Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

RANDOM ISLAND, NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA

August Vasilias shook his head as he stumbled despite his tensa-enhanced balance. It was another wave of weakness and the itch right beneath his skin had become constant. He had always assumed that he would never die. For Amethyst rank Reborn, death was something they dealt to others; he had stopped reckoning with his own mortality so long ago that he couldn’t even remember anymore. After regaining his balance, he activated the last automated routine for the Gate’s activation.

He went back to the main control terminal and pressed a few buttons. A meter square panel in the floor next to him slid back silently and automatically. There was a rack within that rose out of the floor showing six large batteries with thirty smaller batteries arranged in a hexagonal array. August checked the readout for each battery, checking that they were all firmly seated in their terminals and that there was no wear on them.

The tensa batteries had drained at a predictable rate. The weakest had been the largest one he’d most recently brought back from the Moon. It was weakest because it had been used for the longest, but truth be told, they were all fairly weak. It had taken decades to get all the batteries he had. He’d thought they’d be used for his and Cerise’s triumphant return. His triumphant return anyway. But fate had a funny way of interfering with even the best plans. Satisfied that the batteries were not any more drained than they should be, he typed another command and the batteries retracted back into the floor.

He brought up the video feed to the operating rooms. Always so messy to see a Rebirth, he thought in vague disgust at the scene unfolding on the screens. He left the control room and strode back down the long walkway towards the elevator back to the surface, his steps coming a little less measured with the first hint of a limp. More black smoke arose from him. He scratched at his neck where the itch felt particularly irritating.

Griffin and Sarah’s operations were progressing as smoothly as he could hope. August nodded in satisfaction and set the two tablets he’d collected onto a couple of waiting gurneys. The tablets had been loaded with information pertinent to Reborn society. He’d provided Sarah and Griffin with a few essentials stored in some crates which would be sent through the Gate when it opened and those supplies would have to be enough for them. The Earth was not going to survive the freeing of The Herald and neither was he. He felt another pang of guilt for the fates of his engineers but savagely pushed it down. He had done what he had done and there was no use in wishing he had not.

August felt the Bleakness as a constant cold ache that scratched just below his skin, as irritating as it was deadly, and marveled that he had been so willfully ignorant of it for so long. He reached the elevator, looking up at the ceiling with a trembling resolve. He did not want to die. He wasn’t meant to die; he was Amethyst rank! He should have been ruling his House and preparing to Ascend. But since he was going to die despite what he had always expected, he wasn’t going to meet that death hiding away in the control room. There was a spot on the lighthouse balcony he knew of that would give him an unimpeded view of the end. He and the Earth would die together.

He caught his breath as the elevator doors slid shut and a wave of weakness passed over him. He staggered, reaching a hand out and catching himself on the wall. When the wave passed, he was soaked in sweat and the cold within him had grown even more intense

He pressed the button for the top floor and closed his eyes as the elevator began its ascent. In the quiet, the Bleakness felt like it was hollowing him out from the inside, each layer being methodically scratched away. The sound of the elevator dinging pulled him back from these morbid thoughts. He stepped out onto the hidden path carved into the rock at the base of the lighthouse, beneath which he'd concealed his secret lab. The path, just above sea level at high tide, was perpetually damp, never quite escaping the ocean's reach. The waves were pounding against the rocks and ocean spray soaked him before he could take more than a few steps.

He was completely exposed to the wind and spray on his secret walkway and the stairs were slick and treacherous at all times. It was dark on the path since the moon was blocked by the rocky promontory above and he walked up the stairs slowly, keeping a solid grip on the cold metal rail bolted into the rock. The walkway led up to a small door at the bottom of the lighthouse which he used a key to unlock. He climbed slowly up the inner iron spiral stairway into the lighthouse’s lightroom. It was blindingly bright here as the reflector spun around the enormous bulb. He used a quick surge of tensa-laden anima to blow out the light, leaving the Lighthouse in blessed darkness. He didn’t feel like squinting, and he was too impatient now to use the power-down sequence.

August went out onto the iron balcony that wrapped around the lighthouse and sat down, looking out over the howling chaos the ocean had become. Waves the size of buildings slammed into the rocky promontory, spraying white water up above the roof of the lighthouse and soaking him to the skin. The wind howled and ragged clouds sped through the sky as they were torn apart by hurricane-force winds at high altitudes. He settled himself into his meditative lotus position, readying himself for death.

But something was off. He could not attain the inner peace he wanted to meet his death with. His thoughts were scattered, his emotions raw. The persistent scratching of the Bleakness had progressed aggressively. It wasn’t subtle anymore. It felt like whole chunks of his insides were getting ripped away and replaced with…nothing. He glanced down and saw little wisps of black smoke rising from his forearm. He knew this was a bad sign, that this meant his death was going to creep up on him within the hour. But there was something still bothering him that wasn’t the Bleakness. An odd thought occurred to him: If Kyle were here, he’d probably have some podcast to recommend or a self-help book.

Wait. His frown deepened. Why am I thinking of my assistant now? Here at the end of all things? It wasn’t just Kyle though. I’ve been feeling the whole team’s absence walking these halls…I mourn them. He, August Vasilias, High Seat of a Great House of the Eternal Empire of the Radiant Sun, immortal Reborn of the highest rank…he was mourning people whose lives were—to him—as fleeting as an eyeblink. With that resolved, he once more tried to sink into his death trance, but once again, inner peace escaped him.

Stop lying to yourself. The thought came unbidden. He bristled, then realized what he was doing. I’m getting angry at myself for pointing out that I’m lying to myself. He sighed again, abandoning his attempts at meditation as he allowed himself to give voice to the thoughts that had prevented him from achieving the peace he needed.

“I can’t just let them die,” he said, words lost in the roar of the water. As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. But what could he do now? The Earth was ending, The Herald was beginning to tear it apart from within. The weather and earthquakes were the first death throes of the planet and would be getting worse and worse before the entire planet would be destroyed by the terrible forces at the Herald’s command. Then something occurred to him: the dimensional dampeners on the Gate.

Cerise would have placed dampeners in the core mechanism to prevent overload, he thought. But an overload of the Gate’s dimensional dampeners would create an unstable portal. I can use that to give others at least a chance to escape the fate I decreed for the Earth. Once Griffin and Sarah are through, I can bypass the dampeners by rerouting the arcanic flow through a series of resonant crystals. By adding my own tensa to the main power conduit, I can intentionally overload the Gate’s spell matrices. But this must be done only after Griffin and Sarah have safely passed through.

The resultant instability would mean that the Gate effect would not be confined to the structure of the Gate itself, but would—very briefly—ripple through the adjacent dimensional fabric. He knew that the disruption would cause the portal to manifest in multiple locations simultaneously, albeit for just a few ephemeral seconds.

With tensa barely sustaining him, he struggled to keep his balance. One misstep on the stairs could send him plummeting into the cold grasp of the Atlantic. He forced himself down the spiral staircase, battling against the relentless ocean spray and the slippery steps that seemed to conspire against him.

Reaching the elevator at the base, he was relieved when the doors opened smoothly at the press of a button. Drenched and exhausted, he slumped inside, silently cursing the heavy, waterlogged robe. As the elevator descended to the project's main floor, thoughts of his daring plan filled his mind. Cerise would never have approved, but it was no longer just about saving Griffin and Sarah. There were more lives at stake.

Each step towards the Gate was a struggle, but he pushed on, driven by the thought of what lay ahead. When he got to the Gate, he had to take several seconds to refocus his will. With a pained growl, August allowed his glowing wings to materialize for the first time in more than five hundred years. He nearly smiled when he saw them materializing this one last time, but his face fell when he saw that they were shot through with veins of black and had faded to near-total transparency. His wings had been glorious once and now—! He gritted his teeth, putting his tattered-looking wings out of his mind, and used them to fly up to the apex of the Gate.

The inner ring of the Gate was a blur now, its rapid spin generating a fierce wind that whipped August's robes around him. The ring had reached a thousand RPMs and was swiftly accelerating towards its peak speed of twelve to thirteen thousand RPMs. Circling the housing, he quickly located the panel Cerise must have installed.

A small, recessed button caught his eye, and with a grim smile, he pressed it, revealing the panel's contents.

Inside lay a complex array of arm-thick cables, a testament to advanced etheric engineering. These cables, capable of channeling both electrical power and tensa, were bound by wide metal bands. August hesitated, knowing the pain his next move would bring. But the sight of black smoke rising from his skin jolted him into action. Time was running out.

He forcefully snapped the metal ties, feeling his strength waning. Focusing on the main power cord, thick and wrapped in silver runes, he yanked it to gain some slack. The Gate trembled in response. He then used his least powerful Destructive Nexus graft to strip away the heavy insulation, revealing the pulsating blue core of the wire. Repeating the process on another power cord, he prepared for his next step.

August extended his anima, stretching his awareness to its limits. He could feel The Herald's cold presence, strongest right above him. Resigned to his fate yet determined, he braced himself. Cerise would have disapproved of his drastic measures, but in her absence, August was resolute in his decision to proceed.

As he stretched out his senses, he was nearly blasted into unconsciousness as the entire Earth rang like a bell. The deep, sonorous, and terribly ominous sound was the sound of the planet tearing apart, August knew it, and there was nothing he could do about it anymore. Suddenly the oppressive sense of The Herald was there all around him, inveigling itself into his psyche, its presence like a virulent infection. The damn thing was still on the Moon, but its mind was so damn strong! When it spoke, The Herald’s dry voice was stronger now than it had ever been before.

I expected you to be here, but I didn’t expect you to be dead already! Look at you, August Vasilias. You’re barely able to stand! It sounded disappointed, its voice a little petulant. Still, even if I can’t kill you personally, it’s not like I didn’t kill you. The Bleakness is such a lovely condition, don’t you agree? I find it especially amusing that you denied the truth of it for so long.

August tried to ignore the voice, but it was so loud. He couldn’t just shut it out of his mind like he had in the past. The Herald’s presence was so strong, he felt like it was breathing down his neck and it made his skin crawl. He felt time stretch endlessly before him, but he had to wait. The Bleakness kept eating away at him from the inside out, its signature black smoke constantly billowing up from him.

At the end of the walkway, two gurneys come rolling in on automated transports. Strapped to the gurneys were the naked figures of Sarah and Griffin. August couldn’t tell through the smoke in his eyes whether or not they were breathing, but it didn’t really matter. The automated sequence would carry out its programming whether they were alive or not. The gurneys trundled down the walkway with careful slowness.

August didn’t wait for The Herald to continue taunting him. He gripped the exposed wires convulsively, knowing he would lose his nerve if he waited any longer. He screamed as he completed the circuit and felt the tensa rip through him in a wild, unconstrained torrent. Had he been mortal, he would have been instantly flash-burned to nothingness. Instead of burning away though, August clung to the exposed cores of wire and felt tensa pour through him and into the wires. The Gate responded and began to speed its rotation once more. With the amount of tensa flowing out of him and into the Gate, it spun up to nominal speed almost immediately. It whined a little as its RPMs increased higher and higher.