I returned to my ship with the book still hidden away. From the captains chair of the drop ship I had commandeered I saw my ship come into view, not that it was hard to spot. The Apocalypse class dreadnought, Whitefire, weighed more than some planets and stretched for nearly three kilometers. It was a fleet unto itself and armed to the teeth. Thousands of battery and missile platforms, hundreds of arcane cannons, and five World Ender cannons waited upon that ship. It was all thanks to my ladies power the behemoth could even move, but the new inertia less drives help...and the four Controllers with those massive crystal orbs.
Whitefire might be massive, but I knew of two other classes of ships that were larger still. The Whitefire was a smooth beast, none of the hard angles or exaggerated markings that other Warlords put on their ships. Yet it was painted the most brilliant shade of white that never faded or suffered in battle. Great blue strips with the gold emblem of my lady ran the length and width of the ship.
The rest of the fleet was, smaller ships and countless fighters, escorted my ship, but it was all for nothing if another Warlord attacked. They…they lived on a different plane. They battled as god's battle and lowly immortals like me were nothing to them, lower than dirt. I had seen my lady duel another Warlord once before I had been given her blessing.
That day she clash was a blonde haired Warlord that wore a mask and the world we fought on was torn asunder. Entire mountains were blasted, yet they didn't move an inch. Seas evaporated and armies melted under sudden burst of heat, yet neither Warlord took a step. Their gazes fixed upon each other and I could only imagine the battle as they clashed on another plane.
If a Warlord faced a foe who forced them to move in this plane then I would fear for all things. Such a battle would be…apocalyptic at the least. My lady would emerge victorious even if all of creations burned. Then she would raise her loyal followers, me up and led us into glory eternal.
I had the drop ship begin landing producers and pulled the book out. Setting it on my lap, I hesitantly opened it. Perhaps I could learn something about my lady that would make her love me? Or I could find our enemies weaknesses?
A dangerous gamble…
He fell.
The blackness surrounded him, consumed him, and embraced him.
Time and space, light and dark, chaos and order, good and evil, life and death lost all meaning.
He fell out of time and space and into memories.
Silence fell over the battlefield.
Along the dark lake a young man walked. His black robes swished as strode towards his one time home. A home that had welcomed him for the past six years and now he returned to after a yearlong absence.
The shore was littered with bodies, men and women in robes similar to his, but he paid them no mind. Thousands of white masks gleamed in the moonlight as they lay on their owner's dead face. For years those masks and their wears had terrorized the world he had come to know and love, for all its faults and problems it had the world of magic had been to accept him a one of their own.
The world of magic he had spent the last two years fighting to protect. Even when they turned against him, he soldiered on. He walked over the bodies of men and beasts that side with the Dark Lord without trepidation, content his power was greater than anything the may yet walk the silent battlefield.
Here, mere hours ago, his allies had fought a battle worthy of remembrance in song and lore. From the castle ramparts that he was heading towards, they had held at bay the Dark Lord's armies. Legions of Dark Wizards and Witches, hags and werewolves, giants and trolls, orcs and spiders had broken their teeth against the mighty castle. Yet the castle itself had suffered. The ramparts were shattered, the towers collapsed, the stone scorched black by dragon and spell fire, the Great Hall a ruin of its former glory.
As he approached the walls the destruction was apparent. Great pits held the bodies of countless hundreds, once green grass was dead or dying, the body of fallen giants created new hills, webs from giant spiders still hung to dead trees or rocks, smoldering embers marked the place were once the Dark Lord's armies made camp. Here and there cursed flames raged, refusing to be put out until they burnt themselves out.
It was nothing new to him. The carnage, destruction, and loss of life were all things he had seen before. As he stepped into the castle he was greeted. Not by the living or ghost, but the dead. Corpses spread across the lawn leading to the Great Hall. Many familiar, school mates and friends littered the lawn. They told a story of the defense and the desperation of their task as the dark tides swarmed them. By the bloodied corpses of the Dark Lord's followers he could tell they had paid a heavy price for taking the lawn. Moonlight caressed the faces of the fallen and for a moment he knelt in that silent field of death. He paid homage to the fallen, and then rose removing his wand from his sleeve.
He blinked back tears, reminding himself there would time for that later. The steps leading to the Great Hall beckoned him step over them once more. This would be the final time he stepped over them. The scars needed time to heal and they would never heal in this place. What was once a school of education and learning was now a house of death for the dead alone, which suited him fines. He needed a vacation to anyway, a long vacation that probably take many years.
A small smile crossed his face, but didn't reach his green eyes. The doors to the Great Hall were half off their hinges and only their great weight kept them from moving in the winds. He slipped inside and found what he expected.
The dead.
Every race, every creed and color of the magical world lay dead or dying. Friends, enemies, dark and light creatures lay together in death, the great equalizer. Several figures moved here and there up on the dais, tending to the wounded defenders. He knelt beside a slightly pudgy boy about his age of seventeen and smiled at the corpse. "Well done Neville. You did what I could not and held the line. The day is yours my friend, rest in peace," he said before gently shutting the corpse's eyes.
"Harry…"
"Yes?" He turned to see who had spoken. One of his oldest and dearest friends, Hermione Granger, had now stood before him dressed in loose fitting robes. The scars of the past years weighed heavily on her body. Her left eye was gone and a scar ran down her face. Her skin was pale and gray with little apparent muscle mass. He knew the scars didn't stop there. She had been caught by a blast of dragon fire and her legs were nothing more than a mass of scar tissue. Only the near miraculous healing powers of magic had saved her from death.
"I know you won't like this, but someone let some," she swallowed hard, "reporters in. They are coming this way right now."
A murderous look cross his pale face and Hermione "If they get in my way…" he growled.
"No! Harry you can't hurt them. At least not here or now." That had been the greatest change in his friend over the last year. The girl who started out despising violent actions towards other humans, unless they were threatening friends, so casually suggest he murder a number of unsuspecting wizards and witches at a later time.
"Fine," he grumbled. "You've become ruthless." The pair moved towards one of the side rooms off the Great Hall, hoping for some privacy.
"Adapt to your situation or die. I had to change my mindset to survive the war and you did the exact same thing," she retorted as they walked.
"I know. I don't have to like though. What future do I have now? All I learned is war, death, and violence. Somehow I don't think that's going to help rebuild this shattered world." He opened the side door and they passed though. Moment later he heard loud reporters enter the Great Hall.
"We'll find a way. What was learned can be unlearned, what we did…can be buried, forgotten by mortals until the end of all things." Drawing her wand, Hermione murmured a spell and the door flashed a silvery blue. "There we shouldn't be disturbed now."
Harry glanced at the room and sighed. Once these side rooms had been lavishly furnished; thick carpets, and plush sofas once greeted guest, once bearing witness of dark deals down in secret. Now they were bare. A simple wood table and stools were all that remained. The table was littered in numerous cups and a few bottles. The defenders had been using this place before they went off to die.
"What's really bothering you Harry?" she asked taking a seat on one of the stools, "and no lies."
He sighed and took a seat. With a sweep of his arm he knocked some cups off the table and leaned on the table. All the weariness of battle seemed to catch up to him at once. He felt weary and worn down to his bones. "Do you think we will ever forget?"
"Forget what?"
He leaned heavily on the table causing it to groan slightly. "The smell of death, burning flesh, the sights and sounds of killing, the looks on your enemy's face as they realize you killed them, will we be able to forget it? The horrors we saw and the horrors we performed can they be atoned for?"
The brunette gave him a long, hard stare before she responded. "Liar, that's not what's bothering you. We already had this discussion, twice in fact."
He gave her a weak, sheepish grin. "Had to try anyway. It's…it's about Tom though, not the horrors of war. When I fought him I, I…I enjoyed it. It was like I had been hit by a Cheering charm, I was ecstatic to fight him. Not wanting to kill him ecstatic, just fight him."
"He out classed you," Hermione stated what she had long thought. Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, had fifty years on them and a vast reservoir of ancient and dark magic. A foe no one merely seventeen years old should have been able to fight against and expected to even have the remotest chance of victory. A heroic sacrifice would be the only outcome from such a battle, but she had realized it too late.
"Yeah, it was like the time we fought that dark dragon." Harry recalled their desperate attempt to protect a muggle town from one of Voldemort's raids. The dragon was half mad with pain and easily controlled by a wizard of Voldemort's caliber. The town had been lost, engulfed in flames, but the people were safe from being captured and used for dark summoning rituals. It had been that battle that Hermione had been burnt and spent the rest of the war healing within the castle. "I…I liked the feeling. I wanted more of it. It flooded me and I loved the feeling. The awareness…the colors were sharp, the smells…everything was…in that moment. It was like I felt…I was all of creation and saw the world for the first time as it should be."
"I remember a book on this subject…a Dr. Shawn I think wrote a book on veterans of combat and one symptom he noted over and over was what you felt. I think he called it Blood Knight Syndrome. It's defined as just having a desire to fight and enjoy it, but I might be wrong. It has been a while since I read that book…" she trialed off thoughtfully.
"…is there a treatment? I don't what to be like this," he pleaded.
"I don't know. Let me do some research, but…" she drawled.
"But what?" he asked raising an eyebrow.
"But, I think it's more of a willpower issue." There was hint of challenge in her voice as she rose. She walked to the door and looked out before looking back at him. "They're gone Harry. Have you ever thought about taking a vacation? Anyway I'll see you at the awards ceremony okay?"
Hermione Granger knew him too. He was competitive and the best way to get his attention was to challenge him. For the longest time Voldemort had been his challenger, and know he knew he would face his greatest foe; one who knew his every action, secret thought, and every weakness. "Yeah, see you later. A vacation…"
The door shut behind her and the world faded to black as the sound of wood on stone echoed away.
Why?
Not a voice, a thought. An expression of curiosity.
Why?
A thought repeating itself. Endless, infinite, eternal questions.
What?
A need to know. A desire to know, a thought.
What?
Used to describe, to give form.
Have Form.
Mass, space, falling though space.
Space?
A void, blackness between galaxies.
Void?
Fear of the unknown holds us back.
Us?
I, humans…we fear the darkness. Light conquers fear. Humans create light.
Light?
Illumination, revealing, pierces the darkness…hope. Hope is light, light conquers darkness, therefore hope conquers the unknown.
Darkness?
The absence of light. The natural state of being. All is dark. We rebel by bringing light.
Rebel?
To oppose, to resist, to disturb the order.
Order?
Patterns, colors, shapes, repeating endlessly, forever spiraling onwards. Man is not order, man is not endless, order is control. An illusion.
Illusion?
Falsehood, lie, depiction, lack of truth, fake.
Lie?
A falsehood.
Leads To…?
Lack of order, chaos, anarchy, violence. The natural state of existence.
Chaos?
The lack of order, human emotions…thought? Passionate and cold, loving and hating, in a moment humans, rebels change.
Change?
Movement from one thing to another.
Leads To…Chaos?
The natural state of existence.
Chaos?
Yes. Chaos. Humans seek order in chaos of life. Humans are not endless. They cannot find it. I know because I am…human?
Human?
A form…a shape given life, intelligence, seeker of order, child of chaos. Life in the right, death in the left, dealing each with glee. Monsters.
Monsters?
No. Lost.
Lost?
Away from where they should be. An arbitrary path in the multiverse.
Multiverse?
Many universes, many galaxies in each universe. Many lost…humans. Non humans too. What is the measure of a human?
Light
Light is…
Lost
Is…
Illusion
Is…
Change
Is…
Rebel
Is…
Chaos
Chaos, Light is chaos. Chaos is light, light is truth, truth is power.
Power?
Control over someone. Never given willingly.
Wrong
What?
Wrong
Explain!
Power Chaos. Chaos You.
What do you mean?
Stars. Stars Light. Stars Truth. Stars Chaos. Humans, Friends Light Stars
I don't understand!
Stars. Stars Light. Stars Truth. Stars Chaos. Humans, Friends Light Stars
Explain yourself!
Stars. Stars Light. Stars Truth. Stars Chaos. Humans, Friends Light Stars
Who are you?
Star.
What?
Need to Know.
Stop parroting me!
Parroting?
Monster
Echo, repeating.
Monster
Stop!
Monster
Stop!
Monster
I am not a…
Monster
Just a small wish…
Monster
A small…wish…
Dark Heart
I know...I never wanted this!
Human?
Yes, I'm human.
Dark Heart
No, stop it. I am not a bad person.
Fallen
What? Who are you?
You
You…are me? How?
How
…Something happened to me…
Memories
Why can't I remember?
Powerful
Who? Give me a straight answer!
Man
A human? What did man do to me?
Male
Whom?
Eyes Death
A male I know…
New
Harrison!
Dark Heart
What?
Male Dark Heart
Harrison is evil…?
No. Dark
What did he do?
Choices
Huh?
Two Choices
He gave…choices?
Yes
What choices?
Two
Yes, what are my choices?
Choice One
…
Embrace Dark Heart
…
Monster
…
Undying
…
Protector
…
Eternal
…
Choice Two
…
Seal
…
Reject
…
Power
…
Mortal
…
Death
Death!
Others
What is this? Were am I?
Nowhere. Everywhere
That does not help?
Anger?
What?
Anger
You don't understand… What are you?
Light
Huh?
Harry stood before the ruins of an ancient tower. The fog was laid heavy on this place, but he marched forward, towards the ruins. During the duel with Severus Snape he had learned a clue about his mother. As his former potions teacher lay dying, his body ruined by Harry's spells, the man told him that Lily Potter, then Lily Evans, always vanished for a day seventeen days before Christmas. She left with nothing, only her wand and cloak, and returned each time with a small black book. She would then travel to parts unknown seventeen days after Christmas with the book and return the next day without the book. Snape revealed and handed over a page he had stolen form the book near the end of their time in Hogwarts.
Harry never bothered to ask how Snape knew that information or why he took the page and the man expired shortly after. That had been during the middle of last year, when the height of violence was reached. Men and women, muggle and wizard were dying right and left. Voldemort played his final gambit and took complete control of the Ministry of Magic. Harry had learned there were worse things than having a Dark Lord in power, and those things came from the Unspeakable department.
The Dark Lord's followers and the Unspeakable research resulted in a new bred of creature, one with life yet without it. Abominations, magical creatures sewn together like a Frankenstein monster soon fought for the Dark Lord. Men fused with magical creature, creatures fused with other creatures and in it all the body count rose.
The Queen of England had threatened action against them if nothing was done to contain Voldemort. Harry and the remnants of those still fighting for the Light rallied. They formed a new coalition Apostles of the Phoenix and he found his second clue.
Lily had apparently gotten carless one year and collide with Remus Lupin, a close friend of his father. In the mess of book Lily's black book had become interlaced with one of Remus's textbook. When the two separated the books, a page from Lily's book was torn out and Remus found it. He planned to return it, but never did. After Lily's death he kept it as a memento.
With two pages of his mother's mysterious book in hand he joined the battle. He committed himself to the path of the warlock and began to change. At first it was small things, floating rocks or catching bits of people's thoughts, but he thought little of it. The last skirmishes with Voldemort he found himself relaying upon his invisibility cloak more and more.
The strange incidents continued and grew. All his spells began to take on a green hue. The battle for the White Tomb won him the wand of Albus Dumbledore, the Elder Wand, the legendary Deathstick. It was herald for the changes that had grown unknowingly in his body. Soon after claiming the wand and driving Voldemort from the Tomb he began to suffer spasm of pain. His magic began to act erratically and lash out at random.
It was n those lucid moments that the pages of his mother's book began to make sense. What he had seen as gibberish and overly fancy runes became words and sentences. The pages mentioned a sickness that caused Lily's magical core to behave wildly erratic. The only cure lay in some place called Felecia's Dell and even that was a only temporary measure.
The pain suddenly passed four days later and he rejoined the fight by the sixth day. It would be another eight months before he could seek out the Felecia's Dell, once Voldemort had been killed.
He entered the ruined tower, having broken from the chain of memories that led to that place. The tower itself was a single large room with a great tree reaching for the sky beyond the broken roof. Massive roots formed twelve perfect arcs inter-spaced evenly around the tree's trunk. The tree was unnaturally green and its bark healthy. In the fading light he swore it shimmered, but that didn't surprise him. Magical artifacts of great power, the stuff of legends like the Elder Wand had a habit of giving off magical energy visible to the human eye.
Twice he circled the tree and passed under each arc. On the third time he stopped halfway and noticed a small stone half buried in the dirt. Kneeling, he brushed it off. The surface was covered in strange runes yet the moment he touched it with bare skin it began to glow a fierce red light.
A short rumbled was all the warning he had. The tree trunk swung open, nearly knocking him senseless. In the apparently hollow tree trunk was a stone pedestal with twelve names engraved in it. Two more names lay above the others, intertwined by vines and bleeding flowers. On top he saw something that seized him completely. The world vanished as he laid eyes on the ring inset with a single black stone.
"Resurrection Stone…" he breathed heavily. With trembling hands he reached out and took the ring.
"Greetings, Master of Death…I am now yours to command forever."
Those words echoed again and again as the memory faded to black.
"…forever."
Memories, why? Why now?
Choices
…
Withheld
…
Long
…
Answer
…
Answer
…
Answer
No. I refuse.
…
Silence doesn't become you.
…
…
…
Connection
What? What did you do?
Complete
Answer me you bloody bastard!
Upload
No, I refuse! It's too soon! No!
Established
Noooooooo!
"You! What do you want?"
"Nothing, really."
"Lies, the money has already been transferred to your Isis Trimus account. Take it and be gone!"
"That's not why I'm calling. The zero generation have been completed. Soon I will begin testing."
"Then…Then it worked!"
"Yes, surprising well. I must thank you Admiral-"
"Shush! Don't call me that! This line may be tapped."
"Oh, I'm sorry." There was no apology in the voice's statement. "Very well, for the next six months you're going to want to keep the loyalist from the Riv Sector. I can't guarantee their safety in that system."
"You ask for the moon and the stars 'Jack'," the unknown Admiral said. "I do what I can, but those machines have better be ready! Or the loyalist might just 'discover' that you're alive."
"But you wouldn't because I have direct ties to you. It was would a horrible thing if my funding dried up due to your…corrupt character."
"Silence! You think you can threaten me? I was the one who pulled you from that cell, never forget that! I own you body, mind and soul! You work for me and will do I direct. Am I understood?"
There was a long silence… "Perfectly" the voice hissed.
"What the devil is this?" I screamed to the empty room.
I had boarded the Whitefire and returned to my staterooms to continue reading. I continued ranting, cursing the book for not telling me anything. All it had told me was somebody had a screwed up mind. In my anger I threw the book hard against the full length mirror, but to my displeasure noting broke.
The book lay abandoned on the floor and I was content to leave it there. Looking into the mirror I studied myself, trying to center myself. Pale skin without mark or blemish, the work of gene therapy, black hair that came to my shoulders, a body that was hard muscle and soft curves greeted me. Standing in just my black bra and panties I couldn't see why my lady didn't take me… I wasn't too skinny and my breasts were full, yet she never once looked upon me the way I wished.
As a woman…as a lover…
Perhaps I was the fool. I, a lowly human, reached for the goddess who had stolen my heart. In vain I sought someone who existed beyond my reach, beyond even my plane do existence, someone who would see the end of all creation, the death of the multiverse.
Who was I to such a being?
I seized the book and began to read. Perhaps this worm could find a path to the sun. Then she would acknowledge me!
A/N:
And
…
…
Cut!
Take ten people. That was one the strangest scenes I've ever seen, but it was fun to create. Read and review! Remember to tip your waitresses!
Coming up next: The end of… the Book? The world? Life as they know it? The story arc?