Ascent of the Aliomenti (22 page)

Arthur’s jaw fell, and Will could see the gears turning in the man’s mind, mental gears assessing the implications, a trickle of Energy seeking to assess the truthfulness of Will’s response. He resorted to his innate people-reading skills, skills he’d used to assess Will as one worthy of joining the first Aliomenti community. And those skills told him that Will believed what he was saying to be true. “So what’s the catch, Will? I eat that, I can’t have more children and I don’t age?” He snorted. “I don’t much care for the age I’m at.”

“I’m fairly certain it will erase all signs of aging, even if they’d already started. You’ll be in your physical prime. But... no more children.”

“Give me the fruit, Will.”

Will picked up the fruit, then hesitated. “Are you sure about this? There’s no turning back, no way of reversing the effects so you can have more children, no way to choose to die a natural death. Are you absolutely certain...?”

Arthur leaned over and snatched the fruit from Will, and pressed the fruit against his mouth, chewing slowly. “I’ll use this time I now have to meet those goals I mentioned, Will. I won’t just visit the expansion sites; I’ll go there to help set them up. I won’t travel just to the great Sea, I’ll travel to see the whole world. I’ll become wealthy, and I’ll become powerful.” He swallowed and took another bite. “This is the most amazing gift I could ever receive. And it’s my birthday. Thank you, Will.”

His eyes were full of greed, as if eager to experience the effects, to envision his dreams coming true. But the effort of conversing with Will took its toll on the old man, and his eyes closed in sleep.

Will watched as the wrinkles smoothed before his eyes. The fruit was working.

He left, returned to his own room, and wept.

XVII

Expansion

1035 A.D.

Three years later.

The terrain of the island wouldn’t strike anyone who might look at it as the type of place a secret society of supermen and superwomen would choose to make its second outpost. Yet the small, craggy island off the southwest coast of England would serve just such a purpose, despite boasting such an unfriendly environment.

The Aliomenti scouts had traveled far and wide, their only guidance for their second settlement being that they must find a place within a population that spoke English. Though they would eventually expand to all corners of the world, even corners those in the eleventh century didn’t know existed, they had no interest in learning new languages.

Will was relieved at the choice. Hope and Eva had relocated, after first spending time on the small island the trio had discovered prior to their entry to Healf. For his part, Will had encouraged the southwest corner of England as the best place to target for their new outpost, as it would be the opposite end of the English-speaking territory they wished to conquer first. Others had argued for the southeast corner. The Aliomenti would, eventually, move on to the European mainland, and such a location would be better suited as a launching point for their economic invasion. Will’s arguments had carried the day in the end, and with the two women moving east and the Aliomenti moving west, the distance between the groups grew.

Locals living on the mainland near the island confirmed that it was uninhabited, and, in their minds, a place no one would be able to survive. The Aliomenti scouts, hearing music in those words, rented rowboats to take them out to view the island. For most, it was their first time in such a vessel, and they found the strenuous effort a challenge.

Once out of sight of the mainland, though, they pulled the oars in and used Energy to propel the boats at high speed to the island. The trip proved that the surface was as unfriendly as rumored – for
human
settlement.

The scouts asked if anyone owned the island. “Even the king has no desire to possess such a property, and he is most desirous of expanding the lands under his banner,” one villager reported. “I tell you, nothing can live there.”

The Aliomenti decided to prove that statement incorrect.

Arthur had not come, not yet. After eating the ambrosia fruit, he’d made a remarkable recovery from old age, racing away from death’s doorstep, away from the end of his life’s journey, and on the path to immortality. Will explained that, as he’d journeyed on his own after the fire, he’d found another village in a wood, had seen a woman there eat the fruit, and had then done so himself, thinking her wise to the edibility of the food. Only then did she explain the effects caused through consumption of the fruit, effects she’d long ago accepted. Arthur found the story fascinating, and listened to it many times before Will’s departure to the new village on the rocky island.

Arthur’s remarkable recovery meant that they’d need to talk to the villagers about the fruit. “It will be the next phase for our members, similar to our process for exposing them to Energy, in which they are prepared for the impacts of morange and zirple,” Arthur said. “We cannot simply walk into villages and ask who is willing to give up fertility in exchange for immortality. We must bring them in with the promise of wealth, just as we always have, suggest the possibility of Energy and its potential, and finally expose them to the reality that immortality is within their grasp. It will give us time to make sure they are prepared to handle everything; if a recruit proves unworthy, we will... encourage them to leave.”

Will thought that sensible. No one was being denied the gifts and knowledge they’d found; they were ensuring each person had the ability to determine if they were prepared for each step in the process. “What happens if they want the Energy, but not the immortality, for whatever reason?”

Arthur frowned. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I think we’ll certainly have people make different choices in that regard, but we must be sure that no one who chooses to eschew immortality flaunts their fertility.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that we’ll have a lot of immortal people who have made the conscious choice not to bear children. It’s possible that if others
do
make the decision to have children, there will be... repercussions.” He looked pointedly at Will, and the inference about Elizabeth’s demise angered him.

“This isn’t the original village or the original group of villagers any more, Arthur,” Will snapped. “I certainly hope we’ve
all
learned from those mistakes.”

“It is clear that the original Aliomenti were not prepared to have children and should not have done so,” Arthur replied. It was the closest thing to an admission of guilt or error on his part Will had ever heard. “We... made a terrible mistake in allowing all of that to happen. And we need to be very careful how we handle the topic this time...” He paused.

“What?”

“Well, do you recall what Adam said when he returned from his travels, before he... leveled the village and exterminated everyone but the two of us?”

“About what, specifically? I’m a bit foggy on my memories in the vicinity of his genocide.”

Arthur glanced up, as if trying to remember. “He said he got the morange berries at a village where the berries grew naturally. The inhabitants there, if you’ll recall,
did
have children. And...”

“And the children were far more powerful than their parents,” Will replied. “So? That seems like a wonderful benefit to me.”

Arthur shook his head. “Will, I don’t think you’re understanding what’s going on here. This gift that we have, this gift of Energy? It’s not something you can safely instill in the young. They’ll have no control, no ability to ensure they don’t show off in front of a young friend, or otherwise expose those who wish to keep their abilities secret. And... well, don’t you think they’d be
dangerous
?”

Will thought about Josh – or Fil, as he was known as an adult – and Angel, his own children. They hadn’t hurt anyone or blown them up or otherwise exposed themselves. Adam had shared that Fil’s wife and daughter had been murdered by an Assassin while Fil had been forced to watch. Will felt a lump in his throat, wondering how he could have allowed such a tragedy to happen. Perhaps it meant he truly
had
died at some point in around the fire at his home. He doubted he’d be able to live with himself, allowing his granddaughter and daughter-in-law to die at the hands of an Assassin. Yet, to the current point, the fact that the Assassin and Hunters had found the woman and the girl didn’t mean that either had done something with Energy to raise human attention to herself.

“Perhaps they
could
be, Arthur,” Will replied. “But there’s certainly no reason to assume that must be the case. A child who is born bigger and stronger than the norm does not always use his size to intimidate others, and there’s no reason to think such an Energy-enhanced child would be any different. And don’t you think that a young child, possibly able to communicate with telepathy while still in the womb... don’t you think a child like that would grow up in far more control of their abilities than those who come to them in adulthood? Children expect life to be like what they’re born with. For a child born with these abilities, it might be as normal as walking or running or jumping. They’d feel no need to show off, any more than an ordinary child shows off to friends by walking.”

“A child doesn’t show off by walking, true. But he might show off by running in a race, and deciding to win by adding something a bit extra. Don’t you think a child would do that?”

“Arthur, any child like that would be born in one of our villages, either the original one or the one we’re going to build in the near future. They’d grow up among adults with Energy skills who could help them to learn how to control their abilities, how to temper them and use them only when necessary, and only to the
degree
necessary. With that type of oversight, and that type of isolation, a child is unlikely to have the opportunity to expose themselves or the rest of us until they have the maturity to make the proper choices in that regard.”

Arthur sighed. “But children are so unpredictable, Will. We have no idea
what
they’ll do.”

“I’ve remained on speaking terms with men who caused the deaths of a combined fifty people who I considered friends, Arthur.” Will glared pointedly at Arthur, who had the decency to look uncomfortable. “I certainly didn’t expect a mass slaughter from Adam, because that’s hardly something you can predict, can you? Yet Adam’s a grown man, an adult who got his Energy abilities
as an adult
. You think a child would be able to do anything quite so dramatic, so violent, so... well, so
wrong
?”

Arthur grunted. “I concede that you have a point. I do
not
concede that it means children are not, as a rule, more unpredictable than adults. With more time, I suspect we would have noticed Adam’s emotions and desires, and in so doing we could have stopped him. He’d not be able to suppress his ideas in that regard now, now that Energy skills are so common and so strong. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you? It’s difficult for anyone to possess strong emotions around here without the entire village knowing. I think we need to ask people to be very careful, to avoid having children until we have better information to go on.”

“I don’t have a problem telling people that there are unique risks to becoming parents once they adopt our lifestyle, once they start developing their skills. Those skills will pass to their children at a more advanced level than they’ll find in any person they’ll meet. There are risks that any children they have
might
lose control and risk hurting someone or exposing our group. I
don’t
agree with telling people that, given those risks, they must forever forgo being parents, for that reason or because it might cause some undue grief for an immortal who made a different choice.”

“So you’re in agreement, then?”

“Asking people to promise caution in that type of decision?” Will shrugged, then nodded. “I don’t have a problem with that. It’s wise advice to anyone thinking of becoming a parent, Aliomenti or not.”

He was struck by the idea that this was the forerunner of the fourth oath, the one that Arthur would use centuries from now to order Will’s execution.
This
promise, a promise to exercise caution over a decision with consequences none of them could possibly understand, was nothing more than a caution signal. He supposed that at some point these suggestions would become rules, and then Oaths with prescribed, extreme punishments for violation. Those rules would one day lead to the formation of the Hunters and an Assassin, men with the duty to mete out the prescribed punishments for those Arthur would deem guilty.

Arthur nodded as well. “Then let’s do that. We need to warn people of the risks, and let them know that if they wish to permanently and forever be free of that risk, we have a means of granting them that request.”

“One moment,” Will said. “Are you suggesting we have a rule that only those who first agree to give up having children,
without
knowing about the ambrosia’s effects, be given the ambrosia?”

“Why not?” Arthur asked. “It’s unlikely anyone will have issues with immortality. They’ve all noticed that
something
has
happened to me, and it won’t be difficult to figure out that I must have done something remarkable to undergo such a transformation. They
all
want it, too, Will. Can’t you feel that?”