Victor of Tucson-Chapter 46Book 12: : A Choice

46 – A Choice

Victor floated through a gray expanse of nothingness. At least that’s how he perceived the strange null-space that had embraced him as Xelhuan’s world came apart. He couldn’t breathe, but then, did a primordial titan really need to do so? As the nascent world fractured and everything burned, he’d drawn in tremendous swaths of fiery Energy, feeding it into his Core. As a result, it was full, and with that furnace at the center of his being, things like air, water, food, or sleep were mere conveniences—flavor added to life.

It was a strange thought, thinking of himself as a singular being in between universes that were populated by trillions of intelligent lifeforms. For all he knew, they were right there, within reach… or a trillion-billion miles away. That thought process led him to an intriguing revelation: he was a universe unto himself. In his flesh, bones, and blood were the building blocks of one, at least; he was a seed, pushed deep into the soil of creation, and from him, might not more life eventually emerge? He would have chuckled at the idea if there’d been any air in his lungs.

Time was meaningless there, so he had no idea how long he drifted before the idea of exploring the spirit realm came to him. When he cast Spirit Walk, though, he found the twilight realm just as vast and empty as the null-space. What had he expected? The spirit plane might connect all worlds where spirits could exist, but it, too, was subject to the gulfs in between. Even traveling from world to world in a single universe was difficult—something Victor had yet to fully master. When he tried to find a bridge that might lead him into an existing universe, he wandered through a featureless expanse for what felt like months or even years before he realized that the null-space existed there, too; no spirits filled that realm to mark the passage of…anything.

Eventually, he gave up and returned to his physical self. Bored with the featureless gray, he turned inward, passing through the aperture in his Core and into his spirit space. At least there, he could make a semblance of reality. He didn’t know how to craft a sun and stars, but he could make the lighting change on a regular basis, and he could busy himself with studies. He wrote in his Farscribe books, but the distance proved too vast for their magic, even given time. More than any other benefit, his spirit space allowed him to speak, and he spent many long hours chatting with Lifedrinker.

Sometimes he slept, or at least feigned sleep, lying in a bed he’d crafted from Energy, staring out a window at a faux starscape. During those times, he’d think about the people he cared about. He wondered if his perception of time was at all accurate; had they moved on with their lives? Was Cora handling his affairs? Had she, Deyni, and Dalla fully grown and gone off on adventures? He wondered about Valla—was she still studying on that ocean world with her strange sea-dwelling instructors?

He thought about Rellia and the other leaders of Fanwath. Had she, Morgan, and Olivia challenged the Ridonne? He hoped there hadn’t been a massive war, but rather that the Ridonne, when faced with the new realities on Sojourn, would step back and relinquish their political death-grip on most of the world. He figured they wouldn’t go so easily, but if Morgan and the others managed to cut the head off the snake, Victor could see things transitioning away from their totalitarian rule almost peacefully.

Then there was Tes. What would she do when he failed to resurface after months or years? Had she gone back to Aradnue or the other worlds she’d promised to show him? Did she mourn him for a while before moving on? Part of him hoped so, but another part hoped that his loved ones would take pride in his victories and accept that he’d gone out doing what he’d loved—fighting. He only wished it were true.

Victor was very much alive, but he’d much rather have gone down in a blaze of glory. His spirit could have found his ancestors, maybe even his abuelita, and he could have told them of his glorious battles and how he’d taken down a Death Caster’s entire world, his entire universe.

After contending with despair, frustration, anger, and, eventually, mourning, Victor turned his mind back toward the idea he’d had while floating through null-space: could his body be the seed for a new universe? He looked to his library and the thousands of texts, mundane and magical, that he’d accumulated over the years. If there were a way, he certainly had the time to figure it out.

There were many books in his collection he’d yet to read, so he started with those. When he was bored with reading, he crafted spell patterns or built additions to his spirit space. He cooked food, real at first—stuff he’d stored away in containers—then constructed from pure Energy. He laughed at the thought; he used Energy to craft the food and then ate it so the Energy returned to him. It was entertaining, but not at all necessary. Perhaps it helped him to maintain his sanity, though.

Along those lines, he had Lifedrinker to thank. Their long conversations about battles past and future, their discussions about books Victor read—philosophy or spell-crafting techniques—and their comfortable companionship, kept him from losing his mind. Perhaps it helped her, too, but Lifedrinker was used to a solitary, quiet existence; her budding spirit had existed that way for thousands of years, maybe longer.

One day, as Victor’s sun-mimicking Energy globe moved toward the horizon and darkness approached, he heard a faint voice. At first, he thought it was something his mind, addled by solitude and boredom, dreamed up, but when it repeated, this time more clearly, he closed his book and focused on the null-space outside his body.

“Victor?” This time he recognized the voice of his ancestor, Chantico.

In a flash, Victor exited his spirit space and opened his physical eyes. A smile spread across his lips as he saw Chantico, luminescent and faintly transparent, sitting cross-legged before him.

She smiled, and her voice came to him again, though it wasn’t a physical voice he heard, but rather a mental projection. “I searched long to find you here, little brother.”

Victor tried to speak, but was stymied by the lack of air.

“Just think! Send me your words. You can do it.”

He nodded. “I can’t believe you found me!”

“You can thank Xelhuan. As his spirit found its way through the veil, I traced its passage. It gave me a starting point to begin my hunt.”

“So I succeeded.” Victor felt a worry he hadn’t even been aware of unknot from his heart. He’d thought it would end Xelhuan’s immortal existence when he destroyed his universe, but he hadn’t been certain.

“You did what I could not. In all honesty, you tipped the karmic balance too far. The least I can do is guide you back. Or…”

“Or?”

“I could do something else for you. When you let me in before, when I learned of your past, I felt your love and loss. What if I could send you home, Victor?”

He nodded. “Can you? To Fanwath?”

“I mean truly home—to where you were before you were so ignobly pulled from your world. I’ve amassed great power—enough to ascend with much left over. What if I could bridge the gap between this timeline and the one from which you were pulled? I could send you back to where you were.”

Victor’s heart thumped in his chest. “Through time? My abuelita would be alive?”

“I could retrace the thread of fate along which your spirit drifted. I could put you into the exact moment when those careless fools tore asunder the veil between your reality and this one.”

Victor’s mind raced. He’d come to grips with never seeing his grandma again. He’d accepted that Earth was lost to him. What if it weren’t, though? The idea of pulling his abuela into a hug again, as if nothing had ever happened, brought tears to his eyes. How good would it feel to have her wiry old arms squeezing his ribs again? She’d click her tongue and tell him he needed to eat more, that his wrestling was making him too skinny. She’d probably heat up some tamales that she’d frozen at Christmastime…

He blinked away more tears, amazed that his body could produce them in the null-space. As much as he loved the idea of seeing his grandma again, he had to consider everything he’d lose. He had dozens of people who cared about him in this timeline. He had nations filled with people who depended on him. More than that, he loved so many people there. The idea of never seeing Deyni or Cora again brought tears of a different kind into his eyes. He shook his head. Didn’t he have to try to get back to them? He had to try to find Tes, even if years had passed.

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“Thank you, Chantico, but I’ve made peace with that loss. I have too many other people who love me—whom I love—in this timeline.”

Chantico smiled, nodding. “I’m glad, Victor. You’d have to abandon your heritage and all the power you’ve gained to survive on that old world. You have many great things in store for you. I believe you’ll change history on many worlds before you decide to move on. You already have, after all. When you finally choose to ascend, there’s no doubt a pantheon of your ancestors will be there to greet you and welcome you to whatever new reality you find.”

Victor sniffed, nodding. “And you, Chantico? Will you find our ancestors?”

“Some, perhaps. Now that Xelhuan has passed through the veil, I don’t feel bound any longer. I’ll breach a different barrier, though—one that leads to new challenges and new opportunities for enlightenment.”

Victor reached for her hand, but his fingers passed through her flesh as though it weren’t real. He supposed that meant it wasn’t…

“This is an astral projection, little brother. It would have consumed too much of my accumulated Energy to come to you physically in this nothingness.”

“Will it ruin your plans to help me?”

She shook her head. “As I said, I have enough extra to help you.”

“I hope I can find you someday. I hope I learn how to do what you’re doing.”

She laughed, a gentle, trilling sound as she shook her head. “You will. You’ll have many options; of that, I’m more than sure. If you choose to follow me, then I’ll be waiting to greet you.” She inhaled deeply, or rather, her projection did. “Are you ready? I’ll nudge you in the right direction and pierce the veil into our universe for you.”

Victor’s stomach clenched as sudden worries bubbled to the surface. “How long? How long was I gone? It feels like years…”

Chantico laughed softly, shaking her head. “Time moves very differently in this nothingness. Xelhuan passed through the veil just a few short months ago. I’m sure your loved ones still seek answers as to your absence.”

The wave of relief that passed over Victor was like a convulsion of warm tingles. Tears once again sprang into his eyes, and he blinked them away, laughing. “Damn! You don’t know how good it is to hear that.”

Chantico’s golden eyes gleamed with good-natured mirth as she shook her head. “Oh, I think I have an idea. Are you ready?”

Victor stared into her eyes, trying to memorize every golden gradient, every shimmer of inner sunlight. After several long seconds, during which she patiently regarded him, Victor nodded. “Ready.”

###

When Victor pierced the veil between universes, it was a violent event. To him, it felt like falling through a layer of gelatinous substance and emerging into warmth and wind—sensation. To the world, it sounded like another cataclysm had come calling. Luckily, the sound wave was the worst of it. Perhaps a storm whipped up out in the ocean as a result of the violent air flows, but when he tumbled out of the sky to splash into the equatorial waters of Dark Ember, Victor wasn’t aware of any of that.

His mind was overwhelmed by his senses—the touch of the wind on his flesh and in his lungs; the feel of the almost-warm water as it passed between his fingers and caressed his flesh; the sounds of water lapping, of birds trilling, of the breeze tickling his damp ears as he floated there. He laughed, reveling in it.

In the null-space, he’d reduced his body to a manageable size, mostly because he’d wanted to remove his armor and put on some loose, comfortable clothing. Why he’d done that, he couldn’t say; likely, it was some ingrained sensibility that had told him to make himself comfortable and presentable just in case. As it was, when he spied Tes soaring out of the sky toward him, he was glad he had. For some reason, he didn’t want her to find him when he was the size of a mountain.

As he watched her approach, he contemplated flying up to meet her, but decided against it; he was enjoying the swim too much. She obviously saw him; she was diving straight toward him, and, when she was just a dragon’s length away, her body shimmered and contracted, and Tes’s human form, clad in her shimmering blue swimming garment, splashed into the water beside him.

“Victor!” was all she said as she grasped him around the neck and squeezed him with arms and legs, showering his forehead, eyes, cheeks, and lips with kisses. “I knew you’d find your way back!”

He considered correcting her, explaining how Chantico had bailed him out, but thought it was a story better told later. Instead, he kissed her back, squeezed her against his chest, and said, “Hell, yeah. Gonna take more than a collapsing universe to keep me away.”

“You boastful, stubborn man!” She laughed. “Such pride! I suppose you tarried so that we’d all grow worried and be all the more relieved when you returned?”

They were floating together, her still clinging to him, but at arm’s length now, looking into his eyes. He winked. “Naturally.”

She laughed, kissed him again, and whispered, “Liar.”

“Is everyone else okay? Cora?”

“Of course! I wouldn’t let anything happen to her—well, nor would anyone else. I’ve never seen such a well-guarded young lady. In any case, you should be proud of her; she healed me during the battle.”

“You got hurt?”

She nodded, leaning close again and resting her head on his shoulder as he kicked his feet, keeping them afloat. “I did. I’ve fought before, but never against another dragon—not like that.”

“A dragon?”

“One of the undead kings was a dragon lich—fierce and foul. I’ve never had to fight tooth and claw like that before.” She shuddered in his arms, and Victor pulled her close. He struggled to imagine her as vulnerable, at least not when she’d taken her dragon form. The idea that she’d been in real danger stole some of the mirth from his mood.

“I’m sorry, Tes, but I’m glad you were here. Think of the people you saved by defeating that pendejo.”

Tes squeezed him more tightly. “Can we stay here a while? I don’t want to share you with everyone else yet.”

Victor didn’t answer right away, but he leaned back and allowed his buoyancy to keep them afloat as she lay on his chest. They floated there in the warm water, gently rocked by the waves, and he let his eyes drift over the puffy white clouds and the occasional flocks of birds. “Place seems a hell of a lot different.”

Tes murmured sleepily, and he realized she’d begun to doze. After a moment, though, she responded, “It is. The world was remade by the cataclysm, but the Elementalists have been soothing the storms and working to right the natural order. This is no longer a world for the undead. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any lingering miasma.”

“Good. I’m ready to take a break from undead assholes.”

She gently scratched behind his shoulder, where her right arm was entwined with his. “You’re different, too, Victor. Very.”

“Yeah,” he said, as he idly pulled up his status page, focusing on his attributes. “I guess I am.”

Status

Name:

Victor Sandoval

Race:

Primordial Titan - Mythic 1

Mantle:

Monarch of the Mountain's Wrath, Titan of Dread and Grace - Mythic

Level:

164

Breath Core:

Primordial Class - Legendary 1

Core:

Spirit Class - Mythic 1

Breath Core Affinity:

Abyssal Magma - 9, Nullfrost - 9

Breath Core Energy:

570000/570000

Energy Affinity:

Hope 9.4, Fear 9.4, Rage 9.1, Unattuned 3.1

Energy:

19807883/19807883

Strength:

2216

Vitality:

1502

Dexterity:

420 (1113)

Agility:

443 (1136)

Intelligence:

1872

Will:

2295