Authors: Alexander Darwin
He felt the tendrils of light, one reaching through his open eyes, the other wrapping around his arm, getting hotter, urging him to release his choke on Shiar.
He let the jackal drop the ground.
The light didn’t leave him, though—electricity coursed through his arm. The pain was all-encompassing. He was screaming. He could smell his singed flesh.
In the haze of pain and light, he heard him. The baritone voice he’d grown up listening to. The man who had taught him nearly every technique he knew. The man who spoke the Codes. Farmer.
“You are
home.”
Cego stood on the canvas, looking up, staring into the heart of the blistering light, reaching his burning arm toward it.
The old master was up there. It had always been Farmer—the little wisp hovering in his cell, giving him strength in Thaloo’s yard, showing him the way during the Trials. And now, shining like a radiant star here on the challenge grounds.
“Where are you?!” Cego screamed at the light. Murray had told him the truth. The old master couldn’t be real. Farmer was a part of the Sim, the Cradle—a programmed figment. How could he be here?
The spectral pulsed in response, a brilliant flash of white light—dispelling every shadow in the arena, finding every watching eye.
And then it was gone. He was gone. Somehow, Cego knew he wouldn’t hear Farmer’s voice again.
Cego stared up at the ceiling and then out around him. The crowd was silent, many jaws hanging open.
Sol stood above Tegan Masterton, her face flushed and bruised, her opponent clutching her limp arm on the canvas. She met Cego’s eye.
Dozer and Knees had stopped fighting. They lay side by side on the canvas, breathing heavily, staring up at the ceiling where the light had disappeared.
Cego looked down at his arm. The sleeve of his second skin was seared away and the flesh below it was glowing, an array of colors coursing from his shoulder to his fingertips. Shiar lay at his feet on the canvas, the jackal’s chest rising and falling with shallow breath.
The challenge was over. The Whelps had won.
16
Echoes from the Past
A Grievar’s training shall never cease. One must practice technique in daily living. Instead of simply tossing in the night, hip movement can be properly applied to flip from side to side. Instead of simply waking up in the morning, a technical stand-up can be utilized to return to one’s feet with practiced agility. Even while a Grievar is unconscious to the world, one’s dreams can still be focused on achieving martial
mastery.
Passage One, Ninety-Sixth Precept of the Combat Codes
C
ego rolled up
the sleeve of his second skin, running his hand along his arm and examining himself in the Quarter D mirror. Even three weeks later, the skin was still raw where the spectral had burned him.
None of the professors at the Lyceum had seen anything like it before. “Darkin’ strange workings” was all Murray-Ku had been able to say after the fight, staring at Cego’s arm.
Although some flux tattoos were fairly intricate, they always repeated the same patterns, like the whelp on Cego’s neck that hatched over and over.
The new brand on Cego’s arm had a life of its own. He clenched his fist and the brand pulsed, his forearm radiating as if some strange energy was budding inside. He threw a jab and he could see the energy course through his arm, a green ripple that started in his shoulder, crackling yellow down through his elbow and exploding a fiery red at his knuckles.
“Now, that be something to get used to!”
Cego turned to see Knees. He’d thought the Venturian was down in the dining hall with the rest of the team.
Though Knees was still bruised from his bout with Dozer, he looked different. The glimmer had returned to his eyes since that day on the challenge grounds. The day the light had dispelled the shadows. The last day Cego had heard Farmer’s voice.
“Yeah. I’m not really sure what to make of it yet,” Cego said as he threw a roundhouse, watching the energy sweep across his arm like a wave, cresting from his shoulder and breaking across his forearm.
“Make of it?” Knees asked incredulously. “You’ll make the best of it! Walk down to the dining hall and throw a few feints in front of those inbreeds, why don’t you? They’ll be deepshittin’ it!”
Cego chuckled. Though it would be interesting to see how the purelights would react to him showing off a one-of-a-kind flux tattoo—if it could even be called a flux—Cego had been weary of attracting too much attention since the incident.
“How… how’re you doing?” Cego asked. Knees had only recently left Xenalia’s care in the medward. The little cleric had given the Venturian extra attention at Cego’s request.
“Great!” Knees yelled enthusiastically as he began to spin for a round kick, only to fall forward with a grimace.
“Well, maybe not great, but I be good,” Knees said sincerely this time, looking Cego in the eye.
“Good…” Cego trailed off.
“Erm… Cego. I been meaning to tell you something,” Knees mumbled, as he had the habit of doing whenever he needed to speak seriously. “Heard everything the crew did for me. All these months, tryin’ to get me back here. Meanwhile, I been off in my own world the whole time, not sayin’ nothing but spit to you boys.”
“Don’t apologize. I understand. I know what it’s like,” Cego said.
“Yeah, I know. But still, it needs sayin’. You watched my back. You be knowin’ I always got yours,” Knees said as he extended his hand.
Cego grasped the Venturian’s wrist firmly.
“Guys! Guys!” Dozer came huffing through the entryway to the dorm, his face nearly as red as it had been in his fight against Knees. “You gotta get down to the common ground, quick!”
“What, you be pickin’ fights again and need our help?” Knees punched Dozer in the shoulder playfully.
“No, no—it’s the Spine—the Knights—the fight,” Dozer could barely get the words out between breaths.
Cego had completely forgotten—one of the biggest fights of the decade between Mercuri and Kiroth was happening today. The Auralite Spine, on the border of the two nations, was up for grabs again. This time, the winner was to take nearly seventy percent of the land, which was more than had been distributed over the past century.
Mercuri could put only one Grievar in the Circle for a fight of this profile, with so much at risk—Artemis Halberd.
“Well, what be happening?” Knees prodded Dozer as they sprinted out of the room toward the common ground.
“It’s, he—he lost,” Dozer said breathlessly as they ran down the stairs.
“Artemis lost?” Cego asked in disbelief. Mercuri’s champion hadn’t lost one fight since the very start of his path, when he was a Grievar fresh out of the Lyceum. Artemis Halberd losing was akin to Murray Pearson suddenly adopting the latest in Daimyo fashion trends. It just didn’t happen.
Dozer shook his head emphatically as they turned the corner and burst onto the common ground.
The room swelled with students and professors. It seemed like the entire Lyceum was piled onto the rotunda’s ground level, staring up at the big lightboard with SystemView blaring. No one was speaking; it was deathly silent.
The feed panned across the massive Kirothian stadium, showing a crowd that was equally stunned. Though some spectators had their arms raised in victory, others were quiet, staring forward toward the center of the stadium. The feed followed their eyes to the Circle, where spectrals were cooling along the edge of the steel frame like flames that had been recently doused.
There were two Grievar in the Circle. One standing and one lying inert on the canvas.
“Not just lost,” Dozer said as the three stared at the screen along with the rest of the Lyceum. “Artemis Halberd is dead.”
*
Cego saw her right away, the red braid stark against her white second skin. Sol stood apart from the crowd in front of the big lightboard, off at the edge of one of the practice Circles.
Cego carefully put his hand on her shoulder, which tensed abruptly but relaxed as she turned to see him. He didn’t know what to say. Her father was dead, the feed still hovering over his lifeless body.
“I… I’m sorry,” Cego whispered. It’s all he could say. He could tell Sol he knew what it was like to have someone raise you, only to have them suddenly ripped away, as if they’d never really been there. He could tell her he knew how it felt to be completely alone, without a home or family to return to. But that wouldn’t do her any good right now.
Sol looked up at Cego, her eyes fierce, no sign of sadness in them. She looked like she had three weeks ago, stepping into the Circle against Tegan Masterton, ready to give herself to combat. Blocking out any external stimuli, concentrating only on the task at hand.
“It’s OK,” Cego said. “It’s OK… to be sad.”
Though Sol had tried to distance herself from her family name, Cego had always watched her stand straighter when her dad had popped up on SystemView. When students whispered to each other as the daughter of Artemis Halberd passed them in the hallways, Sol would roll her eyes, but Cego knew she was proud.
“I… Why should I be sad? I haven’t seen him in over four years,” Sol said. The feed was still tight on his body, as if the broadcasters expected Artemis to suddenly stand again.
“He was your father,” Cego said. As if she didn’t know that already.
Stupid.
“He was Mercuri’s champion. Their tool. Governance and the Citadel used him to get what they wanted. He wasn’t my father anymore.” Sol turned her back to the screen.
Their tool.
Her words caught Cego in the gut like a body shot. He hadn’t told any of the Whelps. Not even Dozer or Knees. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Though the entire Lyceum was still buzzing about what had happened to him during the final challenge, they didn’t know the truth about Cego. Only Murray and Command knew the truth.
“No,” Cego said firmly. He had to believe it; otherwise, he would fall apart again. “He fought for Mercuri. But he fought because it was his choice. He fought for what he believed in. Your father fought for you.”
With her back turned to him, Sol’s body shuddered. She knew it was true. Though Artemis Halberd was a familiar name chanted on Mercuri’s streets like a rallying cry, a bright face on the boards that cast away the grey skies for many, he was more than that to her. He was her father.
Cego moved to place his hand on Sol’s shoulder, which was shivering now as she crouched on the ground. He stopped. Something caught his eye on the board above.
The feed was panning from the body toward the man that stood across the Circle. The Grievar that had killed Artemis Halberd.
Cego hadn’t even considered Artemis’s opponent yet. The shock of the champion’s death had turned his thoughts from the bout itself. How had he lost? How had a Grievar so seemingly invincible been defeated, killed? Who had such power?
The feed moved at a crawl toward the figure standing across the Circle. The man was blanketed in shadows, but Cego saw him as he turned toward the smoldering spectral light.
Cego fell back to the floor beside Sol, staring up at the screen with wide eyes.
It was impossible. How—how could it
be?
There was no mistaking him, though. The man had a wry smile on his face, as if he was in on a joke nobody else could hear. Cego stared at the screen in disbelief.
The man standing across from Artemis Halberd’s lifeless body was Cego’s brother. Silas.
17
Sacrifice
A Grievar must fully commit to the present moment. Weighed down by events of the past or too feather-footed in anticipation of the future, a Grievar will be unable to find the rhythm of combat. A wave rolling to shore and receding to sea knows neither purpose nor path; it has no awareness of time passing. So must it be with a Grievar’s every breath; rolling like a wave and fully in the
present.
Passage Three, Twenty-Seventh Precept of the Combat Codes
O
n a rare
bright day in Mercuri, Murray Pearson climbed the long staircase of the Knight’s Tower. The sun peaked through the lone shield window that surfaced on every new floor, casting light onto drab stone walls.
Murray trudged upward, spiraling past the central kitchen, the equipment room, the Circle study, the Knight’s quarters. He drew heavy breath as he neared the highest floor. It was no surprise High Commander Memnon had maintained his body so well, making this climb every evening just to rest his eyes.
The stairs ended and Murray stopped in front of an oaken door—Memnon’s quarters. He placed his hand against the door, feeling the thickness of the solid wood, the fissures that ran against the grain, the craters from decades of visitors rapping against it.
Murray curled his hand into a fist and hammered against the oak.
“It’s open,” a muffled voice came through the thick wood.
Murray had never set eyes on the quarters before, but he’d certainly heard rumors of what the room contained. A torture chamber where the High Commander strung up failed Knights on his walls. A resplendent auralite Circle that haunted Memnon with the whispers of some phantom crowd. A set of bubbling vats serving as a laboratory for growing Grievar brood.
Murray had always dismissed the rumors as crazy, but now he half expected to see every one of those things as he entered Memnon’s private quarters.
No torture chambers. No Circles or vats. No paintings on the walls. No decorative carpets. None of the modern-day fineries found in so many of the Citadel’s buildings. Only a sleeping pallet on the floor, a frayed heavy bag hanging from a corner, and a tatami mat spread across the back side of the room.
Memnon’s quarters were unadorned, spartan, as any Grievar habitation should be.
Memnon stood at the window against the far wall, his hands clasped behind his back. The High Commander stared out at Mercuri, the city bathed in rare sunshine.
“It’s strange how we live through such darkness just for these few bright days,” Memnon muttered.
Murray walked to the window. Every time he saw Memnon, the man looked older, the rings under his eyes deeper.
“Yeah,” Murray said. “It is strange.”
The two stood side by side in silence, watching over Mercuri.
How much had changed over these years. Murray had once looked up to Memnon with nearly the same admiration he held for Coach. The man was a living legend.
“What happened?” Murray broke the silence. He was truly confused. How had they strayed so far?
“We need to make sacrifices for the good of the nation.” Memnon said the words wearily, as if he were as tired of hearing them as Murray was.
Murray shook his head. “Was one of those sacrifices our honor?”
“Honor,” Memnon repeated the word. “Is it honorable for me to continue to shut down arrays across Mercuri because we don’t have the alloys to keep them running? Is it honorable to blanket more of our nation in darkness? Is it honorable to let our citizens starve because we can’t win the resources to feed them?”
“The hand that feeds can also be the hand that fights,” Murray responded with a line from the Codes. “We don’t need to give up our ideals just to keep up. It wasn’t always this way.”
“Always with the Combat Codes.” Memnon sighed. “You’re just like him. He’d always take the easy path too. It’s simple that way—strictly adhering to the Codes—letting the more complex problems wash over you like the tide. Never having to consider a nation in need, a changing world around us. Just holding on to that simple point of view. The Codes, honor. I always envied him for that.”
“Coach stuck to the Codes because they were right,” Murray said firmly. “If you’d done the same, we wouldn’t be where we are right now. Living in dishonor. Artemis Halberd, dead.”
“Where we are?” Memnon asked. “We stand on new ground, finally with a light on the horizon that will let us defeat our rivals.”
“Light on the horizon…” Murray felt his blood pumping. “Light on the horizon? Your light is a stain! You’re darkin’ growing kids in vats, exterminating them if they don’t fit your mold!”
Memnon turned to Murray. Even now, as Murray stood red-faced in his quarters, the High Commander seemed tired. As if the man had been through this argument a thousand times before.
“I understand your position, Pearson, but it takes more than honor to run the Citadel. Sacrifices need be made.”
“You choose your sacrifices, Memnon. Those kids you’re growing, experimenting with, they’re innocent. They have no choice.”
“As High Commander of the Citadel, I don’t have a choice, either. I need to do what’s best for Mercuri.”
“That’s why we’re different,” Murray said. “That’s why Coach was different from you. That’s why he left. There’s always a choice.”
“Always back to Coach with you,” Memnon replied. “Coach, your shining beacon of honor. The man who could do no wrong.”
“He deserves my respect,” Murray growled. “He didn’t forsake his beliefs like so many others.”
Memnon looked Murray in the eye. “Coach wasn’t what you thought he was.”
Murray shook his head. More mind games.
“Don’t believe me?” Memnon asked. “Where do you think Coach really went?”
The question caught Murray off guard. “I… He never told me.”
“Why do you think he never told you where he was going? What he was doing? You were his star pupil, practically his son. You deserved to know.”
Murray stayed silent.
“You think Coach left you. But he didn’t. He never left.”
“Never left?” Murray raised his voice. “No one has seen the man for nearly two decades!”
“Just as it is with the Codes, things aren’t as simple as they often seem.” Memnon’s voice quieted.
Murray wanted to leave right there. Coach was all he had left. Everything else he believed in in this darkin’ city had gone to shit.
“Yes, Coach and I had our disagreements.” Memnon returned his gaze to the city. “But making sure Mercuri stayed on top wasn’t one of them. Coach understood we needed to make sacrifices too.”
“He would never sacrifice the Codes,” Murray said.
Memnon breathed out. “I miss him too, Pearson. He was a solid ear to sound off on, a fist always at your back. I understand.”
“First you’re saying he never left; now you’re saying you miss him. What games are you playing at?”
“You think I’ve made sacrifices?” Memnon asked. “You think I’ve given up on honor, on the Codes? Coach made the greatest sacrifice of all.”
Murray grabbed Memnon’s shoulder, bringing the High Commander’s gaze back to him. “What the dark are you talking about?”
“He went in,” Memnon whispered.
Murray stared into the High Commander’s eyes. The man spoke as if he inhabited another world.
“At first, he was against it. Against it like he was against anything that countered the Codes.
No tools, no tech.
He fought me every step of the way on the neurostimulants and the new experimental Trials… and it was no different with this. He threatened to leave the second I told him of our plans to access the Cradle.”
“I remember,” Murray said. “He wouldn’t say what was bothering him that day, but I can clearly remember the day when Coach lost all faith in the Citadel.”
“He was on his way out,” Memnon said. “He’d already packed up. He walked into the command center and saw the feed I had pulled up on the board. It was the prototype they… the bit-minders were showing me. Selling me their product. Vats… Dozens of them lined up somewhere in the Deep. The brood were inside… babies… all of them floating…”
Murray’s body trembled, just as it had when Zero had described the Cradle to him.
“He saw the feed and fell to his knees, right there in the command center,” Memnon said. “The strongest Grievar I’ve ever met, sobbing on the floor.”
Murray felt like falling to his knees himself.
“The bit-minders. They picked up on his weakness,” Memnon said, speaking faster now, as if he wanted to finally rid himself of the story. “They’d been running the Cradle for several years already… selling the rights to the brood they were growing to the highest bidders. Kiroth had already purchased one of the firstborn from the Cradle. But the bit-minders said the program needed improvement. The Guardians they were using within the Sim weren’t providing the long-term… nurture… they were looking for. They needed a guide, a mentor inside of the Cradle.”
Murray was holding his breath.
It couldn’t
be.
“They told him he could still help,” Memnon said. “The bit-minders told him that instead of leaving, he could be a part of it all… He could go in.”
Murray repeated the words hollowly, “Go in…” He closed his eyes, trying to take a deep breath. “Coach… went in… ?”
“He accepted. He saw it as a way he could still fix things. A way he could teach those kids the Combat Codes from inside the Cradle,” Memnon said.
Murray was on his knees.
“He went Deep to their Codex the following day… followed their instructions. They hooked him up. Just like the brood they were growing, they stuck him in a vat to keep his body in stasis.”
“He… he’s still down there?” Murray whispered. “Inside… the Cradle? On that Island?”
“He never left us,” Memnon said. “Farmer never left us.”
*
Cego felt the warm sunlight pulsing against his eyelids.
The breeze gently rustled his hair, bringing with it the distant fragrance of blooming flowers.
Just a few minutes
more.
He lay flat against the soft ground. He imagined he could sink into the earth. His arms and legs, fingers and toes, sinews and entrails would become roots, burrowing into the dirt, his blood pumping toward some source deep below. Part of the earth. Living down in the cool darkness.
Just a few
minutes—
“How the dark can you be sleepin’ on a day like this?!”
Cego’s eyes fluttered open. Dozer was standing above him, offering a hand, a wide grin across the hefty boy’s face.
“He be right for once,” Knees said from nearby. “Rare that Mercuri be seeing blue skies like these.”
Cego grasped Dozer’s outstretched hand and was catapulted off the ground, suspended in the air for a moment, the sunlight and blue sky streaking his vision. He landed falling forward, tucking into a front roll and springing back to his feet.
Sol stood inches away from Cego, her arms crossed, her eyes sparkling in the sunshine. “Show-off,” she said.
The Citadel’s grounds looked different today—the Lyceum’s ancient grey walls stood in stark contrast to the blue skies above. Tufts of grass peppered the yard in front of the round-faced Harmony, and the surrounding trees had begun to sprout buds.
“I’ll show you how to do a proper roll,” Sol said, turning away from Cego. “Joba, stay just where you are.”
Joba lay on the grass with his hands behind his head, looking up at the sky, like some giant boulder rolled onto the yard. Abel, who had been propped up against the huge boy, sprang to his feet.
“Rolling contest?” Abel said excitedly. “In Kee-roth, we jump over rivers for practice. Wider and wider makes bigger jumps, and Abel stay dry longer than most!”
Cego chuckled. “Maybe we should check with Joba before we use him as a hurdle?”
Abel looked down at Joba, who just smiled and continued to stare up at the sky. “Joba in. Joba like the plan.”
“I ain’t be missing out on this one,” Knees said as he lined up next to Cego. “Semester break’s only a few days more, then we be back to training… Need all the fun we can get.”
“Level two training!” Dozer raised his fist into the air triumphantly. He was already wearing the blue second skin the team had been awarded at semester’s end. “The Whelps are gonna take Level Two by storm!”
“Not so sure about that..,” Knees said cautiously. “Other teams are regrouped now. Shiar, Gryfin, Kōri Shimo… they be healed up and gettin’ better, wantin’ revenge. And they say the Scouts be bringing in new Grievar next semester from all over the world. Besayd, Desovi, Kiroth, Myrkos, maybe even some other Venturians…”
“We’ll be all right!” Cego said, louder than he’d meant to.
Sol met his eyes before breaking into a sprint directly toward Joba’s hulking form laid out on the grass, her fiery braid trailing her. She launched into the air over the smiling boy, diving headfirst and landing in a graceful front roll before popping back to her feet. She propped her hands on her hips, looking back at Cego across the yard.
“Let’s see how all right you are trying to match that one!” Sol grinned.
Cego took a deep breath. He stepped forward and started to run.