HTG - Chapter 198

Kalon

Chapter One-Hundred-Ninety-Eight: Ata - Part Two

Planet: Etheria

Sweat beads from my brow as I stand across from Solara. Weeks have passed in what feels like days. Arrum rarely visits, only to replenish his supplies and consult Dargo, whom I still haven’t deigned to speak with yet. Some days he watches on the edges of the sparring mats, words almost daring to whisper guidance. There is still disdain in me for him. One that still festers. One built from him delivering all of us to Mallock. Even if he did not know the destination of our suffering.

“Your brow is doing that thing again,” Solara says, balancing the shaft of a spear on her finger, “What are you brooding about?”

I sigh, “It doesn’t matter. Are you ready to fight me?”

She shakes her head, “I can’t. I’m already running late.” There is a look of somberness as she says, “I have to return to Raven Prime. I don’t think I’ll be able to see you again unless you return to Ravena Minor before the spring flowers bloom.”

“Why Ravena Minor and not Prime?”

She lets out air, “Kalon, I’ve told you at least six times that you wouldn’t survive it as you are now.”  

“That is not certain, I haven’t tried, and you already assume my failure.”

“It isn’t a matter of trying, it is a matter of anatomy. Your blood won’t perfuse in such an environment. The sheer gravity of the surface is enough to collapse lungs and cause normal people to die very quickly.” Her expression softens, “You are a normal person again. Without the bounds to prop you up, your soul won’t compensate. One must be at least the third to train on Ravena Prime.”

“Yet it is said that Ravens can train there before they break the bounds.”

“Ravens are not normal people. They were bred for hundreds of years until only the strongest remained.”

My eyes glimmer with defiance, “My people are the same.”

Her eyes fall from me, “Arkon did not forbid you from going. When we were on Ravena Minor, I checked your datapad, it has credentials for you to be there.” She sighs again, looking at me once more, “But Kalon, if you seek death, there are faster ways to do it. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to train on it once you get stronger again.”

I nod, considering her words, “Before the spring then, I will come and see you and Luna.”

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that,” Sola says, brushing the deep red hair behind her ear and extending her arm toward me, the custom surprises me. It is not in the way that her people greet, but in the way that mine do. “Until then, be well and try not to train yourself to death.”

“While you’re there, please tell Kotina I hope she is recovering well.”

She nods with a smile, “I’m sure she’ll be happy you said something.”

The air feels colder as she leaves. I enjoyed her presence these last weeks. She was a good sparring partner.  

Silence becomes my muse as I stretch, wondering where Arrum is. When he watched one of my bouts with Solara last week he told me I wasn’t ready for the mines yet. He told me that Dargo could help me get to the point that I need to be.

My thoughts collide for a time as I walk toward the rejuvenation room.

As the door slides open, I see him meditating as he does most days, “Dargo,” I breathe, sitting across from him on one of the shimmering crystals.

“Boy,” Dargo breathes back.

These crystals themselves are not Etherium or Netherium, they are like a quartz of some kind. Under them though are large shards that create a glittering blue hue in the room. The room itself is similar to the one that Solara showed me on the syndicate ship many months ago. Still… the runes in this place are strange. They seem to shift with the people in the room. Almost like the room itself has a mind of its own.

“These runes, how do they change?”

His eyes remain closed as he says, “They are imbued with complex intentions.”

“Isn’t that what all runes are?” I ask, leaning against the cold crystals.

“In a way. But these runes are special. Like edicts they hold the manifested will of their creator.”

“Like edicts?”

He nods, “Edicts are the embodiment of a god’s will. They can even persist after the god who made them perishes.”

“Tell me more, old man.”

His eyes open slowly, “Does this mean…”

“Don’t make it weird, just tell me what you know.”

He chuckles and closes his eyes again, “You remind me…”

“I am not like you.”

He shakes his head with a grin, “Our pasts are more alike than you would believe.”

“Edicts, old man, tell me of them,” I crack my neck, “Perhaps if you prove your usefulness I’ll keep you around.”

He chuckles again, “Such a brat. Edicts are, well… complicated.”

“Explain it simply.”

He grumbles something under his breath and clears his throat.

“As I said before, they are the manifestations of will. Only gods can create them in a state of permanence. As it was taught to me, those in the immortal realm can begin to try and make them, but unless they are near the top of the realm, they don’t usually amount to much practicality.”

“What exactly is this immortal realm?”

“A plane of existence outside our own.”

I cross my arms, “Helpful description. Who made them?”

“I don’t know much more than you. The one who taught me, they told me what I will tell you.” He looks at me sternly, but not offensively so, “Do not worry about things like that. There is enough to worry about here.”

“You may not know, but if you had to guess?”

He leans back and strokes his chin, “From what I know, there are four realms. The realm of spirits where we all go when we die, the realm of mortals, immortals and then gods. I once questioned my old master on who made the realms.” His brow knits, “That which is and that which is not.”

“That was their answer?”

He nods and shrugs, “He never spoke on it again though.”

“Your master, who was he?”

He pauses for a few moments, “Some would say he is a flawed man, others may say he is akin to a prophet from a lost age. To me, he was a guide at times, and a friend at others.” He looks toward the door, as though caught in memory, “His path and mine, they did not always take us the same direction. My master had warned me about Leora from when I was a young man like you. But I was blinded by her beauty and her charisma. Some gods do that… they make you feel like you’re more than a tool.”

There is somber bitterness in his tone. Like a thousand years of sadness crush his soul.

“I did not listen to my master. Instead, I thought I knew better. Until I was so deep in her web that I had forgotten what good was.” He looks at his hands, as though he can see the blood on them still, “I did many things I regret. Lost many that were important to me. Because I believed in her as she pretended to believe in me. It was not until…”

His brow furrows and he stands, pacing slowly in a circle around the room.

“Regardless, I am not bound to her anymore. Or at least soon I won’t be. I will complete the purification rituals soon enough.”

“What does that mean?”

He frowns, “Your knowledge base is rather lacking. Though to be fair, I don’t think such a thing is common knowledge. In this age I think most people don’t even know if the gods are real.”

“I know I didn’t,” I say, looking at my hands now before they clench, “There was a time I did not believe in the gods, nor their teachings. I thought them a salve to the despairs of reality…” I shake my head, letting out a sigh, I lean back against the wall, “Now I know they are the despair that needs the salve.”

“Less than a hundred and already wiser than most.”

“Save your praise, old man, it means little to me.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Little… so it means something?”

I chuckle at his remark and roll my eyes like Solara always does when I say something stupid. He smiles back and rests on the ground once more, relaxing against the wall opposite me.

“I overheard you telling Arrum and Solara about what you saw when you fought Adonius. The countless spirits that helped you destroy the edict of the god Helenius.”

“It would appear that you do not value privacy,” I say, slanting my gaze at him.

“I wasn’t trying to invade it, but you have a habit of talking without even the most rudimentary barriers.”

“Sola made those once, are they common?”

“For those who deal with upper bounders, absolutely. It’s a necessity to know how to form them. Even in the sixth someone can hear a nail drop from a hundred paces in a storm.” He raises an eyebrow musing it a moment, “If they are properly trained that is.” He clears his throat, “When I was in the fifth, I could hear it from two hundred paces.”

I try not to roll my eyes as I reply, “And I don’t suppose you know anyone who can train someone to be that perceptive?”

He grins, “Perhaps, there was a wise man once, handsome too by most accounts of him.”

“Vain I think is how they described him,” I sigh.

He chuckles and scratches his chin, “I can teach you how to hone your spirit into your body. I can even teach you how to beat those above you in the bounds. Provided you have the aptitude for the skillset.”

“What of the body? That was what always held me back.” I pause, weighing my words, “I don’t want a quick fix injection like some of the others did. I want to earn every bit of it.”

“Like Arrum then.”

“He didn’t take the injections?”

“No, he refused them. Said he alone would be enough, or he wouldn’t.”

I smile at the remark, “That sounds like Arrum.”

“He is headstrong, but I’ll be damned if he’s not a prodigy of mana weaving. He’s already catching Solara’s progress, and before him, she would have passed as a prodigy as well. By my standards at least.”

“By the Imperium’s?”

He lets out a swift chuckle, “Oh yes, her and Luna are quite skilled for their age group. But your friend, he’s going to break a lot of records. For normal people that is, I don’t really count records broken by Sparkbearers. Your lot has an unfair advantage. Him, he’s just fucking talented.”

There is pride in the way he says it. He really has taken a liking to Arrum. Part of me is happy, part of me worries if that will lead him to a more dangerous path.

“What are your plans for Arrum?”

He looks at me confused, “Plans?”

“He sees you as a master, I can see it in the way he bows, so I ask, what are your plans?”

He shakes his head, “Boy, I am not his lord that he owes allegiance. I teach in the manner that I was taught.”

“Which is?”

“A person should choose their own path, my job is simply to guide them to which ones they can take.” He puts up a finger, “And to warn them if a path leads to a less than ideal outcome. My master let me choose my path, even let me swear myself to a god he despised. Warned me of it too.”

Taking a few moments, I process what he said before saying, “I did not know that’s how it worked for you. Masters as I know them were different, they made us work as they held the whip. Besides the Sage, he was like you said your master was, a guide.” My eyes lower, “It is strange to think that he was Luna’s grandfather. Though it makes sense in a way. He always seemed to know too much for his station.”

I look up and Dargo’s brow is furrowed again. His mouth muses like it wants to speak, but it doesn’t.

“You knew her grandfather, Artemius. What did you think of him?”

He squints at me, like he’s trying to measure my words closely for some reason.

“I did,” he says uneasily.

“I saw him,” I begin, thinking on it again, “When I used Ioquin’s legacy, in my fever dreams, it felt like he was there. I can’t shake how real it felt.”

He clears his throat, “Dreams can be funny that way.”