235. The Twice-lit War (Part 1)

  Fire and ash. Blinding light and encroaching darkness. And amidst it all, no sign of friends anywhere.

  Serac found herself in a stranger’s war. Under an oppressive gloaming sky, neither dusk nor dawn, and painted over by the smoke and haze of unremitting battle. Upon slabs of velvet obsidian, their alien surface cut up by instruments even sharper and tougher. And all around flooded ripples of violence and grief, as a twice-lit city united only to rip itself in half.

  “Watch out, Serac.”

  The monotone warned of a projectile whistling over Serac’s head. She ducked to avoid it, relishing the weight of two onyx horns freshly regrown. The ordnance whistled past and exploded on the ground, taking more chunks out of the obsidian.

  “Thanks,” Serac said and meant it. Here at the crux of it all, separated from her friends by both time and place, she was comforted by Trippy having made the trip with her. The comfort was accompanied by a stab of guilt, knowing her baseline feelings about her robot voice were nowhere near as charitable.

  “It seems to me”—if Trippy had been offended at all, he didn’t show it—“we now understand the significance of the Keeper’s name. For all time, it’s kept a record of its people in all their incarnations, with SKYVEILS being the Realm-encompassing Instrument responsible. And as with any good recording device, the VEILS are also capable of playing back entries within their extensive vault of memories. As to the Keeper’s end goal—the solution to Passing its Rite of Absolution—I have several theories, all of which—”

  “I know the solution,” Serac blurted, unduly calm. “Well, at least I know what I have to do. The why of me being here and now.”

  She left it at that, and Trippy didn’t press. At least on this count, Wayfarer and robot voice were fully on the same page. To that end…

  Time to get her bearings. Serac had been doing a lot of that in Tidereign—the Realm of hidden locations and interdimensional teleportations. Her present objective was a who rather than a where… which hopefully meant she wouldn’t need a local guide to point the way.

  Look for the loudest, weirdest, most chaotic thing around. Because I’m sure, at the center of it, I’ll find—

  Bang! More fireworks in the distance. That seemed a promising enough lead for the time being. Serac followed the noise, cutting her way across the smoke and haze. The noise grew louder, now mixed in with shouts, cries, and incoherent babbling. In fact…

  Serac stopped dead in her tracks, utterly perplexed. The voices were all incoherent, spoken in a foreign language! The discovery sent her into a momentary panic, until she reasoned herself out of it. I don’t need to talk to the locals, do I? And even if I do, I’m sure I’ll find some way to—

  “Good news, Serac.” Trippy with the unexpected assist. “For as yet unknown reasons, I seem to understand this language. If you’ll allow, I can translate it for you in real time, which should also work in the opposite direction.”

  Now there was a good reason to stand in the middle of an active battlefield, mind blank and mouth agape.

  Serac’s Special Guidance Protocol came with many strange (and convenient) features, but a translation service had never been one of them. It would’ve come in handy back when she’d tried to decipher Queen Loha’s hieroglyphics or the Duskpool Infirmary’s anachronistic signs. Was Trippy’s second language specific to this location and this time period then? But how—

  “We could perhaps try to puzzle it out later, Serac. For now, let’s focus on this task you’re so sure you’re meant for. And about that translation. Do I have your consent to go ahead?”

  “Uh… yep,” Serac said quietly, forcing herself to take another step forward—to focus on the present. She’d already been teleported to gods-knew-where/when; she didn’t need to be sending herself back in time. “Sounds like a good idea, let’s do it.”

  Serac bridged herself closer to Trippy, such that their thoughts and perception overlapped each other almost seamlessly. When next the shouts and cries flew into her ears, she could understand them perfectly, as if they’d been spoken in the CMV.

  “Make way, make way!”

  “Another wounded, coming through!”

  Yes. The translations were no doubt useful, giving Serac an idea of what exactly lay ahead. She paused again, reassessing the wisdom of bumbling into a wartime infirmary as the complete stranger she was—an outrealmer, no less. Best to take a leaf out of Realgar’s book and keep a low profile.

  She turned away from the voices, hoping instead to find the source of the explosions. As she snuck her way across the battlefield, however, the smoke and haze only grew thicker, bringing visibility down to about zero. Which was how she ended up—

  Crraasshhh…!!

  —falling through a hole in the ground. Curse her useless ripple-reading!

  She’d dropped a fair distance, too, surely enough to meet the fall damage threshold. But as luck would have it, she landed atop a pile of towels and linens, which completely broke her fall. So lucky! But hang on, why were there towels and linens in the middle of—

  “My, oh my. Did I forget to close the hatch again?”

  Serac froze. Not because she’d bumbled into a bunker of sorts—likely an extension of the very infirmary she’d been trying to avoid. But because she recognized the voice of its occupant.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The bunker was small and only partially lit; bright fluorescence focused onto an operating table. Upon the table lay a topless Mriga man, either asleep or unconscious, a freshly sutured wound prominent across his bare chest. And sure enough, a surgeon stood by the table, watching over the patient.

  “Another outrealmer?” The hulking tiger spoke, voice sonorous like a mountain yet gentle as a feather. He half-turned from his handiwork to peek at the newcomer through pince-nez glasses. “I’m not usually one to turn away patients, but I’ll be honest. You’ve rather caught us at a bad time.”

  [Designation: GLADIOLUS ere’BRANAGH]

  [Wayfarer Race: TIRYAGA]

  [Karmic Level: 122]

  [Liminal Karma: 101,551 ?]

  [PRIMAL Instrument: SCALPEL]

  [Oathborn: DREAMPROWLER]

  Serac shot to her feet, her right hand very nearly reaching for the holster before she stopped herself. She didn’t know what might happen if she pulled a gun on a wartime surgeon. Best not find out.

  As for the surgeon, he now turned fully to face the mute newcomer, studying her with a Pathsighted gleam. Black stripes undulated across an orange field as Gladiolus frowned—curious rather than suspicious.

  “A Rakshasa?” The word, identical to its CMV equivalent, got through to Serac without the need for a Trippy filter. “I’ve never had the pleasure. And I’m sure it would be a pleasure, if it weren’t for all the… well, you know.”

  Gladiolus rolled his tiger eyes at the bunker’s ceiling, then let out a wry, sonorous chuckle. Serac shared the sentiment if not quite the humor. Starting to relax against all odds—perhaps even enough to have a normal conversation with the previous incarnation of a known serial killer—she nodded toward the sleeping Mriga.

  “Should you be treating the enemy?” She blurted the first thing that came to mind. Such a trippy sensation! The voice was undoubtedly hers, yet the words and accents were utterly foreign, modified in real-time by the robot mind that shared her consciousness. “I mean… he is your enemy, isn’t he?”

  Gladiolus stared at her for a second, then let out another chuckle, considerably louder.

  “Why do you think I’m treating him here, away from prying eyes? But… to be fair, I’d also do the same in the open if I had to. My blade doesn’t discriminate, nor does my [Oath].”

  Serac drew back a breath, caught off guard by the feeling of admiration that bubbled up inside. What the hell? I think I like this guy! Why couldn’t ‘our’ Gladiolus be more like him?

  “Besides which,” the much-more-likable Gladiolus continued, expression suddenly serious, “I don’t believe this man to be my enemy. Not when there’s another… a greater evil we both must confront.”

  Serac nodded—perhaps too quickly and too firmly. At this, a black stripe rose above one of the pince-nez lenses.

  “You seem in agreement, Ms Rakshasa. Have you been with us long? How much do you know of Tidereign and our blasted Twice-lit War?”

  Ms Rakshasa didn’t quite know how to answer that. Her instincts told her it was best to not even try. Instead, she decided to invoke a name. Perhaps, should her good luck hold, she could recruit an ally before her own big battle.

  “Not much,” she said honestly. “But I’m gonna go out on a limb and say… I think we all share a common enemy. It’s here, isn’t it? Getting up to its usual mischief? The bane of the Keeper’s existence—the crux this whole Absolution thing hinges on. Can you lead me to it? I don’t know if it had a different name here and now, but I know it as VO—”

  Serac nearly dropped to her knees, only catching herself by falling back on the towels and linens. She scrunched up her face and clapped her temples, which did nothing to cool the flames that raged through her head.

  Only then did she realize her Circlet had grown again. It was now three-quarters full—from the right temple, round the back, and onto the base of the left horn—and the associated headache was worse than ever.

  “Ms Rakshasa?” The tiger surgeon asked with professional concern. “Are you quite alright? Here, let me take a look at—”

  BOOOOOM!

  It was all happening now. The loudest explosion imaginable, muffled only by thick layers of obsidian. And despite the layers that separated it from the surface, the bunker shook violently, knocking furniture and medical equipment onto the floor.

  And then… the aftershock. It came, not as another earthquake, nor even an explosion… but as a peal of mocking laughter. A mad cackle, so loud and so present as to echo across an entire battlefield—an entire city.

  Through squinted, watering eyes, Serac spied her bunker-mate’s reaction. Gladiolus jolted as if he’d been shot, eyes wide and shoulders tense. He then removed his glasses, folding them neatly into his breast pocket.

  “Apologies, but I must go, Ms Rakshasa.” The words were polite, but the voice couldn’t hide a rumbling growl. “Feel free to rest here if you need to. And if you do, I’d appreciate if you could keep an eye on my patient.”

  “Wait…” Serac tried to squeeze out a protest, but they came out in a barely audible babble, too incoherent even for Trippy to pick up. “Let me… I have to…”

  The tiger pushed her aside, remarkably gentle despite his urgency and hulking frame. He then bounded up the exit in a flash, barely needing to touch the ladder.

  Serac was left alone with the sleeping patient, but not for long. For the Mriga man suddenly bolted upright, slitted eyes furrowed in a purposeful scowl. He jumped off the table, picked up a pole-like object from the floor, then, still bare-chested, ran after his surgeon—without so much as a glance at the onyx-horned stranger crumpled atop a pile of linens.

  As the man ran past her in rigid silence, Serac thought he—especially his scowl—looked vaguely familiar. She just managed to scan him with Pathsight as he disappeared from view.

  [Designation: TRAVERTINE aft’NANKERVIS]

  [Wayfarer Race: MRIGA]

  [Karmic Level: 117]

  [Liminal Karma: 99,850 ?]

  [PRIMAL Instrument: CROZIER]

  [Oathborn: DLEE and ORD]

  It was all happening. At this point, Serac couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. And it would all happen without her—history would simply repeat—if she just sat here feeling sorry for herself.

  Serac wobbled to her feet, still (uselessly) massaging her temples. Step by trembling step, she dragged herself up the ladder and out of the bunker. Into the smoke and haze of the Twice-Lit War.

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