Part 3
He stood and watched the army of Frenaria wage its war against the sea. Arcaena was a port town. It would be the most important port town in the world if it weren’t controlled by a [Witch], and that wouldn’t be the case much longer. A port ant water, and water ant food, and it hadn’t taken the army long to realize that.
The water was covered with every sort of boat or dinghy imaginable, made of wood or anything else that could be found or summoned. [Warriors] with long spears stood on rafts, stabbing downwards, and high level [Hunters] flung their arrows deep into the water, letting the fish rise to the surface after death. Hundreds stood on the shore with makeshift fishing poles, though those rarely found anything now. The shore was beyond overfished, and the army had to go deeper and deeper into the waves every day.
A literal ton of sea life was extracted from the ocean every day. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was better than nothing.
He’d still been pulling himself together during their first al back at camp, and he’d missed it. He’d gotten the recap afterwards, though. They’d been served fish. Hedrek and Cid had been very pleased, but Govannon turned his nose up to it, claiming that seafood was for poor people. Complaining about any kind of food was absolutely not in vogue right now, and the others in the Lance were still giving him grief about it.
Especially since he was so wrong. Only most things pulled from the water were considered poor people food. Giant bugs, eels, snakes, shellfish, squids, and various monsters were all considered als of desperation. But if you could coax an actual fish out of the water, that was a delicacy. It was funny how it was the sa here as in Hammon’s Bog.
On Mark’s Earth, in his past life, it had been different. They’d been crazy for lobster there, which just seed strange to him now. More proof that his past life really was past, and that he was Aberthol now.
Aberthol hated what they were doing to the beach. He couldn’t bla them, but he hated the way the heavy traffic turned the pristine smooth-stone beaches into mud. It was ugly now, nothing like how he rembered. He’d been here many tis as a child, and it was one of his few mories that weren’t terrible.
Aberfa had loved the sea. She, Cadwy, and he had spent hours simply walking along, listening to the cries of the birds, the lapping waves, and the clicking of the stones beneath their feet. She’d even let him play, a little, and often forgot he was there entirely. The mory was so clear it was like he was back there. He could still rember the sll, the feeling of a stone in his hand as he tossed it into the waves. How had he convinced himself that he’d forgotten all of this?
There were still blank spots in his mories, and he still only had a blurry image at best of how the fight with Zaff had gone. So of his minds had to be reintegrated by force. So of the threads hadn’t accepted his authority when he’d told them to return and had to be cancelled. But most, he’d simply taken back. Many minds had considered themselves too broken to be safely reintegrated, but he’d accepted them all. The pain of their reunification was nothing compared to the horrors of his past.
Maybe he had been right to be in denial for so long, pretending he didn’t rember what she did to him. He’d had a much harder ti shaking off the lethargy, the numbness that he’d built up to protect himself. Sotis he thought about using [Say What’s True] against himself again, to forget it all. But no, hadn’t he already proved those mories were valuable? He rembered the best way to get into the palace and that would be important once they got through the walls. He rembered Arcaena’s most popular poisons and had shown their [Alchemists] the recipes to counter them. He rembered the nas and faces of a score of [Witches] as well as many of their specialties. He’d probably already saved a hundred lives by coming out of denial and he might have saved a thousand if he’d done so sooner.
There were personal benefits, too. He rembered the General Skills Aberfa had instructed him to take, and how to advance and rge them. He wanted to take [Recovery], and had a pretty good idea on how to rge it with [Scarred, but Healing]. There was one little problem with that.
General Skills locked due to unstable ntal state.
He still didn’t get to see what he’d earned from defeating Zaff, either.
Skill selection locked due to unstable ntal state.
Achievent locked due to unstable ntal state.
He’d tried everything. He’d tried returning himself in case he was a thread split off soone else. He’d spamd the chat endlessly asking if there was anyone still left. He’d spent hours in ditation, trying to find any remaining rebellious threads in the dark recesses of his mind. There was only silence.
Not real, not real, not real, not real…
[Know What’s Real] had been murmuring softly now and then, and he still didn’t know the cause of that, either. Was there an illusion on the army? The sea? Whatever it was, it was too subtle to be picked apart by his patrols of Invisible Eyes or his judicial use of lasers.
Aberthol sighed and turned away from the fishing army. He didn’t know exactly how long he’d been out here. He lost track of ti, in his numbness, when no one else was around. When people were around, it was worse. But he had a duty.
He walked, rcifully losing track of ti again. His feet knew where to go. Then he put on a delighted grin and joined his Lance in the practice field.
“Who’s the best Lance in the universe? Out of a hundred universes it’s the Long Sleep’s Fifty-First!” he sang, pumping a fist as he approached. So of the n groaned and rolled their eyes, but he was wearing them down and a few were already smiling.
He stepped next to Hedrek and shadow-boxing, said, “He can punch! He can jab! Pressing back hordes of goblins, armies of undead, and even level 70 Wights, it’s Hedrek the [Hero]!”
Hedrek tried to push him away in fond annoyance, but Aberthol was already moving, patting him on the back while throwing an arm around Anwir’s neck. His other arm gestured off into the distance. “Did you see? A glint of steel, a blur of movent, then a hole opens straight through Zaff’s heart. And there on the other side! Can you see him? It’s Anwir of the Iron Arrow!”
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He pushed off Anwir to do a one-sided and awkward chest bump on Aeron. “Aeron the unforgettable!”
Aberthol moved through his n, pumping them up, cheering for them. Yes, many of them acted annoyed, and maybe it was a bit annoying, but he could tell it also felt good, that he was making their day a tiny bit better.
He couldn’t believe that he used to muck around being grumpy and serious all the ti. There was already so much darkness in the world, so there was no excuse for being anything other than a ray of sunshine.
He was almost tempted to pull out one of those rings Brin had used to store all his mories, just to see what he’d been thinking. Almost, but lately he couldn’t bring himself to look through them or even to keep recording. Why borrow trouble from the past when there was already so much of it in the present? Really, using those rings was a nasty habit. He was glad he was quit of it.
“How are you doing, Brin?” Cid asked. A bit too perceptive, his Pri.
He didn’t let his happy grin falter. “To quote my dear friend Sion, how could I do anything other than most excellently? Only, the whole ‘Brin’ nickna has played itself out, I think. Just call Aberthol.”
“No, I don’t want to,” said Cid.
Aberthol pushed down the swell of anger with practiced ease. There wasn’t a right way to feel, but there was a right way to act. He’d sworn to himself that he was never going to be like Aberfa. He would never let his emotions control him. “As you please,” he said lightly.
Cid put a hand on his shoulder. “I need to know. If you won’t tell as your friend, then tell as your Pri. If we get called into action again, will I have my Second there with ?”
Cid had eyes that seed like they could see straight down into his soul. But luckily for Aberthol, there was nothing he cared to hide.
He softened the smile, and opted for a mont of seriousness. “I’m still recovering, ntally. But I’m ready for action. If we get called to fight, I’ll be as good as I ever was.”
“What you did to Zaff… don’t do it again,” said Cid.
“I shouldn’t have done it the first ti,” said Aberthol. “But if it’s between and the Lance, I’ll make the sa decision every ti.”
Cid shook his head. “It’s not all on you, Brin. These n know their duty. They’re prepared to die.”
“Prepared or not, I won’t let them.” He broke away from Cid’s grip. Chipper and excited again, he turned to the n. “So what are we doing today? Conditioning? Did I hear conditioning? No, I definitely heard soone say conditioning. What a coincidence! I just thought of a new way to torture my legs into limp noodles. Who wants to see?”
Aberthol stayed with his n as long as he could stand it, but staying around other people was exhausting. It was a kind of pressure that built and built until he couldn’t stand it anymore and had to get away.
Soon, he was out wandering again. In this way, his personality had made a regression since Zaff. Before that, he had a legendary kind of self-motivation that kept him thinking, scheming, training, and planning every waking mont of the day. Now, if there wasn’t soone there to remind him, he’d forget to do anything at all.
Marksi stayed with him. Trundling alongside him, playing with odd things they found around the way and hunting rats. His natural playfulness was a soothing balm. They could just live in the mont, uncaring and unworried.
Eventually, he found himself in the Frenarian army, among the regular soldiers. A bell rang to announce their one al a day, and they crowded over to the tables set up on the open ground, sitting and talking cheerily while waiting for their bowls to be filled.
Aberthold changed his appearance to match them and then went along. Not to steal their food, but simply to see what life was like for them. He realized now that he’d spent so much ti around the upper classes that he hardly knew the common man anymore. Maybe what he needed was so ti around the rugged, good-hearted, regular people, like his community back in Hammon’s Bog.
That was one thing about Mark’s outlook that Aberthol loved. Mark had treated the CEOs in the boardroom and the janitor in the breakroom exactly the sa. Not overly deferential, not a suck-up, and also not rude out of defensiveness or insecurity. He’d just told it like it is, no matter whom he was speaking to.
Two minutes in, Aberthol realized his mistake. Common soldiers were gross. They slled, had worse hygiene than even an army camp could completely be blad for. n would openly scratch their balls and then use the sa hand to eat stewed fish, even though there was a spoon right there. They were an, always trying to steal from each other or play pranks that would leave the other party bleeding or bruised. And their conversation was worse. The cleaner conversations were the ones where they were describing the nastiest effects of the disease-induced diarrhea.
The rest were all describing their various conquests with won. The stories were wildly improbable, often showing a keen misunderstanding of both male and female anatomy. They were also all wildly sadistic, and Aberthol would’ve wanted half these n hung from a noose if he believed that any of their stories were true.
In short, they were everything that Aberfa had warned him about. He still rembered when he’d snuck out to play with so children in the village near her country estate. She’d beaten the other children within an inch of their lives, forcing Aberthol to watch. Then to him, she explained, with maternal patience. “You are not to mix with their sort. They are not like you and I. Poor people are disgusting.”
There were tears in his eyes as he fled the camp. He didn’t want Aberfa to be right, not about anything.
A while later it was night, and he was watching the stars, and then Cati was standing next to him. There were bruises on her neck, nearly hidden by her collar, and she looked tired, and thin. He wondered if he should change his face to sothing more friendly, but she seed to be in a serious mood so he said nothing as she walked up next to him. She looked up at the stars.
“We’re all going to die soon. I know you can feel it, too,” said Cati.
An odd way to start a conversation, but Aberthol agreed. “I don’t know what I feel, but I can see it. We can’t get into the capitol, but we also can’t leave. We can’t stay either, so the only thing left is to turn on each other.”
Already, the three warcamps were splitting off from each other. Grimwalt’s army used to have a large contingent of Prinnashian and Ollandish soldiers, but those had all left back to the armies of their own nations. Soon, the Order of the Long Sleep would need to leave the southern army as well, else it would be seen as siding with Frenaria in the coming conflict.
“After we turn on each other, Arcaena leaves the capital with whatever she’s hiding there and finishes us off,” Aberthol said.
“Maybe, but my instincts are saying that death is coming from the west. In Prinnash, we say that every woman is a little bit a [Witch]. Maybe it’s the turning of Fate,” said Cati.
The western horizon still had a little bit of red, the last remnants of the sunset. If Aberthol squinted, he could pretend that it was a rising fla that would soon consu them all.
“I had a chance to leave. No shipnts are coming in, but we’re still sending wagons out. After all I went through to get the [Caravaneer] Class, I had a chance to go drive a wagon and I didn’t take it. I think I’m ant to stay here. I need to see it through to the end.”
“I think I understand,” said Aberthol. If he survived this, he would still forever be the scared little boy hiding under Aberfa’s table. “I’ll fight the end with all I’ve got. But I’m ready for it. You… you should go, though. Go and live a happy life.”
“Hm,” Cati said, and then they watched in silence.
Ti passed. The night darkened. There was no trace of red on the horizon when a disturbance ca. n were shouting, sothing was coming. He sent his Invisible Eyes out to see. Coming down the road from Witchtown were five freight wagons, filled with food. And there, riding in the front on a white stallion, shining like the sun even in the middle of the night, was a [Paladin].
Lothar had arrived.
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