The Duelist 7, page 9
“Lineages were something of a niche interest to Archivists back when Eng was in its prime,” he replied, and something far away began to creep into his gaze. “Not many scholars wanted to devote their time to mapping something that seemed so menial or tedious when they could be cataloging ancient histories still being dug up from some of the ruins all around Aventoll. But I found I quite liked it. A lot can be revealed through a person’s family history, and at one point I thought I might make a name for myself by keeping a journal of blood lineages, particularly of known Travelers and their descendants to try and map special traits. But that was all before the Uprisings…”
“You’ve briefly mentioned the Uprisings before, and I’m sorry if this is not the best topic of conversation for you, but would you mind telling me more?” I asked as I set my wine back on the table.
“Well, nearly a century ago, you know the Ashers were suddenly being challenged for the rights of the land by No-Ranks, who were able to rise up against the corrupt Lords with Mercedes’ blessings,” he summarized, and I nodded along when most of that sounded familiar.
“I think I remember a bit of that from our last history chat on the subject,” I said with a grateful grin.
“Ahem, yes.” He cleared his throat and removed his monocle so he could organize his mind while he inspected the eyepiece for smudges. When he was satisfied, he replaced it with a tweak. “The history I didn’t teach you was how my own kinfolk were involved in the war. You see, the Ashers of Blood assumed the Eng-folk were on the side of the rebellion from the start because we have always prided ourselves on our ability to ask questions and search for the truth. You can imagine how well a corrupt power group took that.”
“Not very well,” Horus said with a frown as he leaned his cheek against his hand.
“Exactly,” Jenner continued. “Aspersions were cast on us from the start even though most of Eng didn’t take a side at all.”
“Most?” Zoie questioned.
“Clever girl.” The older man smiled at the cat-woman for her astute catch before he went on. “There were a select few of the Eng-folk who grew arrogant in their superior intelligence, and they saw themselves as puppet masters in their own right. Their ultimate goal was to manipulate the conflict in a way where the two sides would stay at war with each other indefinitely. This would allow the Eng-folk to go about ruling themselves in any way they saw fit. But once the Ashers of Blood and the new Duelists figured this out, they actually came together due to the fact neither side knew how long or how much they had been manipulated. Since each side acted numerous times, often violently, without recourse, and based on false information, they decided each of their ledgers was equal in wrongdoing and neither could be blamed. So, to sum up, you could say the Great Treachery of Eng actually united the two sides and brought a swift end to the war.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” I said with a shared half-smirk. “What happened after that?”
“After that… Well, the Eng-folk needed to be punished, didn’t they?” the koala-man said, and that distant look returned to his gaze and caused my own smile to drop. “Those who were responsible for the manipulations were executed, but that wasn’t enough. So, to prevent something like that from ever happening again, the Ashers of Blood formed an alliance with the previously No-Ranked Duelists and became the modern-day Council you all know. The Council, along with the Temple Order, decided it would be appropriate to go through and ‘preserve’ the volumes from our Archives for anything useful to them before burying them underground, and then cursing our land for good measure.”
“What was the curse?” Rylan asked with his head still resting on his folded arms, and I wondered how long he’d been awake.
Jenner blinked at him with a surprised flicker of his bushy eyebrows. “The curse is in the very ground itself, and it affects the Eng-folk if they stay there too long. Those who chose to stay on the island would regress into the more baser forms of our early ancestors as penance for valuing our intelligence over the sanctity of life. Those of us who left like me, and at one point, Old Tovish, have to remain in exile if we want to keep our higher faculties. It is a price, but one I will pay gladly.”
“I know of the history of your people from my own studies,” Shay said when the koala-man finished. “However, I’ve never heard it from someone who’s actually experienced the exile. I can’t imagine being forced from your home and everything you’ve ever known like that.”
“Yeah, exile is the worst,” Horus said with his own scowl that telegraphed his own dark memories. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Jenner, I’m so sorry.”
Luckily, Anwaar was an expert on All Things Horus, and she brought him back to the surface with a simple squeeze of her hand. The falcon-man took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and he cast her a smile before he turned back to the koala-man.
“Ah, it’s alright, lad,” Jenner said and patted the falcon-man on the shoulder. “It has been many, many seasons now, and I was merely a young one like yourself with a fanciful hobby and no family, so exile wasn’t as hard on me as it was on some of the others like Tovish. Did I ever tell you he had a wife and two sons? They all chose to stay behind on Eng whereas he chose to leave.”
“Poor Tovish,” Zoie sighed as she rested her chin on her palm. “May Mercedes guide him.”
We all took a moment of silence to remember our fallen friend, and I sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that the old Archivist had somehow reunited with his family in the end.
“Anyway, as much as I love giving history lessons, this one has me a little worn down,” Jenner said with a sad chuckle. “Why ever did you want to know?”
I hesitated for a second as a twinge of guilt squirmed in my gut. “I think it’s because we may have to go there.”
“To Eng?” Both of the koala-man’s eyebrows rocketed up toward his nonexistent hairline.
“It’s because of me, Mr. Jenner,” Amaya chimed in. “There is a chance-- a small one-- that I might not actually be of Prophetess blood.”
“The genealogies,” he realized as he glanced at me. “You want to find something that may not even be on Eng. What makes you think if proof like that existed it wouldn’t already be in the Hands of the High Priestess?”
“Because then they would be seeking out the correct Prophetess,” Amaya replied.
“And you are sure you have more proof you are not her aside from a gut feeling?” Jenner asked as he adjusted his monocle in a skeptical manner.
“Yes,” the oryx-woman said as her eyes flickered to mine, and I could see she was making a concentrated effort not to blush. “There is quite sufficient proof. The way I see it, the Order has no choice but to go with me because I’m the most convenient fit. Whatever the case, if we can prove it to them in a more tangible way, like with a verified Archived Lineage, I would be free of ever having to take the Oath.”
“I see,” he said as he sat back a little in his chair. “That would definitely change things for you, my dear.”
Amaya nodded as her expressive eyes dewed with hopeful tears. “It would mean… everything.”
“Then we must go even if the odds are stacked against us,” Jenner said without hesitation, and his unabridged kindness managed to cause those tears to fall.
“I know how much I ask of you,” she said.
“There, there, lass,” he comforted, and he reached out to pat the back of her hand. “The good news is, we have this magnificent airship, so I will not need to spend so much time on the ground itself.”
“Do you think that will keep you from succumbing to the curse?” Anwaar asked.
“Curses tend to be particular,” he said. “If the ground itself is cursed, then the less time I tread upon it should help keep my mind intact. I’ll just be your guide in the sky.”
“Whatever it takes, Mr. Jenner,” I said. “And thank you. I know it’s not the easiest request I’ve ever asked of you.”
“It is truly an honor to serve you and yours, Alex Brightwood,” the koala-man said.
“I’ve missed you, Cornelius.” I smiled sincerely, and then I thumped a fist over my heart in a salute.
If the Eng-folk could blush through the fur on their faces, I was pretty sure Jenner would be visible from space as the rest of the Crew gathered around the table followed my example in honoring him.
“Ahem,” the older man said as he conspicuously fiddled with his eyepiece and blinked away some moisture. “Yes, well. Now that that’s been sorted, all of us must prepare for the wedding tomorrow. We don’t want to leave Terr as bad guests!”
“You heard him, everyone,” Horus said as he helped Anwaar and Rylan both up from the table. “Bedtime.”
I stretched like a cat until the bones in my spine cracked pleasantly. Rest would be wonderful after a day like today--
“Hold on,” Jenner said before any of us could go very far. He then narrowed his eyes and jabbed a stubby finger at Zoie and me in succession. “You, and you. Back to the study. Did you think your lessons were over?”
“Aw,” I groaned as Shay and Zoie both giggled. “Man, I hate dancing.”
“No complaining!” he sang out.
This became the number-one phrase he repeated for the next two hours as the furry little dance tyrant made my cat-wife and I go over the steps to the traditional wedding dance, which seemed to be a cross between a waltz and an odd mime routine where Zoie and I had to mirror each other.
It wasn’t all bad, however. Shay even came down toward the end of our lesson and added in her part as second wife seamlessly to what Zoie and I were doing, and I vowed to never question her dancing abilities again.
With the three of us doing the moves together, it was even kind of fun.
“Oof, I’m calling it,” Shay eventually said after I got done twirling her and Zoie under each of my arms. “I still need my rest if I am to look fresh for tomorrow’s festivities.”
“Let’s all call it,” Jenner said. “You did well, and tomorrow you will do wonderfully, I just know it.”
“We did have an excellent, if demanding, teacher,” Zoie said and then kissed the koala-man between his fuzzy ears before he could remark on that.
He only grumbled before he shooed the three of us away, and we wasted no time in washing off quickly in the large en-suite bath area before falling into that glorious bed together.
If I was tired before, it was nothing compared to the crushing exhaustion every inch of my body felt when I finally let the comfy mattress cradle my everything.
I fell straight into blackness the moment I shut my eyes, and I would have dearly loved to stay there…
But that scream I heard from earlier shattered the floor of my unconsciousness, and I found myself falling through an endless whiteness.
Chapter 8
The wind rushing through my ears was the last thing I heard before I jolted awake, and my first thought was of frustration.
This wasn’t like the other times I woke up from the confusing dreams Aventoll seemed to try to give me. Usually, my dreams were filled with bright flashes of color and sounds all whirling by almost too fast to discern.
But this time, all I could remember when I opened my eyes was that scream…
And then nothing.
I sighed and looked down at each of my wives tucked under my arms as they slept on peacefully.
At least they had a restful night.
Then I turned my head toward the window and saw through the curtains that it was still quite early, but my mind was still churning over how I felt like I was missing something.
The more I tried to shake it or fall back asleep, the more that strange feeling niggled at me until I had no choice but to carefully get out of bed, get dressed, and take myself off to someplace to meditate.
The balcony on the second floor where I chatted with Anwaar the other day seemed to be as good of a place as any, and I wandered my way out there so I could perch on the ledge of the balcony the way I liked.
As I faced the gray dawn, it was easy to slip into a familiar headspace and let my meditation carry me away.
This shallow meditative headspace allowed me to try and organize things I was confused about, or needed to prioritize, but other than a feeling of frustration, there was nothing this level could provide me, so I focused and pushed deeper.
The woman’s scream echoed in my head, but I couldn’t tell if it was just a memory or if it was in real time. When I tried to grasp at it, it felt like trying to fill a sieve with sand, and I sunk deeper into my trance in order to chase it.
The darkness in my field of mental vision suddenly exploded into white light, and the bottom dropped out from under me as I plummeted straight down from some unknown height. The wind combined with the brightness of the light left me blind, so I really didn't know if I was falling ten feet or one hundred.
Even after I landed, I still couldn’t gauge how far I’d fallen, only that I was now laying on something soft and spongy and staring up at a blank sky.
“The Dark Realm?” I murmured to myself as I sat up.
I didn’t think I went that deep in my trance to end up in this place. Maybe because of the recent mind fuck I’d just had, followed by the subsequent healing of said mind fuck, I was able to slip into this realm a lot easier than before.
Which would explain why one good whack to the head could land me here if I wasn’t paying attention. It was definitely food for thought for later. For now, I had a couple choices. I could either meditate my way out of here and back into a more shallow headspace, or…
I whipped my head to the right when I thought I could hear a faint echo of that scream. I didn’t know what compelled me, but something inside me wanted to scream back every time I heard it.
Then another sound caught my attention to the left, and I froze. Just because this was some mystical in-between plane of existence didn’t mean it was without its dangers. In fact, anything that happened to me here could affect my body out there in some fucked-up Matrix parody I didn’t want to push the limits of.
Aside from that, the creatures in this place seem to be a lot stronger than in the real world.
The last battle I had with a Dark Realm monster took a comically long time to the point where I felt like “Alex versus the Stag Beetle” could have an ongoing gag on a Family Guy episode, like Peter and the Giant Chicken.
The fucker just wouldn’t die, but eventually, I did get the best of it, but not before it gave me a run for my money.
I didn’t particularly want to have an encore of that experience, so I was just about to pack it up and meditate my way back to my body when the noise to my left became more clear.
I paused and held my breath.
“Alex?” A voice beckoned me from beyond the trees.
Whoever the person was sounded really close, and they knew my name.
I stood up and made my way as quietly as I could into the In Between, and I followed the voice when it called out again.
“G-Gav?” I called back when I could hear more clearly. Now that I was getting closer, I was ninety-nine percent positive the familiar timbre belonged to the ram-lord. “Is that you?”
“Alex, my friend!” he boomed when I stumbled out of the dark trees and into the clearing Gavlain Mec was in.
I glanced around his clearing and smiled at the peaceful little rock pool with a few colorful fish that swam in loops around each other. I was pleased to see his bearded grinning face instead of the clean-shaven one from last time when I stumbled across a younger him about to off himself due to guilt.
Speaking of…
“Are you really here right now?” I asked.
“As far as I know, our paths have crossed once more--” he began.
“No, not in the Realm ‘here,’ I mean are you also physically here as in on the Isle of Terr with me as of this day?” I asked.
“Ah,” he said as something seemed to dawn on him. “You are still trying to determine how the time and place thing works.”
“Um, yeah, how did you know?” I asked as I glared at him. “I thought we’d discussed the whole keeping things from me thing.”
The ram-lord tipped his head back and laughed long and loud. “Oh, Alex, I never grow old of your humor, and you are still as smart as you look like you are now.”
“If I didn’t have a basic pop-culture education about how timelines worked, I would be more confused than I currently am,” I snorted and followed his example when he gestured for me to sit down with his right hand. “Since you aren’t wearing your signet ring, the one which you gave me, I’m going to guess you’re a future version of my friend, Gavlain, correct?”
“It would appear so,” Future Gav said as he gave me my own appraisal. “Did you say you were on Terr?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You-- er, Past You-- just showed up with the family as well as the reinforcements we needed. Today is actually Sskern and Lord Griss’ weddings.”
“Today is the old snake’s wedding, eh?” Gav chuckled as he rubbed his chin. “Why are you here sleeping and not preparing?”
“I was trying to meditate, but I suddenly wound up here,” I said. “That’s been happening a lot these days.”
“Ah,” he said again in that knowing tone. “I remember you telling me about this time. Your mind has been bent almost to the point of breaking, and now you are able to flex and move through the Dark Realm unlike any other.”
“Oh,” I said as his words made sense. “Is there a way I can ‘break my fall’ so to speak? It’s not always convenient to end up here if I am just trying to take a cat-nap or--”
“Or Rylan smacks you in the head with a tree branch?” The ram-lord smirked.
“I know Future Me definitely wouldn’t tell you that story,” I said with a glare.
“No, your son did.” Future Gav’s smirk turned into a full-fledged shit-eating grin. “I didn’t even have to bribe him.”
“That kid is so grounded,” I grumbled as I folded my arms over my chest.
“Hah!” he burst out, and this set him off on another round of jovial laughter.
