Serial
13: Rex Historia
November
8th, 32 S.D. 18:24 Northern Fringes
Far to the north, past the likes of Mount Anhel, the very upper regions of the Continent were vast, frozen lands. A world of eternal winters, the Northern Fringes were beset year-round by layers of snow. Even now as the season just set in, the grounds slept beneath thick sheets of undisturbed whiteness. The Northern Fringes represented the ends of the earth, a desert of ice, tundra, and solitude. Here only the wilderness populated these sparse stretches, adapting to some of the Continent’s harshest conditions in the spirit of survival. It was this quality, the ability to ward off most people from the other regions, that had initially inspired Rikta Besnol to come here so many years ago. He liked to think as well that it’d be one of the last places anyone would ever search for him, though he never could be sure given the people most interested in locating him, Still, the great peace and austerity of the environment was assuring to some degree.
He sat at a table at that moment, a book resting in his hands. It was one of the newer works of a so-call transcendental Gandian author. Rikta remained more than a little suspect of this emerging literary movement, but at least he enjoyed the works of one of its members. At any rate, he only read to pass the time. Normally he wouldn’t indulge in trivial readings such as the novel, but he needed something to do while they waited. Moving so soon to their destination simply wasn’t safe at present. Perhaps his manner of thinking was overcautious or paranoid, but for years careful deliberation like that had kept him safe. Hopefully it would continue to do so.
They had stopped here in a cabin he had long ago set up as a halfway point to Horan, his home. Until he gave the word, they would have to occupy this little isolated abode. Living there wasn’t too bad, at least he didn’t mind it. However, Rikta had made this trip many times already. He didn’t know how the kids were handling it. No matter how they dealt with it, staying here was certainly a far better alternative than what they otherwise would have gone through, and that proved most important above all.
He picked up an approaching seras frequency and immediately recognized who it was, thus he didn’t turn around as the door opened.
“I brought some more firewood for the rest of the day,” Siersus said, carrying two logs beneath his arm. “I left the rest outside.” He stamped his boots and shook the fringes of his coat, releasing bits of snow onto the floor.
“Excellent,” Rikta said without looking up. “But it’s nighttime now.”
Siersus pushed his glasses back and glanced at the clock mounted on the wall then back outside the window.
“Really?” he asked, to which Rikta laughed.
“Sa, still not used to 20 hours of daylight are you?”
Siersus simply shook his head. “Apparently not...”
“You’ll have a lot of time to get used to it. Once we get into next month, we’ll gain another hour too. Aline and Istan are still outside, but what are they up to?”
Siersus walked over to a large fireplace and inspected its operation. Seeing that the flames were fine he went over to check the stove instead.
“They’re still working on their snow fort,” he said.
“Really? You know, it’s not going to melt. Nothing up here ever does. It’ll be around for years.”
“The stove’s a little ‘cool’,” Siersus judged. “Too cool to make dinner.” He tossed a log in, but it had great difficulty kindling properly. He frowned slightly and reached for a match and some loose papers. “It’s simple things like this that I miss when I’m not able to serialize. I wouldn’t even have to think about it; I’d just cast a series and light the log up.”
On that fateful night weeks ago, Rikta had descended to Palostrol and pulled Siersus away, thus saving him from King’s influence. At Siersus’ request, both of them managed to escape with two more of the late Eltin’s students. To Rikta’s surprise, they were also Eltin’s newest additions to the school and apparently the most unversed in serialization. For him, that had made his job of hiding them all that much easier. As long as they kept their use of serialization to a minimum, he could effectively cloak all of their seras frequencies without incident.
He had to keep an eye on Siersus though, given his advanced level and the recognition he would have received after passing Eltin’s last test. The lad perfectly understood it was best not to serialize for the time being, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t slip up. Serialization was second nature to the kid after all, an ordinary factor of life. Again, perhaps it was just Rikta’s fearful nature that made him take these heavy measures, but safety was ever better than regret. Besides, he thought it extremely unwise to underestimate King’s capabilities. Sure they were both half a Continent away from one another, but Rikta had no desire to risk having even a fraction of their seras frequencies detected.
“Guess those two will be busy for a while,” Rikta noted, shutting the novel in his hands.
Siersus had set the papers on fire and used them to probe the log until it started burning. “I should have enough time before they come back to fix us something. Though that stove’s going to be a bit before it warms up.”
“You want to talk?” Rikta asked.
“About what precisely?”
“Things,” Rikta replied cryptically. Siersus shrugged and took a seat opposite of Rikta.
“So what would you like to know?” Rikta began. “Surely there are many questions you wish to have answered. I have been forthcoming with you, Istan, and Aline so far but, ah, there are quite a few gaps to fill. And these gaps require much explaining. Please, ask away.”
Siersus adjusted his eyewear as he spoke. “Who... who is King? Who is he exactly?”
“Interesting, I’d thought you’d want to know exactly who I was,” Rikta said, smiling and rubbing his chin.
“You’ve said enough about yourself over the past few days. You’re someone we can trust, I know this. But King is a mystery. Obviously however, you know him and his intentions.”
“Yes, I am very familiar with how he thinks, but more than that; I know what drives his core.”
“How did you ever get to know such a man?”
“Now, I won’t forget about your first question,” Rikta said, gesturing with his hand as if to ease him. “But I’ll answer the second question now. It’ll segue back to your previous query anyway. You see, years ago, a century and some many years ago, the person we call King was once my best friend, my havacha. I was also the first informal student of a sort when he began to develop serialization. In fact, I even helped him when he was uncertain about particular theories.”
“So,” Siersus interrupted. “You had some role in the evolution of serialization?”
“To an extent yes, but you must not blow it out of proportion,” Rikta nodded.
“And the two of you were close?” Siersus asked. He only knew a little bit about Rikta’s history, but in comparing his personality now and King’s demeanor that night, Siersus simply couldn’t reconcile the two as ever being compatible with each other.
“That’s what havacha means,” Rikta chuckled. “We were inseparable. We grew up together in the Central Plains, in the province my clan held. King, or rather Nabel Viska, was from what we Astens call a minor clan. While there are 14 major clans that often get into bloody disputes, a number of smaller clans exist, usually spread around multiple territories. None of them is particularly large; they’re each about a half-a-dozen families or so. Generally they’re apart from the affairs of major clans, but not always. His had a very good relationship with the Besnol clan.”
“I had no idea the culture of the Central Plain was like that. No one in Palostrol ever mentioned anything like that.”
“Indeed, it’s not common knowledge to many outsiders. Anyway, we spent a lot of our youth together and we were just like brothers.” Rikta laughed for a moment. “In fact, we almost were brothers once.”
“What do you mean?” Siersus questioned, a look of confusion spread across his face.
“You see, he was going to marry my sister at one time.”
“Oh.”
“But that’s jumping ahead of the story. He never got to wed her. He left on his own before they could. Anyway, when he was 24, he had already established the basic precepts of serialization and had constructed numerous series. I too knew the art at the time; as its principal creator, however, Nabel was much more knowledgeable about it than anyone else.” Rikta shifted slightly in his seat as he really began to get into the tale he was weaving. Spontaneously, unconsciously, he moved his hands as he spoke, animating the very words he spoke. Siersus wondered how many of these motions had merely personal meanings and which were distinctly Asten in nature. Nevertheless, Rikta continued unaware of the mood his hands had suddenly created.
“He was a genius, no question about that. Though I helped him from time to time, the majority of what he came to know about the soul and serialization he acquired through his wisdom and experimentations. It is as he always, fondly claims: Nabel Viska is the true creator of the art. When he was 26, he’d already mastered many domains of serialization: regenesis, projection, purification, and even the servai.”
“I’ve only heard mention of the servai in passing from you,” Siersus said. “But the other terms elude me, I’m afraid.”
Rikta sighed softly. “Well, I suppose there really was a lot your master hadn’t taught you. Yet, I mean - hadn’t taught you yet.”
“I can guess what purification is. Something along the lines of using ‘raw’ seras directly instead of converting it to something else first, like heat or electricity?”
“Close. Purification is using your seras directly without conversion, but rather than just that, it also refers to how much seras you can pull from your soul without losing or dropping any amount before serializing. The process of aggregation is not perfect. The amount you pull from your soul is not equivalent to the amount you manage to use. What Nabel called ‘raw’ seras was a 1:1 ratio of the seras you needed to perform a series and how much you actually aggregated. In other words, it was the theoretically perfect ideal, a balance of input and output. ‘Pure’ seras was seras that a serialist only lost 10% of before using it in a series. Purification speaks to the level of efficiency between drawing seras and applying it. Training in purification makes one lose less and less seras during the aggregation process, naturally.”
“Properly using seras directly requires a very low percentage of lost-to-usable seras. That’s why he introduced the process of conversion later on. The conversion of seras into another energy doesn’t require such precision, and a 3:1 ratio or greater of seras pulled versus what amount of seras can actually be used is pretty common.”
“I never knew I was quite that inefficient...” Siersus frowned, but Rikta laughed it away.
“Oh, no. Don’t get the wrong impression. Conversion is easier than a ‘purist’ approach to serialization for a reason. It was meant specifically for training students until they could handle seras itself. Sambur Eltin saw that you were ready to take the gloves off, so-to-speak, and I can tell much the same. This is slightly off-track though. Now, where was I?”
“What about the rest of those terms? I’m still fairly curious as to what they are.”
“Oh, yes,” Rikta said. “Regenesis is the process whereby the aging of the body stops. Since the body is both a container for a soul and the conduit through which it flows, it makes sense to say serialization indeed affects it. Once a serialist possesses a specific amount of seras, time basically stops for you. Your body replaces dead cells with new ones at a rate that keeps you from getting any older. That’s why I’m here today, even though I was born over a hundred years ago. As you get closer to achieving regenesis, you age less and less. Eltin never reached this stage, but I suspect he was close.”
“If you have so much seras, how come I didn’t notice you on that night? You didn’t cause any seratic disturbances in the environment, and I didn’t even sense your seras frequency when you snuck up on me.”
“Well, you can suppress your seras and its frequency. I can do so to a greater degree than others thanks to... my little secret. Digressing, projection is merely the ability to, well, project and control your seras, even as it leaves your soul for great distances. The servai, sa... There’s a sad topic...”
Up until a moment ago, Rikta had seemingly been all too enthused to talk, perhaps a side effect of his years of hiding and hermitage. Now, however, something within him deflated. Even as Siersus noted this change, Rikta shook his head as if trying to dispel something. Nevertheless, he carried on.
“I’ll have to go back to some history to explain that one. I’ve told you what Nabel’s views are about serialization, right?”
“He doesn’t believe we can handle it. He thinks we’d only abuse it and bring ruin to the Continent,” Siersus answered. “It’s an understandable apprehension, especially given the potential of serialization and human behavior in general. But why would he go to such lengths to keep it out of our hands? He’s essentially threatened to erase it from the Continent if necessary, and he’s certainly willing to eliminate people in the process. What could possibly push him to go that far? Just imagine if serialization ever becomes worldwide. Is he truly capable of doing away with entire groups of people?”
Rikta glanced down and to the side, his eyes briefly skimming over the cover of the book he’d pushed aside.
“Actually, he already has done just that.”
“What?” Siersus asked, his brow furrowed as his mouth remained open.
“The art of serialization was not always kept in the shadows. At first, Nabel was ecstatic about teaching others the knowledge he had gained, and so was I. We really believed that he had discovered something that could lead not just us, but the entire Continent to a new age that had never been dreamed of. Just picture for a moment what it would have been like: we could cure a host of diseases and illnesses, build and raise structures the world had never seen before, overcome any obstacle set before us, and grant every person the power to achieve whatever they desired. Everyone has a soul after all; serialization, as we saw it then, was going to be humanity’s greatest evolution yet.”
“But, as I said, serialization granted many desires, and some were scarcely noble or altruistic. As it happened, the Besnol clan thought to use it to our advantage. Our leaders saw only an opportunity for dominance among the other Asten clans. Under their influence, many serialists from Besnol and Viska were convinced that they could find a way to weaponize serialization and use that against our neighbors. The Central Plains, then as it is today, was a land of bow and swordsmen. The might of something new and dangerous was irresistible for Besnol, especially since only they and Viska knew about serialization.”
“The elders of both of our clans demanded that Nabel deliver to them a series that could be used in warfare. He and I were opposed to the very idea. It was an aberration of the art. Even so, I was in no position of power in my clan, thus I could do little else but advocate adamantly against them. Nabel’s cooperation was preferable, but even if he refused, other serialists were hard at work developing serialized weapons themselves. In the end though, Nabel delivered them what they wanted: the servai.”
Rikta paused for a while, scratching the side of his face. He looked to the side, gazing out the window into the blanketed, colorless landscape outside. For an instant, he thought to materialize his servai in front of Siersus, but he knew better than to take that risk. A description would have to suffice.
“Still fuzzy on exactly what a servai is?” Rikta asked, turning back.
“Somewhat,” Siersus admitted.
“A servai is a series that molds your seras into a specific shape, an image of your liking. It can mimic the appearance of any object you want. What makes the servai unique is that it actually attacks the seras of others. Think of it like this: my seras can clash or interfere with your own. Normally that doesn’t happen when we’re just sitting here like we are now. But if I direct my seras at you, if I swipe it or slash it at your soul, you lose seras. Lose enough seras and then you die. Seras is the soul’s energy; it’s as precious as blood. Without enough seras, your soul can’t survive.”
“But why would he create the servai if he was so opposed to the very purpose of their creation?”
Rikta could but shake his head. “He never spoke of why he did so, only because his reasons were all too clear. Nabel intended to make sure that serialization could never be used by others as a tool of war or malice.”
“Do you mean...?” Siersus started but dared little to finish.
“On the day he agreed to present the elders their new serialized weapons, he struck them all down with his servai. He didn’t stop there though. Nabel methodically wiped out every serialist from Besnol and Viska. That amounted to nearly his entire clan. He spared none and went after those who possessed even passing knowledge regarding serialization. The only ones he didn’t seek were my sister and me. For whatever reason, he left us alone. Perhaps it was because we had agreed with his views all along. Perhaps he simply couldn’t kill those closest to him. He was family to us; he loved my sister and held me in the greatest regard and confidence.”
“Yet, on that day, he became a different person. He’s still the same soul, but the way in which he thinks and acts now is basically the purest contrast I have ever seen anyone undergo. He left as soon as his deadly deeds were done, but it was plain to me what he’d tried to do. He was trying to erase the slate he’d written and eradicate the art he’d formed. For the most part, he was successful. Only three people knew how to serialize when he was finished: Nabel, my sister and myself. The two of us never passed on the art, and with Nabel gone, serialization essentially ceased to exist. It became a tale, a story, nothing more fable associated with the disappearance of the Viska. I think he very much felt betrayed by his hopes and ideals when the Besnol thought to use serialization in such a violent manner. Their insistence on weaponization probably drove him to mistrust the entire world with his creation, something he still very strongly believes in.”
“So then, what’s he planning to do? If he really has decided to let Losha spread serialization, why? He still doesn’t think we’re fit to be serialists after all.”
“Honestly, even I can only guess. His real motivation is perfectly opaque, unreadable. Knowing him as a friend, I think he may be having doubts about his path, but the man I know called King always seems to have agendas that I can never pinpoint. What I do know is that he seriously wants to carry out his so-called experiment to determine if the world should have serialization or not, and Losha is his chosen subject. He may truthfully believe that the girl has a chance of doing what he was incapable of or thought was previously impossible. In any case, he’s very much dedicated to his extreme measures, should he deem her a failure. That’s one of the reasons why I...”
Rikta stopped talking; his eyes fell to his hands on the table. Slowly, he got up and walked over to the window. He wiped his palm over his mouth.
“I want to stop him. By any means necessary. The world may indeed not be ready for serialization, but if it isn’t, if that power is abused, we need to stand up against it. Erasing it isn’t the solution. It just masks the larger problem that we can’t handle the soul. If he threatens the world once it adopts serialization, I’ll take him down. I can’t let someone - a friend - do that.”
“That is your goal,” Siersus said. “But what do you expect us to do?”
Rikta turned around slightly. “Nothing. You’ll choose whatever it is you want to do. This isn’t your fight, although it can be if your desire. Nevertheless, I’ll provide you with a safe place for as long as you need.”
“What exactly have you been keeping us safe from?” Siersus queried. Rikta folded his arms as he spoke.
“Nabel is no doubt indoctrinating your friends and classmates in his own ideology, and eliminating those who cannot be convinced. He’s going to get them to accept that serialization is a dangerous tool, one they must eradicate if people fail to use it properly. He will also make them into warriors.”
“Warriors? What for?”
“He predicts that Losha will fail; serialization will mar the Continent with its misguided might. At that point, he and his ‘army’ will make their move. It’s not like everyone is going to just willingly forget about the art. It won’t be like Besnol where killing a few hundred people will do away with serialization. People are going to fight to keep serialization.”
“If he thinks serialization is such a problem, why doesn’t he just end it with himself. He could have done that after Besnol, but evidently he ended up teaching Master Eltin and those other serialists that were with him in Palostrol.”
“That is an oddity which I have yet to explain myself. He knows my sister and I have taught no one the art in all these years, yet he has gathered and trained strong serialists to stand by his side. In Palostrol, he mentioned something about their role in watching over serialization. But if it doesn’t spread, he shouldn’t even be concerned with it. In a way, it was his own fault that Sambur learned serialization and began teaching others. If he simply didn’t teach it anyone to begin with, there’s be no reason to monitor the art; it wouldn’t even be. Besnol would have been the beginning and end of serialization. I’m at a loss to know what he means in all that, but I can’t exactly go up to him and nicely ask for a breakdown.”
“Why don’t we help Losha then?” Siersus mused. He didn’t speak a word of it, be he was greatly concerned for his colleague who had suddenly been thrust into the schemes of King. “If we can keep the art from causing any ruin, Nabel will have no reason to attack, right?”
“I doubt he’d let us interfere with your friend. Even if we did, Nabel is still a problem himself. Perhaps in reality he is the only problem. Furthermore who’s to say we can keep serialization peaceful forever? As long as Nabel’s around, his threats still hang over the Continent.”
“When do you think he plans to act though?” Again, Siersus concerned himself with the fate of Losha.
“Whenever widespread serialization goes rampant. It could be years, decades. But... he is a patient man.”
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