Chapter 1
The Bridge – Summer of 1017 BE
It had been hundreds of years since I had entered The Bridge. I hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t had a sane thought since. It was because of the nothingness The Bridge was made of. It turns out that bridging two worlds together causes the space in between to have strange properties that certainly did not help anyone keep their sanity. I had been sent, along with all the other Guardians, because I had an affinity with the nothingness. Coexisting with it I nearly became nothing myself – just enough of something remained to maybe be called alive. I vaguely remembered they use to call us anti-mages, but the title I mostly remember being called was Guardian. The nothingness that made up The Bridge was what permeated my skin making us one and the same. It prevented any magic from directly interacting with me. It also meant that unlike normal living beings I did not slowly fade away when surrounded by nothing. I just continued to exist along with it.
I remember the other Guardians vaguely. They like me looked almost like ghosts in this strange place. These days I was the only one left out of the Guardians. I had the greatest affinity with the nothingness out of everyone. They all slowly failed to balance being one with the nothing. Becoming too much of something they slowly aged or if they lost their something entirely, they vanished. Not me, what must have been hundreds of years after my last phantom friend died of old age, I was still nothing – and a tiny bit of something. I stood and waited for the enemy to try to cross again. There had once been a purpose to this, we Guardians had held The Bridge while others worked to collapse it. I only vaguely remembered those plans. I stood, I fought, and I stood some more. Never growing tired, never fading. I was the nothingness, and the nothingness infused every part of me. Until it didn’t.
At my side of The Bridge, the door that I had protected my entire life, opened. The enemy noticed from their side; their door also opened. I could feel the massive spell wash over me and attack The Bridge. That’s not right, it shouldn’t have been able to touch it. For the first time a crack appeared. The enemy charged at me and I stood my ground. The ground, however, fell away. The ground, the enemy, and I were pulled towards the door at my back and flew into the world I had, probably, once known. The door that linked to another world dissolved into the nothingness it was made from. I flew through the air and stared at the lines of people in gleaming armor charging towards me. I could feel my hands, my square clean-shaven face, broad shoulders, and the slight fat that prevented me from being perfect. It must have been the condition I entered The Bridge in. Or I was actually a ghost and just took over someone else’s body. How is one supposed to determine if they are in their own body or not? Such thoughts bombarded me in the cacophony of sensations I was suddenly subject to. Then a thousand years of no sleep hit my mind all at once and I felt a painful sensation in my stomach that I was unfamiliar with. I would not fail to these new challenges. I stood fending off the growling beast in my own stomach. The lancing pain in my mind telling me to close my eyes. I would not give in; I would fight to the end. I reached for the nothingness, it was distant and difficult, barely there at all. I struggled to pull at it and become one – I had it, I was so close, I just had to get used to the new difficulty. Then my head started to hurt for an entirely different reason, I looked back at the hammer wielding enemy for a second before falling over. For the first time, in a long time my eyes closed, and sleep took me.
……….
It felt amazing. I was on a cloud in heaven, the cloud was so soft, so comfortable that I never wanted to move again. It was the best moment of my life. I opened my eyes and looked at the god given gift. I was laying on a long rectangular piece of perfection with a blanket over me. Another human, like me but different, started walking over to me. I think they were called girls or was it females, women? What was the difference between these words? I didn’t want to look like an idiot and use the wrong word so I said nothing when the human reached me. It would have been just my luck to say, “hello woman” and haveing that be wrong. The human spoke with the strangest accent I had ever heard, not that I really remembered hearing anything but my own voice. It was hard to understand, and she was talking so fast. Did I just think of her as she, that means that she must be a woman! Right? Or was it a girl? What was the difference?
Something in my face must have given away that I wasn’t understanding her because the tirade of sound stopped. She looked at me and spoke much more slowly,
“What… is… your… name?”
That was easy I was Jacob… she was still looking at me. Why was she looking at me?
“What… your… name?” this time she spoke insultingly slow and used hand motions. I didn’t understand why she was doing this, my name was Jacob… she was still looking at me. Suddenly I remembered! I had to speak!
“Jacob”
The way I suddenly came back to myself and answered must have made the woman - or was the word lady? - think I was ready for her tirade of sound again. All I really understood was the question at the end, “ anyway, what army are you from?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
My army? What was my army? It had been so long I couldn’t remember, “I don’t remember,” I told the woman – for now, I would stick with the word woman at least in my head.
“You don’t remember anything?”
…
…
Was I supposed to be doing something?
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…
That’s right I need to speak as well. We were having a conversation! But what was I supposed to say? I remembered things, like my name. “I remembered my name”.
The woman looked a little concerned as she spoke, “I am going to discharge you and send you over to the duty officer at the capital's army”.
I didn’t understand. After a few seconds, she sighed and continued, “with an escort, it looks like you will need it”.
At least it was getting easier to understand the words she was saying. Even if I didn’t understand the meaning behind them. She should really fix that accent, it sounded nothing like how I vaguely remembered people sounding. However, I couldn’t think about that because the greatest smell ever reached my nose as the woman handed me a plate. I just looked at the things on it creating such amazing smells. In what I could only call frustration the woman grabbed the object and shoved it in my mouth. The greatest thing I could ever remember tasting hit my tongue. It was after all the only thing I could remember tasting. This day truly could not get any better.
I could not get over how big the world was. It was huge. There was so much space. I didn't even have to fear falling off the edge!
“Did you hear me son?”
Oops, I forgot to listen to the duty officer.
“No sir”, Why did I call him sir? It must be another one of those habits I just can’t remember having.
“I do not like repeating myself”
“Yes sir”
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…
What was this tension, was I sweating? Was this duty officer doing this to me on purpose? This was why I had missed his words the first time, he just sat there looking at me for so long my mind drifted to how massive the world was. It had a blue sky! This time was different, I could feel his gaze on me, and it was uncomfortable. I wanted to shift, but I had stood still for longer than this before. This man would not make me move!
I shifted my weight. Who was this man? A god of making others nervous?
“Since you don’t remember where you’re from, I am sending you as part of the replacement force for the lady Thea White. She lost most of her knights at The Bridge Battle, so the army is providing replacements. We don’t want to lose good men, so I am sending you. Any questions?”
I thought about all the questions I had but I could see he wasn’t going to answer them so I prioritized with one I hoped he might, “What do you call humans that are like men but not men?” I used my hands to demonstrate the major differences especially in the chest area.
The officer laughed, “a woman” he managed to get out as he waved his hand in dismissal. The slightly more composed man by the tent flap moved me back outside to get what he called “real clothing not a rag from the hospital”. I didn’t care I was just happy I had been right. I had been talking to a woman! This truly was the best day ever.
I couldn’t keep the smile off my face, from the god given so-called “bed” to the “food” to the big world with sights and wonders it had been the best day I could ever remember. Now I had clothing, the man who gave them to me said they didn’t fit me right but obviously he was wrong. They weren’t falling off so they must fit right. You would think a quartermaster who gives out uniforms all the time would know that. Besides with how everyone keeps looking at me I must look good in the uniform.
“Stop making eye contact with everyone. And smiling, stop smiling”
My escort jolted me from my thoughts. How else was I supposed to look at people? And why was he against smiling? I looked at him in utter confusion, he looked back before turning away and speeding up. He didn’t look or talk to me the rest of the way.
We finally made it to our destination, a group of sorry looking men in miss matching uniforms standing around a carriage. The escort with me handed a small man with glasses a piece of paper before speaking.
“you are cleared to go, here is your last replacement”
The man with glasses looked over at me, “where is his weapon?”
“ask him” my escort replayed looking annoyed, and all eyes fell on me.
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…
“well where is your weapon”
My weapon? Did I ever have a weapon? I definitely borrowed weapons, mostly from the enemy, ok only from the enemy. Sometimes I returned them, sometimes I didn’t. Did that make me a bad person? Should I have returned all my borrowed weapons? They never seemed happy when I did. I just couldn’t remember having a weapon of my own, I must have at some point. Right?
“I can’t remember if I ever had one”
“You can’t remember”
“Right, they said he got hit in the head and was an idiot now”
My answer didn’t appear to make the man with glasses happy. When my escort called me an idiot, Glasses looked even more upset. I was just insulted at being called an idiot. I knew more about clothing than the quartermaster after all.
“I don’t know how we are supposed to make the trip safely if you keep giving us men like him”
Glasses was clearly pointing at me, my escort responded but I was busy looking over the other men around us. Men like me, were they really? My excitement overtook me, and I started to inspect them. One man who hadn’t been paying attention stood up when I approached and held his hands at his sides as I inspected him. That is until others nudged them and whispered in their ears. I didn’t see any that looked like me, were they Guardians too? I didn’t detect the nothingness in any of them. How odd, in what way were they like me? I was sure I would figure it out eventually.
Then the small man with glasses suddenly bent over for some reason. “My lady we are ready to depart”
The so called lady – how was she different than a woman? – appeared and walked towards the carriage. She nodded but didn’t speak as she entered it. Two men climbed up onto the driver's bench one grabbing the reins and the other a crossbow. The man with glasses mounted a horse as did one other man and road out in front of the carriage as the rest lined up behind. Someone grabbed my shoulder and led me behind the carriage as it started to move. We followed at a fast walk and for some reason I felt excitement bubbling up inside me. This was a new feeling, I didn’t know where we were going but we had a lady, a stern man with glasses, and a group of people apparently just like me. This was so much better than nothingness.