Ascent of the Aliomenti (2 page)

But Elizabeth
hadn’t
told Arthur. Elizabeth held the secret, held all of the power in that singular instant. In that instant, all of their individual scheming and plotting and influence building was rendered worthless. They were once more at the mercy of another, a person who had no obligation to treat them well. Given her treatment at their hands, they’d realized they were at her mercy, for they’d showed no compassion toward her and would receive none in return.

Faced with a loss of all status, faced with control by someone who owed them nothing, they’d lashed out and destroyed her, their pride preventing them from delivering the apologies that would have thawed Elizabeth’s chill toward them. They’d fallen on her en masse and beaten her, urged on to greater levels of ferocity by Arthur’s public disowning of his own child.

Adam said nothing, but his face revealed his agreement with Will’s words. “And yet you think it would have been wise to give those people yet another chance?” He spat on the ground, the spittle narrowly missing Arthur. “Your unwillingness to see people for what they are is going to lead to your demise, and the demise of those you care for. I am willing to act when I see the truth, regardless of what that truth might be.”

Will seethed inwardly. It was more than his personal philosophy that prevented him from acting. Much as he believed many in that village deserved punishment for their behavior, he lived with knowledge of the future. That knowledge was both a blessing and a curse, for any action – especially murder – could lead to an altered future. Will had met both Arthur and Adam in the future, and that knowledge meant he could not kill either, and that he’d even need to
protect
both men if necessary. And while he’d not met any of the other villagers in those future times, taking any of their lives could end the lives of those he
had
met in that future. A death at his hands in this era might eliminate the direct ancestor of someone he’d met in his business dealings, neighbors in his community, friends and colleagues he’d known in his philanthropic endeavors.

The premature death of any person here could even mean that he himself would cease to exist in the future.

He wondered what the diary, the computer in the form of a scroll of papyrus gifted to him from the future, might have to say about all of this. What might Adam say about his decision, with twelve centuries of intervening time to consider it? Would he express regrets? The Adam in front of him now would say he’d done what needed to be done, and express no remorse. Would the future Adam wonder if there might have been another way?

What would
he
do, he wondered, if the diary provided no message of explanation or remorse from the future action? And what would he do if, at some point, the diary told him that he must kill someone because history said he’d done so?

He glanced down at Arthur, distracted out of his thoughts by the sudden silence from the man on the ground. “What did you give him?”

Adam arched an eyebrow. “The same thing I gave you. Morange berries. They are the ultimate key to unlocking the Energy you need to be able to do what I did. With time, some are able to do... far more than what I’ve shown here.” He let those words hang in the air, heavy with accusation and meaning. Will held far more ability than he’d let anyone know, but his ability to mask his skills was rapidly coming to an end.

“I went through this process, though the people who gave me the berries mixed them with other substances, and didn’t tell me what the ingredients were. The process was far more painful, and far more... messy, than what Arthur has experienced.” Arthur was quiet now, merely inhaling deep gulps of air. There was no indication that the expulsion of matter that Will had experienced would occur.

Adam’s hard expression softened, and then turned crafty. “It’s the zirple,” he whispered, more to himself than to Will. He spoke in more normal tones and volume. “They work together. The zirple makes you sweat out or otherwise get rid of anything in you that’s in your blood and unhealthy. If you take just the zirple, you’ll probably avoid getting sick and you’ll feel wonderful. It’s possible, if you take it long enough, that you’ll start to develop some limited Energy.

“The morange berries, on the other hand, scrape everything possible
into
your blood and out of the skin and muscles where it had been stored. Once the morange completes its work, your blood is basically poisoned. So you need to consume zirple, or you’ll get sick, and even die. If the morange does its work and you take the zirple... it can get very unpleasant. I suspect you were given large doses of both, if you experienced a lot of pain in the process. It usually takes many rounds before you start to see the best results. I suspect if you’ve taken zirple for a while, the process is less painful than if you haven’t.” He arched an eyebrow. “How many rounds did you take?”

“One,” Will admitted. “As far as I know.”

Adam scoffed at this. “How can you not know if you’d been through
that
more than once?”

It was certainly possible he’d had more rounds of the Purge treatment. Was it possible they’d injected him with their equivalent of the zirple before he’d undergone the Purge? Did the healing nanos in his body alter the impact? “I remember a very painful round. It left me unconscious. It is possible that I was given additional rounds without knowing it. I do not remember more than one, however.” He fixed Adam with a pointed stare. “I was in the care of people who were... deceptive.”

Adam raised his hand in triumph. “See? Sounds like people who are untrustworthy to me. You’d have been better off eliminating them.”

Will shivered at the words, though the irony of Adam’s statement curled his lip for a brief moment. “I’ve since learned
why
they were deceptive, and it was a necessary act, done for my benefit. Eliminating them would have been impossible.”

Adam shrugged. “Nothing should be impossible for you.”

“Murder always will be for me, no matter how you might try to justify it.”

Adam whirled on him. “
Murder
cannot be committed against those who have destroyed the lives of the innocent. What I did was justice, not murder.
They
were the ones guilty of murder. Not me. With those cowards and weaklings gone, we can start anew, with better people... and a better result.”

Will shook his head. “I am here with a manipulator who caused the deaths of his wife and daughter, and a man who felt it his right to judge others as worthy of death. How can I trust either of you? You’ve both caused death... and my reasons to live are far too great to risk my life with the two of you.”

He turned and walked away, sensing Adam’s widening eyes tracking him.

“Will! Where are you going?” Adam shouted. “You
can’t
leave! We’re going to do this right this time! Where there are no manipulations possible! Nobody used, nobody murdered! Will! Come back!”

Will glanced over his shoulder in Adam’s direction. “Until we meet again, Adam. Goodbye.”

With that, Will Stark, a man history recorded as one of the founders of the Aliomenti, vanished into the darkness of the forest.

II

Emigration

1021 A.D.

Will walked away from the smoldering remains of the southern half of the village, the darkness becoming total as he escaped the light of the flames. His shadow preceded him into the darkness, as if it was a scout searching for danger. It wasn’t necessary to scout in front of him, however, for the most dangerous beings in the vicinity, and perhaps in the world, were behind him. Will tensed at the thought, wondering if Arthur might talk Adam into chasing Will down to stab him in the back, just as he’d convinced Maynard to stab Eva. Will’s normal senses were much sharper than those of most men and women, his Purge and Energy work enhancing them far beyond what he’d known for the first thirty-five years of his life. He’d hear and even feel a person sneaking up on him before a stabbing became a possibility. But he looked over his shoulder anyway, just to be sure he wasn’t followed.

He’d walked away, and doubted his parting words meant a permanent separation in anyone’s mind. At the moment, though,Will simply had no interest in being around either of the two men he’d just left. He knew from his own future that at some point he’d go back, for Will Stark was supposed to be a key founding member of the Aliomenti, driving innovations and becoming their greatest practitioner of Energy skills. His departure, therefore, could not be permanent, at least not yet, not until he departed centuries from now to form the Alliance. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t choose a temporary separation. He had a thousand years to accomplish all he was meant to accomplish.

Will walked for nearly twenty minutes before he realized he was heading in the wrong direction. He needed a place where he could reflect quietly on what had happened. He needed a place where he could rest and sleep without concern about an attack by humans or other predators. He needed a place where he could review the diary for any guidance that his children and, yes, Adam, might choose to provide. And he needed a place where he could reach out and talk to Eva and Elizabeth. Correction: Eva and
Hope
. After spending three years learning to refer to his future wife by her original name, he now had to teach himself to refer to her once again as Hope.

Arthur’s recovery from the morange berries that Adam forced upon him was still ongoing, and eventually Adam would be focused on helping the man in his recuperative efforts. With Adam’s attention distracted, Will could teleport safely to the cave without drawing attention.

He frowned. Did he want to risk that? Adam seemed to know Will was no neophyte with Energy; he hadn’t asked
if
Will had taken the necessary ingredients, but rather how often he’d done so. He’d handed Will a standard dosage of the berries at the same time he’d forced a similar portion down Arthur’s throat. Will hadn’t realized until then that his hand was still clenched around the berries. That would be something else he could do in the cave; he was long overdue for another Purge. He frowned for a moment, concerned. Adam had said that taking the morange berries without following it up with zirple could be unhealthy, but he’d not offered Will any zirple.

Will snapped his fingers. Zirple still grew in the fields, fields that would never again be tended by the village farmers. He’d been headed in the right direction after all.

Twenty minutes later, he’d collected a large quantity of ripened zirple plants, digging them out of the ground so as to gather the all-important roots. The leaves and fruit were useless, but the roots provided such an improvement in health that Roland, the Traveler, had believed zirple to be the secret ingredient to unlock those mysterious abilities Arthur had long fantasized they’d all develop. They’d started raising the zirple crop here, and Arthur had engineered an elaborate lottery system to determine who would receive the daily rations. Arthur ensured scarcity in those rations, ensured there were always fewer rations each day than villagers desiring them. The lottery had become such an income-producer for him, so powerful a method of accumulating power and control in the village, that Arthur had forgotten about his daughter. Her worth to him had ended, a truth proved when he’d ultimately disowned her.

Prepared now for his journey to the cave, Will elected to avoid teleportation. He needed to practice some of his skills, and with only two men left alive in the forest, there was no better time. Will flooded his entire body with Energy, enabling his cells to be both transparent and lighter than air. Within moments, his body was invisible, and so light that he could lift it off the ground with his mind with minimal effort. Clenching the zirple roots and morange berries in his invisible hands, he soared into the air.

The closest he’d ever come to the sensation was during the clairvoyance sessions he’d performed, in which he was able to use Energy to change his point of perception to an area away from his physical body, seeing and hearing the sights and sounds in remote locations. He’d used the technique to locate the cave three years earlier. But it was a far cry from the actual experience of flying, for those sessions produced no remote physical sensations. He felt the wind on his face as he flew, and he also experienced the innate terror that he might fall, a sensation that lessened as time passed and his mind and body learned that he wasn’t capable of plummeting to the earth. The thrill was comparable to the roller coaster rides he’d experienced in the twenty-first century, but there was no need to pay an admission fee, wait in line... or have the experience end before he wished. He relished the sensation, and though he’d come upon the location of the cave, he flew past, soaring higher into the air, viewing the entirety of the forest and river landscape below. He could make out the water Wheel they’d constructed in the light of the early dawn, and recalled the social challenges they’d needed to overcome to complete the project. The fiery embers of the burning village walls and rooms were visible as well. Will looked away, not wanting to think about the deaths of so many.

After thirty minutes, he flew into the cave, and allowed his body to solidify and return to visibility. As his corporeal presence returned, he was better able to sense the Energy flowing around him. Over the preceding three years, he and Elizabeth had spent several hours each week inside these stone walls, working together to grow their ability to produce and absorb the substance which enabled all manner of unique abilities. Three years earlier, Will had started his own initial Energy work, trained in the basic skills by Adam. His greatest progress came through his own work, where he learned that willingly sharing his Energy with other living things, including the trees in the forest surrounding the Alliance camp, produced a feedback effect that dramatically grew his own Energy stores. When his Energy grew, new skills, beyond those taught by Adam, revealed themselves. He discovered his ability to project his senses outside his body and eavesdropped on a conversation held far away, and accidentally teleported before ever learning the correct process. Adam had briefly touched upon other skills, such as flying and invisibility. Will realized Adam knew their time in the future was coming to a close, and Will would need to teach himself those skills without Adam’s guidance.