The bitter truth.
Unlike Stella and me, the people in this room hadn’t had months to figure it out for themselves - to see the beasts afflicted with Eleaden’s wild ferocity, its control. Still, even as Captain Rayden and the others began to suspect, to see through the curtain of unawareness, I stood firm in telling them first where we really found ourselves. After all, should the truth hit them half as hard as it did Stella, they would not be able to listen to anything else after hearing it.
And they needed to know what the world was like in the past - it was no less important than the truth about Eleaden.
“When we passed through the misshapen space, we found ourselves on a cliff.”
“Actually, as we later realized, it was a cliff somewhere in the Granora Mountain Range,” Stella added, as she was the one who figured it out.
“There were no Esulmor woods under the foothills, though.”
“What Stella means is that it wasn’t the woods we know. There was a forest.”
“Of course,” Captain Rayden nodded. “Esudein only settled here when he found Idleaf growing in the wood’s heart.”
“About seven hundred and fifty years ago,” Hazel Mooney added eagerly, just for the record.
“Hmm, the elders say I’m exceedingly young. True, though. Too young to be there with Korra’leigh,” Idleaf whined, frustrated and saddened by the fact. There wasn’t much I could do to soothe her, except to ruffle her hair, to which she giggled, for even if she was old enough to be in the Echo, she wouldn’t remember any of it. After all, the Echo was a copy of the past, separated from the flow of time.
“No need to be sad, Lady Idleaf. Where your Guardian found herself was a time about 7,000 years ago. Few beings are that old,” Mr. Sandoval attempted to do what I did not. “It makes me wonder, though, what this place was like then. No labyrinth, as you said, no Castiana, then - or was there a settlement here at that time?”
“There must have been something there, right? You two have already mentioned others you’ve met,” Agent Sah pointed out. “Besides, why trap this particular place and time in an endless loop if there was nothing - ah, Traiana, right?”
“Oh, right,” Hazel Mooney blurted out, not really letting Sah finish. “You said the real one lived her nightmare there over and over again. So that must have been the time and place when she f . . . fell. Medvin’s hairy balls! You saw the battle, didn’t you? And it took place right here where we are sitting.
The sheer shock and excitement in Hazel Mooney’s eyes as she looked around, trying to spot a shadow of the battle that had taken place here thousands of years ago in the corner of the room, was hard to describe. In fact, as the realization sank in, even the others couldn’t help but glance around, some, like the City Lord, in fear of an ancient warrior jumping out from behind the dresser.
Refraining from sinking into Sage’s comforting embrace to boost my confidence, I looked at Stella, and after she gave a nod, I took a deep breath. “Yes. This is where the battle took place. In fact, where the statue stands is the exact spot where Traiana broke down in her cry.”
Silence.
I don’t know what I expected, but not that everyone would sit there stunned. Certainly not Sah and Mooney, who had already come to the realization that the ancient battle had taken place where Castiana stood. I guess, to hear their assumptions confirmed was a whole different story.
“To build the core of the labyrinths, they needed a powerful moment that would carry across space and time - an anchor to ground the echo of the past, if you will,” I continued to explain as no one spoke to break the awkward silence.
“Interesting,” Mr. Sandoval spoke, rubbing his beard in thought. I was glad to hear just that one word. “Do you know the reason for the stories, legends and myths, Miss Grey, Miss Palemoon?”
I could guess, but . . . “I’d love to hear it.”
“Likewise,” Stella nodded, seeing the need for someone other than us to do the talking.
“Well, the idea behind it is very simple. To be remembered or to never forget. Stories, in whatever form, make whatever happened live through the ages. And I think the statue, her cry, the way she makes others cry, feel what she felt, is just that kind of story. It’s a way of making sure that Traiana, that moment of hers, is always remembered.”
“That - that might actually be true,” I admitted, thinking about it. Not something I’d done before, when I’d just accepted the fact that Traiana’s cry for the fallen was just something that carried through the ages. Why should it be, right? Sure, it was a powerful moment, but . . . in the end, Traiana was not that unique or powerful. There must have been many such scenes in the battle itself, let alone an entire war. Yet none of them are remembered to this day. No, it was clearly what the builders did that made Traiana be remembered throughout the ages.
Nevertheless, the truth remained that they chose her for a reason. My guess - she had the will to endure as the patron of the Labyrinth.
“Why didn’t I ever think of it that way?” Hazel Mooney shook her head in disbelief, berating herself for it. “It’s so obvious.”
“It is, isn’t it?” nodded Rayden.
“The bliss in Hangman’s Bliss, the sorrow in Hero’s Sorrow,” Sah listed the two remaining labyrinths in the Empire.
“All of them are stories to make sure we remember, I suppose.”
“And the same with the other labyrinths,” Hazel Mooney added to the old librarian’s words, the excitement of the revelation literally oozing from her voice. “Medvin’s hairy balls! Oh, I’m sorry; I should stop swearing like that. But if it’s true, we, as librarians, might get even more out of these statues and their stories than the researchers and scholars.”
“Or we could simply ask what happened to Little Beast and Aura Flare,” Deckard pointed out, curiosity in his eyes. Aura Flare, though? Did Stella earn a nickname from him?
“I meant the other labyrinths . . .”
“A-Aura Flare, Mr. Deckard?”
“You don’t like it? Well, get used to it like Little Beast. Anyway, you saw the battle?”
“Well, yes - it was where we found our way out. But it wasn’t until months later.”
“From what you two told us, the echo wasn’t big enough to travel for months,” Sah reminded, wondering like the others why it took us so long.
“Knowing where to go was one thing,” Stella said, looking at Rayden. “Getting there was another. What would you do if someone else wandered into your battle, Captain?”
Good thinking. If anyone was going to understand what they were about to go through, it was Captain Rayden.
“Well, if it were an enemy, I’d kill them. But I guess that’s not what you’re asking - capture, question, and then it would depend.”
“On their intentions, their abilities.”
“Yes, Palemoon - among other things. Is that what happened to you? You were captured?”
“More like we let ourselves be captured,” Stella smiled and glanced at me. Together then, we told them about the Eleaden 3rd Army encampment, which lay southeast of present-day Castiana.
“As you can see, we had to prove to them, especially High Commander Ronnu, Traiana, if you will, that we had what it takes to be on the front lines.”
A barrage of questions followed, one of which stood out. “If you’ve been trained by people of my strength for eight whole months, how come it doesn’t show on you two, Little Beast, huh?”
“True,” Rayden agreed with Deckard, sizing us up with her gaze. “You carry yourself with more confidence, which is good to see, of course, but compared to your squadmates, you haven’t made any progress.”
“It’s hard to make any when everything resets every five days.”
“We returned to the place and state in which we entered the Echo, torn, bleeding . . .”
“Wait, Stella! You were hurt? Every fifth day? Why didn’t you mention that before?”
Well, Stella asked me to withhold saying that for now precisely because of such a reaction from her mother. However, it was a detail that had to be mentioned at some point. Seekers, potential travelers to the past, needed to know what to expect, that it was not a painless journey.
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Be that as it may, it took quite a bit of explaining from Stella to calm Mrs. Palemoon down, and the worst was yet to come. Honestly, I didn’t even know how many times we died there.
***
The fact that his apprentice had received proper training gave Deckard much needed peace of mind in that regard. Especially when he heard that Vienlin and Geran weren’t just your rank-and-file soldiers; they were masters, even if only shifters.
“I don’t get it,” Hazel Mooney spoke up, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “If you had to prove your strength, but returned to the state you found yourself in at Echo - what was the point of the training? Or did the system not reset, and you retained the proficiency of your skills?”
That was what Deckard was thinking. As life had taught him, strength wasn’t just about being able to crush a rock with your bare hands, but knowing how to use every ounce of it to its fullest. Mastering skills was one way to do that. Unfortunately, honing his skills was no longer something that came easily to him.
“That would indeed make sense,” Librarian Sandoval nodded. “The system is omnipresent throughout the eras. So, once you’ve learned something . . .”
“I apologize, Mr. Sandoval, but I’ll stop you there. The system didn’t work back then.”
“Oh, really? Was it because it was just an echo of the past? A place torn from the flow of time?”
That was not the case. Deckard knew that strange smile of hers. There was more to it than that, and Little Beast struggled with how to tell them. “There was no system.”
“No, I heard you, Miss Grey. I was just wondering why that was.”
The old man didn’t get it. He didn’t know her like Deckard did. The way the Little Beast said it, she meant that the system didn’t exist only in that echo of the past; the system didn’t exist in the past at all.
Ridiculous - that was his first thought. That he, like the old man, had come to the wrong conclusion was the second. Then his years of experience kicked in. It was a bad habit to immediately dismiss any possibility, no matter what it was, even if it went against everything you knew. So he leaned back in his chair and waited to hear what his apprentice had to say.
“I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Sandoval, but I’m afraid you didn’t get it. You didn’t understand what I was saying. It wasn’t just the Echo, but the system didn’t work in the past as such,” Little Beast said loud enough for all to hear, taking a breath while Deckard held his. “There was no system before the labyrinths. None whatsoever.”
No system!
No system!
No system!
. . .
. .
.
The thought echoed in his mind, unable to settle. Even though he heard it with his own ears and didn’t think Little Beast was lying, his mind had trouble accepting those two simple words.
No system!
After all, he had lived with the system for most of his life, was dependent on it, to the point where it became his greatest frustration as he looked day after day at skill levels that barely moved. The system was something that shaped the whole society. And so . . . he wasn’t the only one who had a hard time accepting such a thing.
No system!
The faces of the others twisted in a mess of emotions, shock, disbelief, denial, horror, and lack of understanding.
“N-no system, but this is . . .”
“T-there’s no r-record that would . . .” Librarian Sandoval joined Mooney’s stutter.
“Just as there is no record of the construction of labyrinths,” the young Palemoon said simply.
“But - but . . .” Harper Breadbaker, like so many others, was unable to put her bewilderment into words.
“That’s . . .”
“That’s bullshit,” the young Egerton eventually muttered, his anger at his apprentice kicking in. Naturally, in situations like this, anger could get you over the shock - but cloud your judgment at the same time. “I told you she was full of shit, and you’re all buying it. There’s no way the system wouldn’t exist. Where else would it come from?”
For how much Deckard disliked the guy, he made a good point. The system could not have just sprung up one day. Maybe Little Beast had made a mistake . . . No! There was that rejection again. It was so easy to slip into the comfort of the known and remain blind to the potential truth.
To everyone’s surprise, he got up from his chair and took a few steps. Sitting made him too comfortable, and that wasn’t what he needed right now. He needed to get out of his comfort zone in order to open his mind.
“The last time I was so unwilling to listen to something this hard was when I was told of General Egerton’s death. Yet it didn’t change the fact that he died.”
“My father’s death had nothing to do with this,” the City Lord fumed.
“I would appreciate it if you would not drag my late father into this,” his sister joined her brother. For as different as they were, at times, they were more alike than they realized.
“I’m just saying how I feel about what my apprentice said, not that the late General had anything to do with it,” he said sharply, not really in the mood to tread softly around their feelings for their late father. Instead, he fixed his gaze on his apprentice and the young Palemoon. “Little Beast, Aura Flare, unlike when the General died, I’m willing to listen now. So tell me, the system . . .”
“There was none in the past, it didn’t exist.”
“I’m trying to believe you.”
“You don’t?” Idleaf marveled, hurt. “Korra’leigh isn’t lying.”
Deckard couldn’t help but grimace. The cute naivety, the blind trust in her Guardian. He didn’t have it. What he had was faith in his apprentice and a determination not to get bogged down in the established truth.
“I’m not saying she is, Idleaf. On the contrary, I am doing my best to believe her.”
The spirit frowned at him, only to smile. “O’kay.”
“So, gals, I don’t know about the rest, but I’d like to hear how things were in the past with no system.”
And so his apprentice and young Palemoon began to explain, each truth more absurd than the last. A world without a system, dragons, World Trees, and even humans as its creators. Worst of all, it all made perfect sense. Whatever question he had, whatever doubt was raised, they had an explanation for it.
“A world without a system is not something impossible; it’s not the scary place you think it is. I know it can work. Stella and I have seen it.”
Deckard almost laughed, kicking himself for not realizing it sooner. There was more to her words than met the eye. She was an otherworlder - a fact known only to him and a few others. She had lived her whole life in such a world, without system, classes or skills - and by all accounts, it was a prosperous civilization. Why should it be any different here?
“You two are saying that the system is just supposed to be - a guide?”
“Yes, a crutch,” the young Palemoon nodded, obviously glad that someone was finally willing to accept the truth. “Something to lean on, not to learn to rely on.”
“But if I drop the crutch, I’ll fall.” Deckard hated speaking in metaphors, but it was better than nothing, as he was still trying to wrap his head around the whole thing.
“That’s because you haven’t really learned to walk without it,” his apprentice pointed out.
“So - let me see if I understand this correctly - you’re saying that the loss after removing the skill is due to the fact that I haven’t mastered the skill.” To the surprise of both of them as well as his own, it was not he who spoke, but Sanysia. She sat quietly the whole time, trying to let the system issue sink in.
“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” Little Beast said, her voice dripping with excitement that someone had finally gotten the message. “What you have truly mastered, you will never forget.”
Young Palemoon sort of agreed with her. “Well, I wouldn’t say never, but that’s the gist of it, Captain. Classes and skills are just a listing of the library of masteries of the people who lived before us that we have access to through the system.”
“Damn. That’s - that would mean there was a [Void Walker] before me.”
“Not necessarily. The system could have tailored the class for you, and the same with mine,” his apprentice tried to explain. “You, Captain Rayden, and even Mr. Sandoval, told me that one skill is not like another. There are differences because we are different, and the system adapts the skills to us.”
“True,” Deckard sighed - his head throbbing in spite of all his skills. What the two said made sense.
“Well, if it’s supposed to be a guide and something to replace masters, why am I stuck? Why doesn’t it show me how to grow?” More frustration than he intended seeped into his voice.
“Perhaps you are the first who has come this far in those skills,” Mr. Sandoval said more to himself. “Oh, my apologies, I didn’t mean to . . .” The old librarian trailed off, once again lost in thought, and so Deckard looked to his apprentice for the answer.
“Little Beast?”
“Mr. Sandoval - well, he may be right, but I don’t think so. The system holds the knowledge of dragons and World Trees, the world itself,” the words caught in her throat for a moment. “What I believe, based on what I’ve been told, is that the system cannot show you more, because you lack the required mastery of your skills necessary to do so.”
Silence.
Deckard’s eyes were fixed on his apprentice, who nervously awaited his reaction. She was the first in a long time who dared to tell him that he lacked in his skills. But instead of berating her, he laughed. It was so obvious now that he knew. One of the basic rules he tried to instill in the army recruits he taught was to lay a solid foundation to build on. And his - based on what his apprentice said - seemed to be very flimsy.
Deckard broke into a hearty laugh.
He had been searching for an answer for who knows how long, and yet he had it right at his fingertips, veiled behind common sense. No sane person at his level would dare to change his skills without a damn good reason. It would take a madman or someone with a death wish to do so. Like everyone else, he didn’t dare.
Crutches - did he really walk with them all the time?
‘Fuck it! Time to find out.’
Thinking that it was the last thing he didn’t dare try in his quest to break through his bottlenecks, his mind immediately wandered to his skill set and the skill he had last managed to level five months ago, [Void Stride: lvl 284]. One thought, and he was looking at the skill [Juggling: lvl 1] while dealing with the shift in his perception caused by the loss of the skill he had held for decades.
It wasn’t as bad as Deckard thought. A few breaths and everything seemed to return to normal. Seemed to, but . . .he took a step and made a stride across the room, then another and another, from one end of the room to the other.
“Deckard? What have you done?” Sanysia asked, not hiding her concern.
“What do you think?” he tossed back playfully. Deckard couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t felt this excited in a long time. While his current non-system-aided [Void Stride] was far from what he was used to, the fact that he hadn’t lost it at all, and could use it to this extent without the skill itself, took his breath away. Crutch. There really wasn’t a better word for it as he felt like he was walking on his own for the first time in years.
Sanysia closed her eyes for a moment and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
She knew him too well.
“Yes, I did. I took a leap of faith with my apprentice, and - I got rid of my crutch.”