Last of a dying breed

Old memories, of bible school and an adolescent searching of the scripture for some kind of answer to questions of childhood turmoil, woke up and took notice, while the rest of her prayed the makers hadn’t been some strain of fundamentalists.

“You have preserved through this trial by the strength of your Spirit, and thus you have earned a portion of the lost knowledge.”

It stopped at the edge of the raised floor and spread its hands out, like so many saint cards she had gotten from her grandmother on Christmas, and she was sure he was about to recite the gospel to her. Maybe afterwords, it would give her the grail, which would have some kind of immunity buff or cleanse effect, or maybe even the spear of destiny. Not her style, but it would probably sell for—

“Behold, a ruin.”

It’s alienesque teardrop-shaped face now drooped in a metallic frown and it’s words were songlike, almost weeping. Garbled though they were, she felt the human anguish in them. All phantoms spoke with recorded words from their human makers. Despite the massive expansion of ability in this world, artificial life beyond rudimentary holograms had proved impossible. Even the animals in the twin’s forest were little more than snippets of looped images.

But this was more than just dialogue recorded for a gameworld. Whoever spoke these words, felt them.

“I am a creation failed in its task. Marred by the original sin of the one who created me, now trying to heal the world, to make penance. Hear my story with your Spirit, for in this place your ears have been severed from yourself, just as your eyes have been dashed out, your tongue cast in to the fire, and all the rest of your flesh cut away.”

It bowed its head, lowered its arms halfway, and began to chant.

“Paradise, formed in the dark,”

“Fell below, fell away,”

“Stolen, just a drop,”

“Enough to entice,”

“Enough to snare,”

“Never enough,”

“To heal.”

Images poured out from the words, communicated via dreamknowledge, and formed in her minds eye. She had seen paradise as a garden, its fall as a literal descent, the drop of paradise like a molten pearl, the thief as her own hand, first palm down to take the drop, then palm up to offer it, then finally clenched in a fist, the drop pouring like tears through her fingers.

The phantom clasped its hands together. Its liquid metal face shifted from a weeping frown to a stoic brow-lifted stare that gave her the impression of one reserved to their suffering.

“Those who built this maze borrowed from the greater one, that glowing promise in the dark, but while Paradise is surely snaring to this day, this one has been doomed to languish.”

It stepped down and stood next to Lindsey, gesturing out into the glowing lattice cavern.

“Those who built this place hoped to wrap a fable in a riddle, to deliver divine knowledge through a game, the only way, they believed, to do so.”

It gestured with its right hand, and a portal opened in the wall at their side. It was the world above, a castle shining in bright sunlight, dragons flying overhead.

“In Arthel, they saw the chance to create an afterlife for the living, to make the fabled place where souls are judged and rewarded for their goodness a reality. Inspired by the stories of their youth, they crafted challenges that tested not only the mind, but the Spirit, and the heart. Trials of compassion, determination, humility. Those who succeeded were given the greatest magic in the land. But unknown to those first daring heroes, the trials didn’t end there, and they were judged by how they used their power, and those who turned from good to evil were cast back down to start anew.”

It clasped its hands over its chest and faced her, and in the liquid mirror face, she saw the distorted expressions of the Spirit who had recorded the message long ago, and sensed a prideful remorse.

“But, there was a schism, between those who believed this world should be castrated into a relativistic amusement park, rewarding nothing more than the playing of the game, and those of us who wanted something more.”

It sighed robotically and bowed its head, then spoke like a eulogy.

“In the end, it was found that running a gameworld was infinitely more profitable than what the makers had envisioned, and they were pushed out. The remnants of what the first makers had made were paved over, sanitized, or destroyed completely. Lost to legends.”

It faced her again, and its facial features were suddenly more detailed. She could make out a close-cut beard, crows feet around the eyes, the widows peak above the forehead. It reminded her, suddenly, of those old juice commercials with the liquid silver people, and she almost laughed out loud.

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This time, its voice was less robotic, and very nearly human.

“But one of the makers left his avatar behind, here in this cave, ready to tell the story to any who could brave the maze, so that the world of Arthel, the real Arthel, could live on in memory.”

The sly smile faded, and it frowned again.

“Maybe, that’s the only place it could ever really exist.”

It stood tall again and clasped its hands at its waist, so that the sleeves of its cloak ran together, and there was only its silver face, without any hints of human origin, hovering above the now fully dawn-broken fabric.

“You have braved the maze, and shall now be granted a heroes reward, but first you must swear an oath to secrecy, that you will never tell of this place, to the living or the dead.”

Living or the dead was a classic Arthelian euphemism for anyone in the game or out. She had never before been so keen to follow the rules of the game. Even now, the memory of the maze was so personal, she doubted she could tell anyone about it even if she wanted.

“I swear—” she started, but a piece of floor opened beneath her and cut her off. A slab of marble rose out of the ground, with a mummified corpse atop it. The corpse was draped in silks, dressed in full golden armor, complete with a crown molded into the helmet, and its gauntleted hands clutched a bare greatsword, its blade the blueish moonlit silver of Mithril.

It occurred to her that this cave may have been made when Mithril was still the highest tier of materials, and she noticed that even though she had seen it a thousand times, the glow of the sword had a wavering quality that every other mithril item she had seen had lacked.

The altar stopped still, and the dead knight rustled slightly, the countless jewels and polished faces of its armor shaking specks of colored light across the walls, reminding her of the spinning disco ball lamp she had as a kid.

“Place your hand upon the blade.”

She did, and found it cool and numbing. The metal seemed to flow between her palm and fingers.

“Do you swear to keep this holy place a secret, and to live your life upon this earth in accordance with the love that was spun to make it?”

“I do.”

The blade slipped out of her hand suddenly and she jumped back. The dead knight rose above her, its skin now flush and healed, its black eyes smiling behind its golden visor.

“Then kneel,” said the knight, in the voice of the Phantom, only fully rendered as a sound of flesh and blood.

She did, and the undead knight brought the flat of its blade down on her right shoulder, then her left. The metal moved through the air with a sweet pure tone that faded to solemn silence.

“Rise.”

She got up, and found the knight just as it had been, lying flat and very dead. The phantom waved its hand and the altar and the knight sunk back into the floor, its glittering rainbow lights fading into dense darkness, reminding her now of stained glass.

“You have been granted a spiritual blessing, which will persist no matter the fate of your avatar. This blessing grants you immunity to the dark and evil powers of the Lich Lords.”

The voice said the last two words with great importance, and Lindsey fought back a sad sigh. She didn’t think it would be worth mentioning to this animated voice recording that the Lich Lords had been removed from the game ten years ago, under a storm of player complaints, when they almost conquered Arthel for the second time. She faced him and made a face of serious gratitude.

“Thank you.”

“But be forewarned, that should you use this blessing for ill, or squander it selfishly, or seek to profit from it, you will look to it in your time of peril, and find it has abandoned you.”

Again, she nodded gravely. The Phantom stepped aside and motioned to the window behind it, and the sunset forest shifted to a dark night, where the stars fluttered under clouds of smoke.

“Return now to whence you came, and may you find magic in your waking life, and in all lives you pass through, on this grand journey of souls.”

She stopped, having set one foot on the stone windowsill, struck by something in its words, and turned back.

There was only the rough rock and dirt of a recess in the cliffside. Behind her, the rain rumbled and hissed as if it had never left, and a thin stream of water ran down her back. She turned around again, and found the smoking sky breaking in patches of glittering starlight above the dark forest,. Out at the horizon, a silver dawnglow radiated through whisps of spent storm clouds.

Her Avatar felt heavy as death, and her thoughts were almost drowned out by the tones and sensations of simulated exhaustion. She longed for silence, or at least for the pure undisturbed sound of the rain, a real rain.

And she realized, with something like an epiphany, that she could have it in an instant.

She laid her Avatar down, and reached in her mind for a mental box. She felt the latch unhook, felt the top slide back, and saw the switch. With a minute mental effort, the switch flipped, and her Spirit was separated from her Avatar.

The world dropped away from her at near light-speed, and she flew out past the moons and other planets of the system, until she floated out beyond the Arthelian field. With another mental exercise, this time a pressing of a mental keyfob, she summoned her craft.

A few moments later, she was drifting through the textured memories of her personal vault, grabbing only what she needed, the feel of a handlebar, the sensation of a road, a tiredness in her legs and core, and then she was gone.

Every time a car came down the highway, it was like a brush with death. The headlights would break out over a hill, waver in the air, seemingly frozen in place, sometime for what felt like hours, then grow all at once and zip past her at over ninety miles an hour, leaving only the same expanse of darkness outside the cone of her headlights, waiting to give birth to another.

Somewhere out beyond the black, beyond the edge of the world, the edge of her mind, beyond the Hardworlds themselves, dreams called to her. Dreams of easy summer evenings and a man with a lost name, whispering words that were like the shadows of ghosts.

But they were only dreams.

She ran their fragments over in her mind until they dissolved, like words beaten into unmeaning by their speaking, and tried to remember what she had found in them, what they had meant to her.

But, like searching the dark texture, there was only what her mind could imagine, nothing more.

The song on her earbuds changed. The speed metal sounds of Razor broke off, and there was a moment of empty silence as the road hummed beneath her.

Then the tremolo rhythm of ‘How soon is now?’ by The Smiths broke into her earbuds, and she began to cry.

She remembered the lyrics in reverse, and she knew that though she hadn’t found anything real in that phantom place, that crucible of spirit, but she also knew that she hadn’t given up looking for what it had impersonated. Her fall backward, away from that beckoning ever dream, was proof that she hadn’t yet given up looking for her own happiness, hadn’t yet surrendered it to some outside force, hadn’t yet begun to die.

Lightning flashed on the edge of the dark, great bursts of purple texture brushed by punch hole silhouettes of trees, and she smelled rain through her helmet. She knew it would be on the road soon, and she knew the rest stop three miles ahead would be scarce shelter, but she also knew that she would get what she had been longing for for so, so long.

She knew that she would hear the true sound of the rain.