“You do not know?” she asked.
“Should I?”
“Our origins are of great significance to each of us,” she returned. “They are the beginnings of what defines us.”
“And I thought our
actions
defined us,” Jarred countered.
Orna paused a moment. “And what would your actions say about you?”
Jarred didn’t answer. He couldn’t deny that he had made mistakes in his life. He had his regrets. But he also wouldn’t apologize or punish himself for the life he had chosen. He was by all accounts, a mercenary, but he also had a code. One that kept him on the right side of the lines he had no interest in crossing. In an ever darkening universe, he did what he had to do to survive, but did so in a manner he felt kept him from sinking into the depths of that darkness himself. That was how he squared his actions with himself. He didn’t feel the need to do that with anyone else, including the small being scrutinizing him now.
“I’m beginning to have the feeling you know me, Orna,” he said, instead, determined to take control of the conversation and steer it down a route of his choosing. “Have we met? I would think I’d remember you if we had.”
“Perhaps,” she replied, blinking her large eyes. “But a man with no past might not recall many things.”
Jarred was actually startled by the comment and he felt his eyes grow wide with surprise. “What did you say?”
Orna’s features remained unchanged and unreadable. She did not respond.
“What is it you think you know about my past?” he asked her, trying to soften the hard edge that was obvious in his voice.
“More than you, it would seem,” she answered. “Does that trouble you?”
“It’s concerning,” Jarred admitted. He was trying to remain composed in front of the strange being, but his mind was racing, furiously. Who
was
this being claiming to know who he was, and more importantly, seemed to know something of his past? He couldn't help but be intrigued, but he had to remain cautious. He had no idea who Orna was, nor what angle she was working. “I don’t know who would be at ease with anyone that claimed to know more about them than they did themselves.”
“Most beings know very little about themselves,” Orna offered. “It often takes another’s observations to aid them in discovering their own identities.”
“And you’ve been observing me?” he said, less question than statement. “What is it that you’ve seen?”
Orna did not respond immediately, appearing to be gauging him in some fashion, though he could not be sure, as her expression never seemed to change. “Perhaps that is a discussion to had at another time,” she said, finally. “When you are rested and prepared to listen.”
Jarred felt his outrage increase, but quickly buffered it, knowing that he would get nowhere with Orna by blowing up. Instead, he let out the breath he was holding in attempt to release the aggravation he was feeling. It worked only partially.
“You are weakened,” Orna observed.
Jarred couldn’t deny the fact. His shoulders were slumped heavily and it was taking most of his will just to remain sitting up.
“The healing effort,” she continued, “it is draining, yes?”
She had, of course, been watching him with Elora. She was always watching him.
Observing
him. He wanted answers as to why. He wanted answers to a lot of things, but the truth was, he
did
feel drained from the his recent effort, and frankly, just couldn’t be bothered to press for answers any longer. Not now, anyway. Instead, he turned away, closing his eyes as he took another long calming breath. Maybe when he opened them again, Orna would simply no longer be there. That would surely alleviate some of his stress.
“Perhaps you should rest,” Orna suggested, assuring Jarred he would get no such relief.
He smirked as he looked back over to her. “I rest with both eyes open,” he replied. “But, please, feel free.”
“You have difficulty sleeping?” she stated, more than asked. “Your dreams trouble you, perhaps?”
Jarred looked at the slender being for a moment, wondering again who she was and what her interest in
him
was, then turned away and smirked.
“No,” he lied. “My dreams are fine. It’s
this
world that troubles me.” He looked around to emphasize his, at least partially true, point.
Orna regarded him for a moment. “Your heart answers differently than your words, I think.”
Jarred looked at her squarely, his discomfort growing once more. “Are you reading my thoughts now?” he asked, jokingly, though the question was serious enough.
“No,” she replied. “Only speculation. Though, your dreams are not to be avoided, but examined. They can aid you on your journey. Help you to understand it.”
“What journey is that?”
Orna blinked her large eyes again. “The same journey we are all on.”
Holding Orna’s gaze for a moment, Jarred smiled to himself. “So, do you do any other tricks, besides telling fortunes?”
“We are all open to glimpses of our paths, Jarred Archer,” Orna replied, seemingly oblivious to his sarcasm. “We need only open our eyes to see them.”
Jarred rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I got that one in a fortune cookie once.” He scratched at the stubble on his neck before continuing. “There
is
something else I’ve been trying to figure out in my head, though. Maybe you could help me to understand it, in your vast wisdom?”
Orna waited for him to ask his question.
“How does someone,” he began, “as benign as you seem to be, find herself drawing the personal attention of the Sect Dominion and its military.”
“You believe that it is I who have attracted such attention?” Orna asked.
“I know what I saw,” Jarred began. “I know that on any other day the Sect wouldn’t have cared less about this dried up rock or who was on it. I know two people died trying to get you off of it. And I know the Sect High Commander when I see him. So maybe you could tell me why he seems to have taken such a strong interest in you.”
“That is a question for the Sect High Commander,” Orna answered him, simply.
Jarred sighed, smiling to himself. He wasn’t really surprised by the answer, but still, it was a question weighing heavily on his mind.
“But,” Orna continued, “I would hazard to say that his attention is not with me, but with all those who would stand against him . . . and his masters.”
Jarred smirked and chuckled to himself. “His
masters
? That’s an interesting way of looking at the Dominion, though I doubt Durak sees it that way.”
“I do not refer to the bureaucrats that comprise the Sect governance.”
Jarred had seen this coming and smirked. “Oh, I see. Then you must mean the
all powerful Gods
?” He knew of Durak’s strong belief in, and allegiance to, what he considered to be, a laughable religious doctrine based around a hierarchy of supernatural beings that apparently ruled over all of the universe. Many beings in the system, including large groups of humans, all believed in the lore, though the details and mythology varied depending on where you were and who you talked to. Truthfully, he found it all to be quite ridiculous.
“You do not believe in their existence?” Orna asked.
“Never met one,” he replied, smirking.
“Not in your dreams?” she asked, watching him, pensively.
Jarred looked into the being’s large, unreadable eyes for a long moment, thrown off again by her insight into his thoughts. “In my dreams, perhaps.”
Seeming to reflect upon him for a moment, Orna nodded, apparently satisfied with the exchange. “Then I shall leave you to them,” she said with a nod, then stood and, without another word, walked away, leaving Jarred to himself.
He watched her go, wondering again who the strange being was and just how she seemed to know so much about him, and also how little he seemed to be able to learn about her. She had an annoying way of successfully answering his questions, without really answering them at all. He tried to set aside his frustration and curiosity, knowing that any real answers to his questions would only lead to more and he had no desire to start down that path. It would inevitably take him to a place he did not wish to return. A place he had left behind long ago. Though, try as he might, the past seemed to have an annoying habit of rearing it's head when least expected . . . or wanted. A shadow, not always visible, that followed it's owner, waiting for any ray of light to bring it to bare once more.
And now Jarred didn't seem quite able to dim that light. He might as well have been trying to blot out the sun, his mind whirling at the mere suggestion the small being he escorted might actually hold a key to solving the mysteries that had plagued him since . . . the
beginning
.
His
beginning. The moment he had first awoken, not much more than a boy, in a place he did not recall, with no memory as to what had passed before. A stranger in his own skin. It had been like a horrible nightmare. One in which, as hard as he tried, he could not wake himself from. Until he gave up on trying. Until he accepted that his memory would not return. His
past
would not return. He was then able to let go. To move on, not in the nightmare that was his need to know who he had been, but in the reality that was the new life he could forge for himself. One which required him to leave his past where it belonged. Lost.
Orna was a clear threat to that life. Though she had not presented herself as being overtly hostile, what she intimated, her supposed knowledge of his forgotten past,
was
. Her mere presence was a constant reminder of everything he had left behind. A reminder that needed to be removed. The longer he was in her presence, the more tempted he would be to open himself up to what she was attempting to reveal to him. That would only lead down a path he had no interest in following.
Leaning back, Jarred stared up at the dark, engulfing void above him, spattered by a seemingly infinite blanket of stars, and let his gaze settle on Solta’s bright blue crescent, dwarfed by the looming mass of the gas giant they orbited. They would get there soon enough. Then he would be free of his unwanted passengers and could go back to living his
chosen
life . . . and
avoiding
his past.
* * *
Elora watched as Orna walked away from Jarred, the strange little being finding her own place by the fire. She hadn’t made out much of what the two had spoken about from where she was, but knew for certain she had heard Orna refer to Jarred by the single word.
Hybrid
. Orna had called him that earlier as well, at
Wasteland Station
when they had been trying to make their escape, and she remembered that he had seemed rattled by it. She wondered what it meant and thought to ask him about it the next time she had the chance.
But for now, her thoughts remained on the strange event that had taken place only minutes earlier. She couldn’t begin to understand what had happened, let alone how it was possible. Who was this man?
What
was he, that he could do such things?
Elora raced over all of those thoughts and more, but with one thing remaining at the forefront of her mind, that being the connection she’d felt when Jarred had touched her. The feeling still lingered with her now, like a gentle ringing in her mind. For a moment, they had touched in as intimate a way as she could ever have imagined being possible. She didn’t feel uneasy at the thought, that fact alone surprising her. She thought that she should feel insecure at least, at having been so exposed to another person, but she did not. Perhaps it was because Jarred had seemed just as exposed and vulnerable as she had. She wasn’t sure.
What she
was
sure of, and painfully so, was that she had just lived through what had probably been one of the longest days of her life. She felt the evidence of that in nearly every muscle and joint in her body. She had passed perilously close to death, and thankfully, was still alive to reflect upon the experience, though her mind continued to return to her more personal experience with Jarred.
She could almost still feel the luminous tendrils dancing across her skin and through her mind as her consciousness slowly gave in to the night and she slipped, soundly and peacefully, into darkness.
* * *
The dream was always the same.
He stood at the base of a tall set of steps leading to a great temple of stone. The sky was black with swirling clouds, forks of lightning stabbing down, unrelentingly from above, as though reaching out for him.
A storm was approaching.
As he slowly ascended the flight of steps, he realized, as he always did, that he was carrying something. Looking to his hand he saw that he held in it a sword. One which he had never before seen outside of this place in his mind, and yet he knew it as though it were, and always had been, a part of him. Somehow it spoke to him, it’s voice a whisper in his mind, urging him on. Giving him strength. It was his companion, accompanying him into this dark place that only he could go.