A silver disk from a float spun through the air like an irritated bee, at turns revolving around its counterpart then speeding away as if it were falling in reverse. Ioren’s hand held the other end of the float as he infused it with bonded energy. He no longer recognized the artifact in his hand as the useful step-stool or impromptu table he had once associated it with. Once he channeled the divine power of his bond into the small silver disk in his hand, he could move the other disk around it at will, or remove the energy and freeze it in place.
“The maximum range is commensurate with the breadth of your bond,” Chernicotl said, continuing his lesson. The three bonded ones - Ioren, Chernicotl, and Little One - stood in the rooftop garden of Riverstop Keep. Ioren concentrated on the float, weaving it around the blood red flowers of a nearby bush. He had never seen the types of flora on display before. Exotic bushes and trees were in full bloom throughout the garden - a rare sight in Danet where it rarely rained, aside from the southern coasts. Vibrant hues of magenta, cyan, violet, and even chartreuse blossomed fervently across dozens of planters interconnected by decades old creeping vines. Ioren assumed Chernicotl oversaw the gardens, just as he curated the rest of the castle, but he wasn’t interested enough to interrupt their training to confirm.
Ioren stretched the disk as far as he could, feeling the strain of his bond against the disk as it moved around ten feet away from him. Chernicotl procured his own float from within his robes and extended the silver disk himself. It shot away into the sky until all that was visible was a mote of the silvery reflection of the afternoon sun in the distance. It was at least a hundred feet away from them.
“These ‘floats,’ as you call them, are the yardstick of a bonded one’s power. When the bond was still young and we sought to explore the boon, this item was the first tool built that could channel the power of the bond. Though many more breakthroughs were made in technology, the effect of the floats was enormous. A bonded one could defeat even a skilled warrior in combat without taking a step as he manipulated the disk about his body,” Chernicotl explained. Ioren became accustomed to the new power surprisingly quickly, feeling its location naturally through the bond as if a new muscle were connected between his mind and the disk. He still needed to concentrate on the disk when he moved it, but the excisor had confirmed that he would eventually be able to manipulate the energy of the bond subconsciously.
“Do you have any other artifacts with you?” Chernicotl asked, returning his float to his robes. Ioren pulled on the float with his mind, sending the manipulated disk zipping back into his palm and connecting with its partner before severing his connection to it and locking them in place. He placed the object back into his pack and removed a small silver box.
“Firestarter,” Ioren said as he offered the man the artifact.
“The people of Havan have quite the imagination when it comes to names,” Chernicotl noted sarcastically as he gingerly removed the box from Ioren’s hands and opened it. The smoldering red stone sat inside as always, silent despite its intense heat. He stared into the red stone with his piercing black eyes, and suddenly an enormous flame erupted upward out of the box. Ioren shielded his face instinctively from the immense heat, but it extinguished itself nearly as quickly as it had erupted.
“In more prosperous times, bonded ones who specialized in manipulating the flames from that device could perform incredible feats. I remember once, at a fair, a flamespitter created a snake from his flame that slithered among the crowd to great fanfare,” Little One suddenly interjected. He had been especially quiet since they had come outside onto the roof, only just now speaking for the first time. Chernicotl closed the lid to the firestarter and handed the small silver box back to Ioren.
“That’s incredible,” Ioren admitted. “Real magicks like that surely trounces the fake magicians of Havan’s fairs. Did you go to these with your family?” Little One furrowed his brow at the question and cocked his head.
“With my what?” Little One asked. Goosebumps shot up Ioren’s arms in a wave as he realized Little One had probably long ago forgotten any memories of his family. He wondered if it was a casualty of Cantimorelius or the slow march of time. Either outcome would be depressing. Given enough time or enough death, would he too forget his family? Would he forget what it meant to be Ioren Cedars and become a nameless boy wandering a dead nation?
“Nothing. Forget I said anything,” Ioren said, instantly wincing at his word choice. He flipped open the firestarter and poured bonded energy into it, hoping the flare of the fire would be enough to distract from the subject. However, compared to the explosion that Chernicotl had produced, his performance was little more than a few puffs of reticent flame. He was far away from manipulating a snake - or even a worm, at this rate.
“As you accumulate bonds your ability to manipulate the bonded tools will become more refined. You are but a neophyte, so do not feel discouraged,” Chernicotl added, likely noticing the concern in Ioren’s face. There was a dark promise behind those words, though. As you accumulate bonds, Ioren replayed in his head. He would need to murder others to acquire these bonds - or acquire the “Star Light” that Little One had mentioned before, though it sounded like the cure was worse than the disease. He mulled over a third idea he had been contemplating. Another way existed, a way to acquire an immense power without targeting Yasha, the savior of Havan. Suddenly fearing the other two had some power to read his thoughts, Ioren pushed the idea from his mind and focused again on learning to channel the power of the bond. Baby steps…
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“What about these?” Ioren asked, pointing to the darks that hung from his neck.
Chernicotl squinted his dark, piercing eyes as he inspected the glasses. Gingerly, he took them into his hand and looked them over silently. Ioren could not help but freeze where he stood; the excisor’s pale hand was so close to his neck he could end him with a flick.
“These allow one to see in the darkest night through an infusion of bonded energy - though it seems energy flows freely through these. Quite the peculiar anomaly, I would say,” the excisor answered quizzically. Ioren wanted to inquire further, but his instincts screamed to back away from the dangerous man, so he let the subject drop.
Ioren practiced half-heartedly with channeling his bonded energy into various tools for a short while before excusing himself to retire to his room. The atmosphere from the other two was oppressive, and he needed to escape.
---
Ioren sat atop the bed given to him by the excisor as he pulled tight on a thin ribbon of cloth. He had tied it in a tight knot around one half of his float, and attached a small blade to it from his pack.
His hands moved as if of their own mind, as Ioren was too preoccupied with other thoughts to focus on the menial task at hand. The two eternal Danetian citizens, Chernicotl and Little One, were their own cautionary tales of the power of Cantimorelius’s bond. Little One’s shattered mind debilitated him severely, to the point that he no longer remembered much of his past - nor could he roam outside freely. It had taken some sleuthing and interrogation, but Ioren finally discovered why Little One was so reticent near windows or when on the roof: he no longer recognized the sun. He had shuddered involuntarily at the realization earlier. How could one continue to live with constant fear of a massive fireball trailing you in the sky, threatening to obliterate you with every step? Ioren felt he understood the Greys’ surrender to insanity a bit better. Why continue when every moment was agony? Was it not better to leap into that dark, unending chasm rather than face the blinding light each day?
Chernicotl had clearly experienced fewer fatal incidents than Little One, as his mind was largely intact - yet he still had fallen into his own unique spiral of self-confirmation. So long had he been alone that his understanding of the world was rigid and cold. Yasha, the savior and mythical progenitor of humanity, must be killed to save the lost nobility of his land. He cradled a diseased and dying old bush so intently that his mind was blind to the resurgence of life just across the clearing.
Worst of all was their shared affliction: neither could remember their families or loved ones. This had given him pause when he learned about it earlier, but upon further reflection Ioren realized it was perfectly logical and likely was shared among most of the surviving Danetians. When asked for a tribute of truth by Cantimorelius upon death, would a surprised man, so pressed for an answer, not default to the details he held closest to heart? In time, and as one became accustomed to the Deep God’s realm of rebirth, perhaps one could develop a shield against these instincts, instead preferring to offer mundane facts in exchange for life.
Yet, time also worked against the bonded ones. The immortals lived long enough to watch their loved ones slowly succumb to the insanity, their skin withering, eyes hollowing, bodies atrophying, mind decaying before them as they observed, helpless to reverse the process of the bond. Would they not seek to rid themselves of these painful memories and seek refuge in ignorance, not unlike the Greys themselves?
Ioren feared this outcome, because he knew himself guilty of the same actions. Painful memories bubbled just beneath the surface of his psyche, threatening to explode like an infected boil. He could see their blurred, half-remembered visages through the surface of his mind: his partner, dying at the hands of ruffians; a mother’s goodbye; his stringent military father, disappointed in his weak son; the weeks of near-starvation as Yasha’s Step became established. Pain lingered in those memories, and for so long he had suppressed them. But they were also formative, and full of wisdom. He would not be the same man today had he not experienced hard times - nor would he have the cherished memories that came hand in hand with the painful. His first excursions with Van into the central villages; tossing branches into a heat patch with his mother; his first sword fight with his father, before he left for the Reunification War - joyful memories suddenly sprung from the mists, intertwining themselves with the pain like fingers of the hands of lovers.
As he reveled in the newfound appreciation for his memories, Ioren felt a pang of guilt for his stoicism toward his new comrades. He had avoided knowing them too well as the image of Van clung naggingly to the edges of his mind, whispering that they, too, would die and leave him. Yet he now realized that a life of avoiding the painful was also devoid of the joy of meeting new comrades - that eschewing an emotional bond for fear of its severance also precluded the happiness in creating the bond. Happiness and sorrow spiraled and blossomed together, like two flowers from the same stem.
Ioren especially felt a kinship toward Linoor, the capable and beautiful duelist that had taken the lead when the others had faltered. Thorne, the strapping and muscled soldier with a fatherly heart; Petra, the urchin girl so eager to experience success; even the nobles, from what he had surmised, were tolerable.
Ioren finished the preparation of his new tool as he tightened the cloth knot around his hand. He tested it, manipulating the second half of the float around the room with his channeled energy despite the other half of the float being tied to the back of his hand and not resting in his palm. Satisfied with his handiwork, Ioren stood from the bed and slipped his cloth covers over his boots and tightened the straps of his pack.
Chernicotl would not allow his comrades to pass through to the Ivory Bridge, that much was obvious. Ioren would need to act quickly to save them from certain death to the excisor. Goosebumps stretched up his arms as he thought of confronting the skull-faced man, but he quickly calmed himself by remembering his plan. As long as his comrades still survived below, the plan would work. However, it would be brutal.