Awakenings

by C. D. Espeseth

  Ash’s talons scraped across the rock and Wunjo could sense her predator instincts reacting to the threat.

  “Enough!” Wunjo shot forward between the two and threw sparking powder onto the pile of dry wood it had gathered.

  Flame whooshed to life, the brilliance of it blinding Thannis and the great roc for a split second.

  The man’s eyes adjusted and Wunjo was happy to see Thannis take a step back.

  “Not what you were expecting?” Wunjo grinned and knew its visage to look terrifying. Replicated human skin stretched over a too-long metal skull. Orbs that replicated eyes stood where his usual red spinning discs should have. Its nanites had learned this quasi-human form many years ago to spark nightmares and scare the occasional desert nomad who wandered too close to their tower in the Wastes.

  Thannis and the roc eyed each other warily, but the threatened violence seemed to be put on hold for now.

  “Why would a monstrosity such as you help me?” Thannis asked, standing up painfully. Whatever energy Adel Corbin had used to blast him off that cliff had stunned the majestic symbiotic creature joined to his human body, but it had recovered, and soon they would begin to truly bond with each other.

  How did the others not see? This was the difference they had been searching for. This is what humanity needed to break the cycle they were in. It was so obvious to Wunjo. “Uniqueness, my good man, convergence. The Tiden Raika cares very little for an inner moral compass, but rather how they connect and mould events around them. You see, no mother could have birthed something like you. No, you have forced your own evolution, taken a giant step forward. You alter events and put pressure on cultural momentum.” Wunjo pointed a finger at Thannis. “You are clever as well. See the potential in ideas. Yet another virtue which I had espoused in the last council, but they would not listen. Monstrosity, he calls me. Curious assertion considering the source, yes?” Wunjo danced around its fire as he had seen the humans of the Blasted Isles do. “The blind fools. Raidho would have seen it, of course. Always the bravest, our poor Raidho. The most willing to take a risk.”

  “Speak plainly,” Thannis growled.

  “Would that I could, Thannis Beau’chant. My ‘speaking plainly’ is still beyond you. Hehehe,” Wunjo giggled to himself and flicked the bells upon his jester’s hat, a relic of a forgotten time.

  The confusion his act was creating seemed to be working, for Wunjo could see Thannis was off guard and kept eying the hulking presence of the roc at the back of the cave.

  “Fine. Don’t tell me what you are, but tell me this then. I fell–” Thannis said, shaking his head. His hand went to his neck. “Adel used some sort of power to blast me over the edge. I gather your giant pet caught me. But why? What do you plan to do with me?”

  Wunjo smiled and stroked the roc’s feathers, “Yes, our friend Ash here is very quick and ever so good at playing catch.” Ash let out a long crooning sound, like windmill blades cutting the air too fast.

  Thannis inched to the edge of the fire at the roc’s sound, preparing himself to fight.

  “You are brave to think even you could do much against Ash if she chose to have you for lunch. To answer your question, I aim to preserve you, at least for now. Your path has not yet lead you to your full potential, and this one believes your role will be key in events to come. You’ve climbed a step on the ladder towards transcendence and what it means to be human, though you are blind to how important this is.”

  Thannis narrowed his eyes at Wunjo in suspicion. “So you are simply curious? You want to see what’s next? Forgive me if I don’t believe you, creature.”

  Wunjo cackled again, rolling and dancing. “You silly boy, you’ve found the answer! Thousands and thousands of years and you stumble onto it through your sick perversions. Now–” Wunjo stopped dancing and pointed a skeletal metal hand at Thannis, “you need to get back to work.”

  “That may prove impossible,” Thannis said, and even Wunjo could see the true regret in the man’s eyes.

  “Not as impossible as you might believe.” Wunjo flipped over and rolled to the two large leather satchels he had collected before it had left New Toeron. He handed them carefully to Thannis.

  “The professor’s journals, and his laboratory books,” Thannis said with unfeigned surprise. He reached into the other satchel and pulled out one of the experimental santsi he had been working on. Thannis looked at Wunjo in disbelief, “If I had a laboratory, with these I could start over.”

  “Yes, you could, couldn’t you?” Wunjo cackled again. “So it is good we have brought you home. There is a hidden entrance at the back of this cave which leads out onto the road to Orlane.

  Wunjo could practically feel the eddies of the Tiden Raika forming around this man. The others chose wrong. This was the one needed to change humanity irrevocably.

  “You’ve brought me all the way back to Nothavre?” Thannis asked.

  “Isn’t that where ‘home’ is?” Wunjo asked back. “And you have an almost clean slate here, now that your father is dead. Ash and I thought you might want a head start before the news catches up with the rest of your family.”

  Thannis’s head had snapped to attention at the mention of his father. “He’s dead?” Thannis asked.

  “Tripped and fell on a spear as he tried to escape during the confusion when you were attacked,” Wunjo answered, cackling its strange laugh as it did.

  Thannis snorted in derision, feeling glad to be rid of his manipulating father but also dissatisfied with the end. “I didn’t see it. How strange to think him gone.” He narrowed his eyes at Wunjo in suspicion. “You are right, of course. There is a power void now, one which I must claim. Why help me?”

  “Let us just say, the world is not done with you yet,” Wunjo answered and shook as some redundant bit of code tried to interrupt its flow of thoughts. “Now go, non-human, and finish what you’ve started.”

  With that, Ash rocketed forward catching Wunjo in her talons as she dived out of the cave. Wunjo hung upside down waving in farewell cackling until the cave along the Nothavran coast faded from sight.

  * * *

  Thannis stepped through the hidden entrance and stared out at Orlane’s outline in the morning sunrise. The city gates opened, and he walked in with the early throng of waiting merchants. As he walked through the city, his mind saw the possibilities of the transformation he would bring to his home nation. It was time for Nothavre to embrace an age of steam and steel, like that in the relics Jachem Sanders had unlocked.

  “I will need to be king,” Thannis said to himself and then corrected himself as he remembered more of the Jendar history he had read. “No better yet. I shall be a man of money and means. A titan of industry. He needed to change the flow of wealth, provide massive incentive for innovation and entrepreneurship, then he would be free to pursue his own goals.

  The next thought came quickly. Many within the old regime of Nothavre would resist these changes.

  Thannis rolled his shoulders and flexed his muscles like a lion waking from a nap. He had work to do, so little time and so many people he needed to kill in order to pave the way for the new world he saw in his mind. A world of machinery and technology. A world he would use to explore the line between life and death, to find the secret to creating more beings like the one now sharing his body.

  He had been given another chance, and he would no longer waste any time.

  Thannis stole a knife from the fishmonger’s stall through some quick sleight-of-hand as he walked by. He tucked the knife into his belt and draped his loose shirt over to hide it. He strode towards the gated community of Orlane’s aristocracy where he would start his work.

  The pair of guards at the gate tried to stop him, but Thannis quickly recognised a distant third-cousin walking through the courtyard gardens on the other side. “Lady Margarite! So good to see you,” he said and waved her over.

  “Prince Beau’Chant!” his distant cousin declared. “Why you look a mess! Whatever happene
d? The last I heard you were doing something somewhat frowned upon in higher society at the Academy in New Toeron. How exciting!”

  “Yes, Lady Margarite,” Thannis recalled the name from the long list of important people he had to memorise as a child. “And I am back from my travels. I have so much news and gossip. Might I impinge upon your hospitality? I find myself in need of some civilised company.”

  She looked at him curiously, but then a wicked smile creased her lips, and she licked them in anticipation. She nodded for him to escort her back to her manor house.

  Thannis bowed, faking his own excitement. “Just a moment, my lady, I need to have a word with the guards here.”

  Lady Margarite smiled knowingly, no doubt thinking it proper that the lowly gate guards receive a good dressing down from their betters.

  Thannis beckoned the guards to him. “I want you both to lock the gates behind me. That is a direct order from your new king. Do you understand?”

  They hesitated but eventually nodded.

  “You will not open them for anyone, no matter what you hear. If you do, I will hunt you down and make you watch as I feed your body parts to your children.”

  The colour drained from their faces as they saluted him with shaking hands, for they felt the fear which prey feels when confronted by an apex predator.

  Satisfied, Thannis rejoined the Lady Margarite and fingered the handle of the long gutting knife in anticipation.

  “The nerve of those two. They should have recognised one of their betters immediately,” the lady said in mock horror. She snuggled close to him and wove her arm through his.

  “Oh, they did in the end, I think,” Thannis smiled. “Now, shall we?”

  He marched his blissfully ignorant third-cousin back to her manor house and began his work where he had left off in New Toeron. Lady Margarite’s blank eyes almost looked thankful in her last moments as Thannis, and his symbiotic companion drank her in.

  It was a tasty start to a very productive night.

  The next day he was crowned King of Nothavre, with many of his possible rivals mysteriously absent from the coronation.

  On the third day of his return, the engines of industry began to rumble to life as Nothavre fully embraced its new industrial revolution and the opportunities their new king granted them.

  Men and women of great renown began to flock to Nothavre as the news of lavish salaries for professors was aggressively circulated throughout the Nine Nations. Entrepreneurs, artisans and merchants of every kind began to swarm to the island of Nothavre for the feeding frenzy of wealth, land, and lucrative incentives available for any with the right skillsets. Dozens of refugees from the war with the Kutsals to the west were welcomed with open arms as they and the old population of peasants and beholden serfs were transformed to indentured men and women for the factories. Patents on new inventions and designs exploded onto the scene, and Thannis ensured the coin was there to speed the production of his new world.

  For now, he would wait and continue to build, for soon Thannis knew the other nations would become desperate and come begging for what he could give them, for he did learn to adapt, unlike his father. For when the game begins to slip away, you must change it and smash the board.

  52 – Weapon Test

  Site chosen for beta-test.

  Initiate Cycle 00018

  Strategy-selection:

  Sonic softening and tectonic pulse charges.

  Weapon test initiated.

  - Readout on Kali’s terminal, deep within the Jendar complex.

  Near the Candles, off the coast of Labran

  Captain Greffan Elliot checked their approach into the aptly named the Candles, for the twin lighthouses on either side of the Labranthian Channel, for the fifth time in the last ten minutes.

  “Why did they have to build those ugly blocks the Labranthians call cities on either side of a ship killing trench?” He complained and snapped his spyglass shut again.

  “My guess would be because it’s a ship killing trench, sir,” the first mate said beside him as she watched the crew tying back the sails on their hybrid sail-steamer.

  “Bet.” The captain looked at his first mate with complete seriousness. “Shut up.”

  “Sir.” Bet grinned and gave a somewhat sarcastic salute.

  Bloody Tawans, Captain Elliot thought, if they weren’t such good sailors, he’d have hung the whole nation years ago if he’d had his way. But Bet wasn’t bad, as far as retired pirates go that is, though he still had to keep an eye on what she seemed to ‘acquire’ when they were in port.

  They would have to go the rest of the way under steam-power with the paddle wheels. The Stormy Defiance was a good ship, that is, it was a good ship once their engineer, Gregory Shiernov had cursed for about a month ironing out all the kinks and replacing what seemed like half of the parts they had been commissioned with.

  Their new engineer was a sacrifice he had had to make on the contract with his new employer, Mr Euchre. They got a new ship and a whopping half-share partnership in the profits made from any successful venture in return for allowing Gregory to experiment and modify the Stormy Defiance as much as he liked, within reason of course.

  Part of the problem, however, had been that ‘reason’ wasn’t one of Gregory’s strong suits.

  “How’s it going down there Greas—I mean Gregory,” Captain Elliot called down the copper speaking tube. He shared a sheepish grin with Bet. He had almost called the mad Paleschurian by his nickname, Greasier, which the crew had given him.

  Bet had to turn away to keep from laughing.

  “She’s purring like a kitten, sir. We’ve got plenty of horsepower to pull through whatever choppy water is in front of us.”

  “Why do Paleschurian have to bring everything back to horses!” Captain Elliot said exasperated. “How can that be a reasonable unit of measurement. Couldn’t we use waterwheels or something? They at least could have a standard radius to base things off. I mean what would be a standard horse anyways?”

  “Don’t answer that, Gregory,” Bet said, leaning towards the tube as she shook her head.

  “Just keep her wheels away from the rocks, Captain. I don’t want to spend another week repairing paddle wheels,” Gregory said grumpily.

  “You know this is my ship, right Gregory?” Captain Elliot questioned into the speaking tube.

  He didn’t get a response.

  “Part of me is beginning to wonder if Gregory has a very different kind of contract with Mr Euchre,” Bet said as she quirked an eyebrow at the speaking tube.

  “You and me both,” the captain said as he once again checked their line and heading before pulling out his spyglass to check that the docks were being readied for him.

  “Gods,” Bet said beside him, “Why does anyone ever come out here. Bloody miserable isn’t it.”

  “That’s Labran down to a core. Miserable. But they have the best covellite and copper mines in all of Salucia and getting it to Nothavre for Mr Euchre is going to make us all rich, which is why we come to visit these lovely rocks and their equally lovely people.”

  “Oh, I know why we come, I just don’t understand why the Labranthians stay. I mean Tawa is crowded, packed to the gills such that we gotta ship out our young lads and lasses to find a career for themselves in the world -”

  “Pirates,” Captain Elliot coughed under his breath.

  “Bless you, sir. Hope that cough isn’t catching.” Bet winked at him. “But we wouldn’t put up with a couple of wind-swept rocks which support nothing but spear grass and those horrible goats which eat it.”

  “Yes, that’s….” Captain Elliot trailed off as he watched the strange behaviour of the dock workers. They seemed to be waving at the rocks for some reason, and there seemed to be a strange high-pitched noise floating out to them above the water.

  “What is it?” Bet asked

  “Take a look, I can’t quite make out what they’re doing.” He handed the spyglass to Bet.

&nbs
p; “They are supposed to be getting ready for us,” she said with a scoff, but as she looked through the glass, she too began to look puzzled. “They seem to be trying to shoo away those bugs away that we saw the last time we were here. Gideon’s balls, one of the bugs just killed a man!”

  “What?!” Captain Elliot took the spyglass back and looked towards the docks.

  “One of them just dropped like he had taken a crossbow bolt to the head. What is that noise!” Bet said as she began to wince against the noise.

  “Lady take me,” Captain Elliot cursed as he looked through the spy glass. “Dust is coming off the walls, it’s as if the bugs are doing something to undermine the stone.”

  “Look, sir.” She gently pushed his spyglass down and made him look at what she saw.

  A cloud of dust was rising from both sides of the trench as the high-pitched sound grew in pitch and volume. The hulking stone walls of the Twin cities on either side of the trench, which the Labranthians were so famous for, the same walls which the infamous Navutians had never once prevailed against, were being turned to dust.

  “What in Halom’s name is happening?” Captain Elliot asked in horror as he saw men and women throwing themselves into the water to get away from the terrible noise which must have been ear-splitting that close to the walls.

  Then as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The sudden quiet was unsettling.

  “There, look.” Bet pointed to the black cloud of insects suddenly swarming into the sky above the Candles. “Where are they going?”

  The insects began to blink with light, like thousands of fireflies, and then spread out into three circles, and their random blinking began to synchronise into a pattern.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that?” Captain Elliot wondered aloud. “It almost looks like they are forming a target board.”

  Then they saw it.

  Three bright lights streaked across the sky above the Candles. Each light created a razor straight line of cloud behind it, and the crew of the Stormy Defiance stopped their busy work and watched in silent awe as the lights fell like heavenly arrows straight the centres of the circular insect swarms.