He was starting to black out.

  “Dennis!” Thannis screamed. “Dennis! I need you!” Though he had no idea if he would be answered.

  He stumbled and fell, trying to brace himself with his gauntleted hand, but the metal contraption slid on the floor, and he heard metal supports snap as he hit the floor hard.

  “Dennis!” he screamed, releasing the pain ripping through his guts as best he could, but the only answer was his own voice echoing back from the vaulted stone ceiling.

  He had to get to
his room. He had a small healer’s kit in his pack.

  Thannis forced himself back up. He unclasped the miraculously undamaged santsi globe from its holster on the gauntlet weapon and gently placed it and Esmerak’s remaining energy into the leather satchel on his other side. The rest of the now-useless gauntlet he threw to the floor.

  He stepped slowly in the direction of his room.

  Something flashed at him from out of the corner of his eye. He turned towards it and saw his santsi pulsing with energy within the vat filled with the luminous gel. The santsi pulsed again, almost as if it was trying to get his attention, and like a moth to the flame, Thannis was drawn to it.

  He reached the vat and the pulsing increased, a fast series of flashes followed by a series of long slow pulses. Thannis stood over the vat, watching the hypnotising pattern of the glowing orbs floating within it. The pain somehow felt as if it lessened looking at his glorious collection floating happily within the ooze.

  Thannis reached back into the satchel and pulled free the globe that held the remnants of Esmerak’s soul. His mind felt sluggish as he watched the energy swirl within it. He thought he saw strange black whisps floating through the blue-white light within the globe.

  With reverence he lowered the last new soul he would ever taste into the vat, for he knew in the scientific part of his mind, that there was no saving him.

  His legs began to quiver, and Thannis felt light headed. He grabbed the edge of the vat with one hand to steady himself.

  The pulses increasing within the vat were mesmerising, almost frantic now.

  His remaining hand holding the globe dipped as his legs threatened to give once again and the globe with Esmerak’s soul and his hand both plunged into the ooze.

  There was a brilliant flash of light, blinding Thannis. His legs buckled and he grabbed hold of the vat instinctively, but his weight was too much. He fell backwards and brought the vat down on top of himself.

  Glass shattered under the weight of all that liquid as it hit Thannis’s chest. Shards stabbed into him, and he heard the dull crack of the submerged santsi splitting like eggs under the impact.