“What’s happening?” a man asked.
“The Eyes are responding, my lord,” a younger man replied. “But… I’m not sure.”
“She’s not being rejected,” a woman said.
“She is being rejected!” a distraught man shouted. “Tell her to stop!”
“You can’t stop the ritual,” the first man said in his calm manner. “We can only wait for it to finish on its own.”
“Do you see what I see?!” the distraught man shouted. “She’s dying!”
“Analyzing the latest scans, standby,” a different young man cut in.
“Someone, please remove the king from the control room,” the calm man said.
Jessica heard the noises of a scuffle. One body fell to the ground, then another.
“The Eyes are responding,” the first young man said again. “She appears to be communicating with them.”
“How close is she to synchronizing?” the calm man asked.
“100%,” that young man replied. “She should have full control.”
“Very interesting,” the calm one said. “What is your plan, Mary? Did you ask for the ritual, just to reject the Eyes yourself?”
What bright light filled Jessica’s eyes began to fade and an image became clear. She was small, low to the ground, and floating in the grasp of young-looking woman. She was blonde, of a rose-colored complexion, and quite beautiful. Although her eyes were covered by a black blindfold, Jessica recognized her as the woman painted in portraits throughout the palace: Mary Darigon.
“You’re bold,” a telepathic voice communicated to Mary.
Jessica knew that to be the voice of the Eyes themselves, feminine and strange, as if it were distant and warped by static.
“Does that not excite you?” Mary asked through that same connection.
Jessica had never met Mary before her death, and what she heard was a voice much like her own.
“Yes,” the eyes replied. “I want to understand.”
“What’s there to understand?” Mary smiled. It was an expression that reached Jessica in the void, made her still heart palpitate with a new beat. “I want to turn this fate on its head.”
“But not your fate,” the eyes said. “What you want is unusual.”
“I want to cut the Sword of Damocles from its thread,” Mary said. “Isn’t it typical for mortals to struggle against the things they cannot change?”
The eyes seemed to laugh.
“Well?” Mary asked.
“You will have only one chance,” the eyes said. “You could fail, your effort could be ignored, and the future you foresee may never come to pass. You could die for nothing.”
“I would rather die tearing the web,” she said. “Than live another day on the spider’s terms.”
The eyes appeared to pause and Mary’s skin began to burn. It charred and turned black; withered, diminished, as if Mary’s very essence was being burned away.
“He said something similar,” the eyes remarked. “There will be many more galaxies for you, but this one is ours.”
“Is that similar?” she asked.
“They both lack common sense,” the eyes replied.
Mary’s skin-tight bodysuit burned away. Her arms were blackened to their bones and turned to dust. However, as painful as it was, there was a smile on her emaciated face.
“Quest accepted, with pleasure.”
The remnants of Mary’s body turned black and broke away in flecks of charcoal, until all that remained was a pile of dust. The dream faded; the window closed shut. Jessica felt herself hurled back into the dark, until she was caught in another’s arms.
Outside the abyss, outside even the chrysalis, Giles stood alone. His skin was red with burns, his heat-resistant clothing singed along the hem and scorched brown by the heat. His own spell protected him from the worst of the heat, but it was impossible to nullify.
Despite severe injuries he remained on the floor of the control room. Jessica was ahead of him, curled in a fetal position, floating at the center of a sphere of liquid mana. Her arms were black and damaged, but the rest of her body endured unharmed.
Giles expected something else.
“Is there something missing?” he wondered aloud. “She’s so close! One push, I can feel it!”
As if provoked, the phantom wings of a bird emerged, spread from Jessica’s back. Giles’ eyes were struck wide; a winged woman emerged from Jessica’s spine, as a butterfly breaks its chrysalis.
“Is this it?!” he shouted.
The translucent phantom reached her arms around the sorceress, hugged her from behind. Her large wings folded around Jessica and cradled her gently.
“Incredible,” Giles muttered. “No, nothing like this has ever happened. No—we never—we never dreamed. Is it a function of the Eyes? Could it be an Ego?” The technologist tried to push forward, but he was rebuffed by the heat. “If only I could get closer,” he seethed.
Jessica heard a voice in her black void.
“I’m sorry,” a woman said. “This was the only thing I could think of.”
The blue arms of a phantom reached around her and seemed to hold her invisible shell. Jessica recognized the woman. Mary? she wondered, as she had no voice to speak.
“I would have liked to have known you,” the voice continued. “If I couldn’t have been your mother, then I would have enjoyed seeing you grow as a sorceress. I hope life hasn’t been too hard for you. I hope Kalen is healthy, and I hope Eric forgave him. I hope he forgave me, too.”
I don’t understand, Jessica thought.
“But I digress. This presence of mine may feel hollow, it may appear to you like a dream, but it was the best I could manage. I had to slip his notice, stick my knife in the pit of his armor. Else the Sword of Damocles would fall on your head, and you would be destroyed.”
Sword? What sword?!
“You are a Non-Player Character.”
Jessica’s confusion halted immediately, hesitated as if seized by the throat.
“By the power of your Eyes, you will know I say the truth.”
I’m… an NPC? Jessica wondered.
“You were born as an experiment, made from an experiment; to live and die, and thereby teach your creator about the matrix that traps him. He rages against his cage, and turns to witless tricks to further his plans. I do not hate him, but I confess, when he revealed your purpose, I felt anger.
“I was not real to him. But you were real to me.”
Tears pricked in Jessica’s physical eyes, wide with the light of the Eyes of the Sorcerer.
“This was my trick. The Eyes gave me this chance, and now you must make good on it. Escape your death, and break your fate. Even if you fail, it is better to die trying, than to live forever as his pawn. I will show you how to cut the sword—the power that you cannot contain—and I will place it in your hands. Then, even our master will shake.”
Jessica looked down and saw her hands, flush with color against the abyss, real as they ever were. The long arms of the phantom moved to hold them, lay its hands so as to match Jessica’s movement. The sorceress felt pressure on the back of her fingers and she moved as the phantom directed; held her right arm forward as if to hold a bow, and her left arm tucked to her chest, pinched on an invisible string.
Jessica felt she was oriented to aim toward the sky.
“There is a secret to the Sword of Damocles,” the phantom explained. “The Eyes may be dangerous, but they can be mastered. How you control them depends on your quest, the wish first made when the Eyes accepted your vessel.
“What was it you wished for, Jessica? Bring it to the forefront of your mind. Use it to shape the mana; hold the eyes to their sworn own oath.”
Jessica saw it, an orange-shaded forest at the height of autumn, and the cold water of a rushing river. She heard a scream, a cry for help, and then nothing. The one that was always at her side, the one that always supported her, as her father ignored her, and her mother treated her strange. The one that stood by her, even though they knew she wasn’t a real child.
I wanted to protect the weakest person in the world, she thought, and a bow of blue mana crystalized in her grasp. Drawn in its string was a blue arrow, electrified by arcs of lightning.
“The Eyes don’t want you to fail,” the phantom continued. “But they are just tools. You must call on them with your wish. They will answer—they must answer.”
“They will answer,” the phantom said again.
“They must answer.”
Anton, Jessica thought. I abandoned you once. When I break this siege, I’ll never leave your side.
The arrow appeared to shake of its own will as it rattled against the bow; it yearned for release.
I will break this siege, Jessica thought.
I will break everything that stands between us.
“Let your arrow fly.”
Beyond the abyss, in storm-troubled waters of the Brass Sea, an admiral stood atop a battleship’s conning tower. He wore the dark-blue uniform, pinned with medals and furnished with the green-colored shoulder tassels of the navy. His eyes were glued to a pair of binoculars as he frowned.
“Achlesial damn them,” the old admiral Giovanni muttered, amidst the wafting smoke of gunpowder.
He lowered his binoculars and squinted at the shield, covered in smoke, laced with bursts of flame. An orange flash illuminated the harsh metal cabin, the armored citadel of the Empress Atheria, and her guns howled again.
“It’s lasted four minutes,” he said to himself. “And it’s still blue as ever.”
A streak of explosions quaked the barrier, sent ripples down its oscillating exterior. The Empress Atheria had struck true, but that was the fourth full broadside, and nothing had changed.
“Sir?” a young officer asked, regarded the admiral with a salute.
“What is it?” the admiral asked.
“You look like you have something on your mind,” he said.
“No, it’s just… well, let’s keep firing and see how this turns out,” the admiral said, looked through his binoculars. “If it doesn’t fall in the next two minutes, I’ll speak my mind to Stefano.”
There was a blue flash, cast bright against the back of the conning tower. The admiral lowered his binoculars and stumbled as the sea lashed the ship, and the storm above boomed with thunder. The officer caught the admiral’s fall.
“What happened?” the officer asked urgently.
“The shield—!”
Blue light illuminated the cabin and the officer looked through the conning tower slit. Beams of lightning fell on the ocean, swept through the waves like swords from heaven. They cut through the water, crossed a destroyer and annihilated it in a burst of fire. The two heavy cruisers ahead met the same fate, sliced clean in half. And before the admiral could utter a word, his binoculars slipped from his hand, and he was washed by the light.
The Empress Atheria capsized, rolled into the sea.
The pride of Atilonia had melted in half.
