Age of War

Chapter 35

Jonis stared blindly into the absolute darkness that surrounded her. She might as well have had her eyes shut – here, so deep underground, beneath the awesome weight of this mountain, no natural light filtered down. Her assurance deserted her in an instant: what had possessed her to come down here like this? Why had she sent the others away? She had no rational explanation for anything that had occurred since the previous morning. It was like she’d been controlled by a will not her own. “Who are you?” she asked the black with a wavering voice.

“Don’t you recognise me, Jonis?”

“How can I recognise you when I can’t see you?” Scared as she was, the anger rose up in her too. Who was this man stalking her in this secret place? Where had he come from? Her sword was hanging from her belt. She couldn’t see her target, of course, but if she followed the voice and flailed around, it might at least do some damage. Most of all, it would make her feel like she was in control of the situation. Her hand was already moving.

“My voice, Jonis. Don’t you know my voice?” There was a soft chuckle, and she froze. She did know that sound. But from where?

“I…say something again…”

“Maybe I’m just making too much sense now.”

That’s when it slid into place. She opened her mouth in shock, for all the good it did. “Malick?!”

“Indeed.”

“But…but that’s impossible…” The ancient Keeper who’d been her only companion in her exile to this vault’s equivalent in Atlas was an invalid, his mind broken by age, a bent and weary man. There was no way he could follow them so far.

“You’ve seen many things since you arrived here, Jonis. Has your impression of what is possible and what isn’t not been expanded of late?”

It was unmistakably Malick’s voice, but now he spoke in complete sentences, and his voice rang with power and authority. Had it all been an act? If so, for what purpose? “You’re a hundred leagues away,” she told him firmly, “beneath Atlas. There’s no way you could have escaped somehow and made your way here without us noticing.”

“There is one way.”

“Are you going to tell me then?” She was certain this was some twisted game. Perhaps all of this had been set up to lure her here for some hideous purpose. Or maybe, a treacherous thought whispered, she’d never left that pit, and everything she’d experienced since coming back into the light had been a hallucination brought on by despair and madness.

“I came with you. And I never left.”

“What?”

“I am not Malick. Not truly. I am a shadow of a ghost of the man that once came to this city, long ago.”

“Came to this city? What do you mean?”

“I will tell you the story of Malick, for it is one now known to very few left alive. I was a Loneborn.”

Jonis nodded, understanding. A Loneborn might perform great service as a Keeper, and even win renown of a sort, but they would never truly master a Cyclops of their own. That required twins.

“I was content with my lot,” Malick’s voice continued, now seeming to come from all around her, “but like you I became curious about our ancestors. I noticed the same inconsistencies, and followed the same clues, though it took me rather longer, lacking as I did the kind aid your friends provided. I left, against the orders of my Matriarch, and searched long for the lost city of Omega. It took me over a year of wandering the mountains to find it.”