Heretical Edge

Now really wasn't the time to sit around thinking about what the hell was going on. I only had a second to take advantage of the opening I had created. Charmeine was lying on top of Sariel, who was on her back as they both tried to recover from being violently flung into one another. Before either of them could extricate themselves, I quickly spat two large globs of that quick-hardening resin stuff that way. One of which stuck Sariel's right hand and Charmeine's left to the table, while the other blob stuck her left hand and Charmeine's right.

Just like that, they were pinned to the table together. At least for the moment. It bought me another second, which was the best I could hope for. I just had to keep getting one more second after one more second.

Before they could pull themselves out of that with magic or whatever, I was already landing on top of the two. I was basically sitting on Charmeine's back, twisting my head around to spit more resin at their feet. Anything I could do to slow these two down long enough to actually talk.

Only then, after doing all that, did I manage to get out the words, "Enough! Okay, alright, enough already! Maybe we can just talk about all this instead of punching and throwing knives at each other for a few seconds!?" I was breathing hard, doing my best not to throw up from the feeling of having to fight not just Charmeine, a woman whose existence had some pretty hefty emotional complications for me, but also Sariel, the mother of my sister and someone I really cared about anyway. "What was all that about, what are the Seosten doing here? What--what?"

"They're here looking for me," a voice spoke up. At first I thought it was Vanessa, having switched with her raven or something, but a quick glance to the corner of the ship's cafeteria revealed a different girl. She was about my age, with chestnut hair and very tan skin, wearing a dark green cloak and hood. I could see some sort of gold and ruby band over her right arm with a series of softly glowing sigils on it that kept shifting and changing. It was some strong magic.

I took a not-so-wild guess. "Marian? As in Maid Marian, the woman they've literally got a spell around the town specifically to keep out of it? I'm assuming you being here has something to do with that band on your arm." I was trying to get a look at those runes that kept playing over it so Yardbird could see if Story could figure out anything specific, but they were flashing too quickly.

Under me, Charmeine made a noise of disgust and disbelief, jerking a bit as though trying to pull herself free. "Would you give the acting a break, we're not buying it. We know you're both working together with this. I don't know why Jacob thinks he can trick us more than once, but the whole thing is getting old. Why don't you just admit what you're up to, Necromancers? Admit you're here for the ship. Then we can handle this like adults. And by handle, I mean you can stand there while we cut out your lungs and see how many filthy rituals you can put our people through like that."

Okay, there was a hell of a lot to dissect there, and I wasn't even sure if I should say anything at all about it, let alone argue with her. I didn't know why they hated Jacob, why they thought I was working with Maid Marian, or any of the rest of it. But I also didn't know if they had any idea why I wouldn't know that.

While I was still taking a second to figure out what to do, Sariel spoke up. Her voice was cold with anger that I couldn't believe was actually directed at me. "Don't listen to anything he says. Don't pay attention to him, don't talk to him. Every word out of his mouth is a lie, we know that. Whatever time period he comes from, he's already killed and absorbed at least three of our people, maybe more, considering the other powers he demonstrated."

Charmeine jerked a bit under me again, her own voice just as angry as the other woman's, though with fire rather than ice in her tone. "Why don't we play a game? It's called, you shut your mouth and don't give me any other reasons to kill you. Because believe me, the part where you took away Sariel's chance to save her mother is more than enough for me to make you suffer for a long time."

Wait, what? What the hell were they talking about? How could I have stopped Sariel from saving her mom? What? I wouldn't do that. Why would I do that? That didn't make any sense. She was wrong. She had to be wrong. She had to be lying. She was just saying shit to get under my skin, right? She just wanted to get a reaction out of me.

But no. She had to be telling the truth. At least as far as she knew. And as far as Sariel did. That would explain why they had come after me so hard. Well, Charmeine probably would have regardless, but it explained Sariel's reaction at least. As far as she was concerned, I really had done what the other woman was accusing me of. I had stopped her from saving her mom.

It was a realization that shook me. I felt a strange, cold chill go down my spine into my stomach. I felt sick. I had to have a reason, right? Whatever version of me had done that had to have known what she was doing, what I was doing. But why would I? What kind of good reason would I have to stop Sariel from saving her mother? Why would I do that? This didn't make sense. None of this made sense.

My mouth opened to say something, but no sound came out. I had no idea how to respond. No idea how to defend myself or even address the thing when I didn't know any of the details at all. As far as these two were concerned, Jacob was a liar who had somehow, for some reason, prevented Sariel from saving her mom, and also killed and absorbed at least three of their friends, maybe more. Wait a minute, three? Who were they even counting? What did they know, and what did they think they knew?

Before I could actually find my voice, it was Marian who came forward and spoke up. "Yeah, we've been through all this already. He's tried to apologize, and you won't listen. Just like how I've tried to explain that you people need to stop what you're doing here, and you won't listen to me either. You need to walk away from this ship before you do something that this entire world is going to regret."

Just as she finished saying that, the bracer on her arm began to hiss and smoke. A quick glance that way showed that the thing seemed to be very gradually shriveling up and turning to ash right before our eyes. The woman cursed, flapping a hand against it. "Damn it, this thing was supposed to last longer. Now we don't have time for the--" She cut herself off before extending a hand to me. "Jacob, we have to go. We'll come back, we'll stop them from what they're doing, but we have to leave now before this bracer dissolves completely."

I started to say we couldn't leave yet, already looking around for Vanessa just in case she had been pulled through just like I had. But her Raven Theriangelos flew out of the corner of the room and landed on my shoulder with something in its beak. I couldn't tell what the thing was, though it kind of looked like a USB drive. She was holding onto it pretty tightly.

For just a second, Vanessa's raven looked down at her mother, and I could practically see the emotions there. She was even more confused and distraught about this whole thing than I was. Which was saying a lot. Of course, this was her mother. And if she had been around for that whole thing, if she had heard all of that, she knew why the woman was so angry right now. Knew as well as I did, anyway. At least I could hope that there was more to that whole story, something that would explain all of it that Sariel just didn't have the details about. There had to be a good explanation.

As soon as she saw the thing in that raven's beak, Sariel suddenly started struggling to free herself even more than she had before. Something told me she had willingly stayed 'trapped' for as long as she did out of some effort to see what I would do or to lure me into some false sense of security she could take advantage of. Now she had no interest in staying there, and I saw something tiny appear in her resin-encased hands before it began to glow brightly. Just like that, the resin cracked apart. Yeah, this was about to get really bad again. What I really wanted to do was sit here with these two, with Sariel especially, and talk the whole thing out. I needed to talk and find out what happened, what had really gone down at that other rift or whatever it was. But they wouldn't listen. It was obvious that this was absolutely not the time or place for this discussion. Maybe if I could get Sariel away from Charmeine and just talk to her one on one, we could work it out. But that wasn't going to happen now. Not when she was reacting like this.

I barely managed to lunge backward off Charmeine as Sariel slipped out from under her. The woman twisted around as she dropped off the table, coming up on one knee with something new in her hands. Not a knife. Not a sword. A bow. She was holding a bow, with an arrow already notched in it.

Sariel had been throwing herself off the table and down into that position even as I jumped backward off Charmeine. She loosed the arrow even as I landed, before I or Yardbird could react. It came whistling straight at me-- and then bounced off a forcefield that had just sprung up.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Don't worry, I got it!" It was Marian, holding a glowing green stone in one hand that was pulsing ominously. Clearly, that thing was the source of the forcefield. And just as clearly, it wouldn't last long. She gave me a quick grin. "You know my rules, boss. Fair fights are for idiots, so never go up against someone you don't have a counter for, and never break into a place you don't have a way to break back out of. What kind of thief would I be if I let these people trap me?" Despite her casual words, there was a slight tightness to her voice, and she glanced again to the bracer on her arm. The thing was just about gone by that point. I seriously doubted it would still be there in another five seconds. And that forcefield stone of hers wouldn't last much longer than that.

Fortunately, it turned out we didn't need five seconds. Even as Sariel nocked another arrow and Charmeine rolled off the table, Marian's other hand produced what looked like a small blue rod about as long as a regular screwdriver. She snapped it in half and a cloud of matching blue smoke poured out to encompass both of us. I smelled sweet lilacs or something, and heard Sariel shouting something about not letting me leave. Then we were gone. The cloud completely filled my vision for a second before fading away.

We were outside of town. That much was clear immediately. We were in the forest some distance away. A quick check with my distance power told me we were about forty miles south of the place.

No sooner had we arrived there, then I suddenly felt dozens of ghosts around me. Now that we were away from that spell blocking Necromancy, Seth, Grover, Doctor Manakel, and plenty of others immediately showed themselves and wanted to check on me. They were all around us, practically filling up this small clearing in the woods while clamoring to make sure we were okay.

"Whooo!" That was Marian, jumping up and pumping her fist in the air after looking around to make sure we had actually escaped. If she was at all put off by the ghosts appearing, the woman didn't show it. In fact, she seemed to push some power into one of them so she could grab his hand and shake it excitedly before giving Grover a high five as she greeted him by name. Yes, a high five. That was just-- what?

In any case, she was definitely a Necromancer. "You see?" she insisted, gaze shifting to me. "I told you I knew what I was doing. I told you I could handle this, that you didn't need to check up with me. How did you even come back from that rift anyway? I thought it was supposed to make you go poof and rejoin the rest of your other selves or something?"

For a moment, I just stood there and stared at her. Slowly, my head turned to look at the raven, which had moved down to my raised arm rather than my shoulder. Vanessa made the thing stare back at me before raising both wings in what amounted to a shrugging gesture. She didn't understand this any more than I did. And apparently our communication spell had been cut off through all of that.

Finally, I looked back at the woman in front of us and offered her the very best, most verbose and carefully formulated response I could under the circumstances. "Huh?"

She, in turn, raised a hand, mouth opening to say something else before she stopped and looked at me again. Her head tilted curiously, eyes seeming to stare right through me for a long couple of seconds. Then she made a noise of surprise and covered her mouth. "Wait, hang on, it's not you, is it? I mean it is you, it's definitely you. You are you, but you're not my you. You're not the one I just went through all that with. You're one of the other ones. You're here for a different rift."

Even as she got that much out, the woman was literally staggering backward, like it was a physical blow that had pushed her. "Wow, wow, wait, is that even possible? Why would there be two rifts so close together? I don't understand. I thought they were supposed to be spread out across this whole timeline and all over the world. Why would there be two within a couple weeks of each other and only a few days ride apart? What sense does that make? Okay, sure, it's not completely impossible or anything, but how likely is it? What exactly are the odds that they'd be that close together, there any two would be practically right on top of one another like this?"

Raising a hand, I cut in before she could keep going like that. "Right, would you mind filling us in here? Because we have no idea who you are. I mean, we know who you are, but we don't know who you are."

"Oh believe me, you have no idea how right you are about that," Marian cheerfully agreed. "You know who I am but you have no idea who I am. That does sum it up."

By that point, the Vanessa Theriangelos had started pecking at my arm and kept jerking her head around to point off in the distance toward the bunker where she and Tristan were. Right, whatever was going on here, they wanted to be involved in talking about it. Besides, it was probably a good idea to get down out of sight, because I didn't think the Seosten were just going to give up because we happened to leave that ship. They knew we were in the area, so they would be searching everywhere. Plus, with the time dilation spell on the bunker, it would give us a chance to talk through everything very quickly.

So, I took a breath before looking at Marian. "Okay, I don't really know what's going on here exactly, but we can talk about it in a safe place. We're getting into everything, especially why that ship is in there, and why they're going through all that to keep you out of the town. We'll go over all of it, but not right here. I'm going to teleport somewhere safer, do you mind?"

She gave me a wide grin, eyes seeming to sparkle with delight and amusement. "I have to say, this is a much calmer introduction to your teleport power than the first time around. We were running away from that giant spider thing that had the tentacles with--" She cut herself off and shrugged. "Right, sorry, I guess you'll remember it when all these other versions of you come together. Sure, go ahead, get us out of here, boss."

I had so many questions already. I had no idea why she kept calling me boss, why we had apparently worked together at a recent rift, very recent from what she was saying, or any of it. I had no idea what was going on. What I did know was that our best chance of getting answers and sorting all this out was by getting back to the bunker with the others. So, after assuring all my ghosts that I was fine, relatively speaking, I transported us that way. I couldn't get inside the bunker with the spell on it, but I came right outside, before Tristan opened the hatch to let us climb down.

And there we were, the four of us in the time dilation bunker staring at one another. Marian looked the twins up and down before snapping her fingers. "You're Vanessa and Tristan, right? I heard all sorts of things about you from your dad and Miss Larissa."

Well, that made the two of them jump a bit. They look at each other before quickly blurting out dozens of questions all at once. Most of which sent around wanting to know what she was talking about and when she had seen their dad and Larissa.

Holding up both hands to stop them, I looked at the other girl. "Okay, just hang on, let me just see if I have this right. A couple weeks ago you helped that other version of me deal with a rift. And let me guess, the people from my time who came back to help were Haiden and Larissa."

She pointed at me with a quick nod. "That's right. And we went through a lot in a pretty short amount of time. I'm alive because of you. I'm who I am now because of you. But then again, that's pretty much par for the course, isn't it?" The girl gave a quick, teasing wink. "You saved my life and we dealt with that rift. We got all the way through the monsters that Invidia bitch had lined up to stop you."

Yeah, that made me cut in again, as I did a quick double take. "Hang on, what? What was that about Invidia?"

So, she gave a quick explanation of that, and what an explanation it was. I could only stand there and stare as she explained all about how apparently that Whisper known as Invidia, still possessing the ghost of Charmeine, had managed to trick another version of me back when Arthur and Gaia were kids, and merged with her. Now she had all my powers and she was going around these rifts doing the best she could to fuck with them. Which was just absolutely fantastic, because we didn't have enough problems as it was.

While the twins and I were processing that, Marian went on. "Anyway, so she was trying to mess with that rift too, but we got through it after you fixed me. We killed those monster pets she had and got you up to the damn thing. But just as we did, some weird device that Haiden guy had started going off with an alert about a ship that crashed over there in that village. Like I said, it was a few days ride away, but he got the alert anyway. Sounds like the ship teleported itself into the ground there or something? Anyway, it was really bad news and they wanted to come deal with it. But that other you had to go through that rift, which meant those two would disappear. So I promised I'd come here and put a stop to it. None of us actually expected there'd be another rift in this area. Hey, do you think that that's why the ship got transported down here to begin with?"

It was Vanessa who put voice to the biggest question I had right then. "Why would our father have something to alert him about a ship coming down here? Why would that be such a problem? And why have you been trying to get the Seosten away from it so much that they actually put an anti-Necromancy shield and an anti-you spell around the whole place? That can't be easy for them to do. What is that ship and why have you been trying so hard to make them get away from it?"

Marian gave her a long look. It was the most serious I'd seen her be so far. There was no more mirth or casual amusement in those eyes, or in her voice as she answered. "Well, uhh, he said the ship sort of… passed through Tartarus, which is really bad. Worse than that, the ship actually has a big ball of energy from that place inside itself. Right in the cargo bay. And all of it's been very gradually leaking out through the village. That's what's making all the people so angry and making them act like that. It's also what's giving some of them powers. And now the Seosten are trying to unbury it so they can take that energy. But if they do that, Haiden said it would create some sort of cascading effect and engulf this entire continent with that energy. Which will make the entire North American continent turn into a mini version of Tartarus itself.

"So, now do you see why we really have to stop them?"