Bea waved her hand, and a map appeared.
“These are the reports from our agents we’ve mapped so far,” she said. More of those damn dots all over the map. “Cross referenced to the rise in incidents of violence against women and children…”
Gasps went around the room due to obvious correlation.
“So this is how it is being done,” Sylvia said. “This is unheard of. Never has one person been given so much power. Power stones are hard to come by, and to use them so wantonly…” She shook her head. “Is there any evidence of this happening during the last trials?”
“None that we’ve been able to establish. Our records are thin from the time, though there has been a sudden influx of artefacts now we have Aragide. Our team is working as hard as it can to glean relevant information, as your own members would attest, but we have seen no record of this.”
“Perhaps we should ask Aragide itself?” I kinda regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth, everyone turning to look at me. I held my ground and stayed still. “It seems to provide us with whatever we ask for. Perhaps a glimpse of the past would work?”
No one replied, said a word, the silence stretching on and on as people fought to get their mind around the idea. I shook my head, snorting in irritation. The way that stone had felt, the horrible dragging weakness… I needed to know, one way or another. I looked up to the ceiling, as if that’s where the ghost in the machine that operated Aragide lived, and asked silently for just that.
I caught the sound of people’s dismay just as the room fell away.
I stood in a dusty auditorium, people shouting from the stands around me. My heartbeat rushed in my ears, sweat beading on skin that was not mine. Dark hands that were my hands reached for the spear held out by several women in golden armour, closing over the shaft. A gigantic woman rose from a deep pool down the end of the arena, her hair falling in long waves, her eyes staring into me as she flicked her long snake of a tail.
The view shifted abruptly, the world seeming to shift and turn, people screaming, shouting in a language I didn’t understand. And I wouldn’t any time soon. I was thrown to the ground with a grinding thud—
Now I stood, hands on my knees, sucking in a breath as I stared down at a man spreadeagled on the sand. We went down, slowly, hesitantly, as if we were afraid of what lay there. The blood slowly seeping in a wide circle may have been what.
“Aramka…” we said, little more than a whisper. “Aramka!”
We kept talking, the words meaning nothing to me, but the intent was pleading, begging. Another man came pelting over, throwing himself to the ground beside the dying one, his hands shaking when they came back bleeding. It didn’t stop him though as he fought to heal the other man, conjuring up a massive ball of light and thrusting it into his chest. The man on the sand’s body jolted when it hit him. Minor cuts and abrasions all disappeared, but the blood pool just got bigger. Others arrived, frantic instructions given, but I watched the light user pump ball after ball into the body until finally, he laid hands on the man, his eyes rolling back.
He’s gonna go in too deep.
Yes, came Lilith’s reply.
They need to stop him. He’ll die!
Yes.
But they didn’t and he did, every tendon in his body straining as he poured his life force into the other man, everyone shouting and yelling and arguing until he tipped forward.
Bang, bang, bang. Memories hit me thick and fast now. Of a body laid in state, covered with a rich woven cloth before being set on fire.
A man speaking to another surreptitiously, his eyes flicking everywhere as he did so, the other man with the toga and hair style of a Roman. The conversation was hurried, coming in fits and starts, and I didn’t understand any of it but the tone—pressured, furtive, angry. The handing over of a pouch of gold and a curl of paper.
Running into an arena to fight another massive goddess, this time constructed of sand and wind, her form shifting inside a howling sandstorm.
Sitting with our legs propped up as several light wielders healed our shredded skin, blood seeping from the many abrasions.
That bed in Aragide, but the occupants were spread across it, large spaces between them speaking volumes.
Tear stricken kisses.
Heads downcast as the consorts kneeled by our sides, us sitting on the throne at the entrance of Aragide, our skull weighed down by some kind of heavy headdress. The musical sound of beads and bells tied to the ends of our plaits as we shifted.
Show me him, I hissed, desperate now. Aragide and its many memories hit me like a ton of bricks, over and over. Show me his power stones, his power.
The deluge slowed, the throbbing pressure in my skull only just registering now it eased. We arrowed through the halls of Aragide, a formless presence, tracking past doors and people, plants, animals that roamed the halls that were so much more alive than now, but perhaps that would come. We twisted and turned, travelling into parts of Aragide that weren’t there now, which made me wonder. It was then I saw the figure emerge from the darkness—the Roman. His eyes crackled with lightning as he waited for the man to arrive.
One of her consorts.
Yes.
He was richly dressed now, the light wielder who’d fought so hard to save the other man, wearing gold armbands and a wide torc around his neck. His clothes looked like they had been woven from a papyrus like thread, the fabric dyed a deep purple. He walked towards the Roman, saw the lightning in his eyes, and came anyway. They spoke, low and quietly before the man reached into his toga and drew out a familiar looking red stone, both their eyes gleaming scarlet as they stared at it. The Roman gave clear instructions by the tone of his voice, and the other man nodded, pocketing the stone.
We followed him on his way back, his steps somehow heavier, more portentous. Perhaps because he made his way back to the avatar’s room, and it was dark when he opened the door a crack. The stone was the only source of light, casting his face a sinister crimson. That and the knife he jerked from his belt, both gleaming as he strode forward. Tears on his face rolled free, silently. They slid further as he approached the bed, placing the stone down on the bed beside the sleeping avatar. Her face wrinkled in response, her movements though, were slow and sluggish. Her eyelids fluttered, struggling to open, taking way, way too long. But when they did, you saw the dim shadow of him raising his knife above his head.
It sliced into her chest like it was nothing, her mouth falling open, blood splattering her lips moments later. Her fingers closed around the hilt, clawing at the metal, but he held it down. His lips were pulled back into a snarl, a soundless scream, but hers wasn’t. Ugly, choked, it was squeezed out of her throat and was enough to alert the other consorts. He shouted something loud and defiant as they launched themselves at him, throwing balls of ice and darkness at him, but we didn’t see much more. The room grew dark, only the winking red light of the stone remaining. Well, that and her voice.
“Aramka… Aramka…”
The room came back suddenly, the women appearing with a snap, and by the looks on their faces, they’d seen everything.
Aramka.
“What does that word mean? They kept saying it.”
Duke shuffled forward, his face stricken. His eyes slid towards me, but they didn’t get far. “Love,” he replied at the same time Lilith did.