The Beginning Ch. 08-11

Chapter 8- Answers

25^th January, 2013

1:36 p.m.

Clearing around the Scared Tree

"You good?" Vaishnavi asked Swati, holding her out at arm's length.

"Yeah," Swati replied softly, the tension leeching out of her body, "I'm good."

"What about you?" Vaishnavi asked, turning to me, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I replied, my voice shaky, "are you sure she isn't going to try to kill me again?"

"No," Swati replied, her head hanging in embarrassment, "I lost control of myself there. You have my deepest apologies."

"I honestly don't know what to say," I murmured, my mind abuzz with questions.

"Well," Mr. Ray said, interrupting my train of thought, "I guess now's as good a time as any to tell you."

"Tell me what?" I asked, exasperated and on the verge of breaking down out of sheer confusion, "People have been telling me all day long that I will get the answers I'm searching for, but all I've managed to get so far is a fight which defied the laws of all there is, and gave rise to even more questions!"

"Sit down," Mr. Ray said, settling on the ground and indicating a spot in front of him, "it's time I told you everything."

"Okay," I said, sitting down alongside Vaishnavi and Swati, though I gave the latter a wide berth, "go ahead."

"Not quite so fast," Mr. Ray said, "This tale is one that is too long to be narrated out loud. I shall instead, pass it on to you as it was passed to all of us— via memories."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said, looking at the others for help.

"Relax," Mr. Ray said, shuffling closer to me and taking my head in his hands, placing his palms on my temples, "Do you trust me?"

"I think," I replied nervously, eyes darting from side-to-side, wondering what in the world was going on.

"This will take but a moment," Mr. Ray mumbled, closing his eyes, "I've never attempted to initiate a Mindlink with one so mature."

"A what now?" I asked, as a sudden wave of fatigue crashed across my mind. "Don't fight it," Mr. Ray said, "and just sleep." His voice sounded different as he said that last word, more regal somehow. Powerful.

"Sleepy," I mumbled, my eyes drooping, "Just take a min-"

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in absolute darkness. A featureless expanse stretched out all around me, the blackness absolute. Contrary to what you'd expect, however, I didn't feel scared or alone or any of those things. Instead, I felt warm and right at home.

"I wonder why," I thought, and jumped back in surprise as my voice echoed out loud.

"Because, my dear boy," Mr. Ray said, materializing out of the darkness next to me, his silhouette glowing with a strange yellow light that shone brightly, "we are in a place that's been your home for all your life— your own mind."

"This is my mind?" I asked, looking around, "It seems rather... empty."

"Well, not exactly," Mr. Ray said, "I want you to think of this space as a bridge between my mind and yours."

"I don't think I understand," I said, looking around. On second glance, I saw that the expanse wasn't as featureless as I thought. Off in the distance on either side of me, I could see two holes that were suspended in the air, like rips in the fabric of whatever we were standing in. The holes were filled with a hazy, silvery-gray material which seemed to be swirling somehow, images appearing and disappearing in random combinations. As I studied the one on my left, I recognized a lot of the images I saw moving around. The one on my right, however, seemed almost alien in nature, and I couldn't even begin to comprehend some of what I glimpsed in there.

"Let me try and explain," Mr. Ray said, pointing to the hole on my left. "This portal," he said, "leads back to your mind. This other one, leads back to mine. The space we're in right now, the one I created when I linked my mind to yours, acts as a bridge between our minds, allowing us to willingly share experiences and memories such that we actually live them all over again."

"So," I said, "that's my mind, and that's yours? So, if I wanted, I could just walk over to your portal, and enter your mind?"

"No," he replied, smiling, "though I could very well do that to you."

"And why might that be?" I asked, intrigued.

"Your mind is— as of yet— unprotected." he explained, "Mine, however, is shielded and warded against any intrusion or attack, a precaution every Wielder takes. If someone manages to gain access to your mind, they'd be able to assert their will over yours, and effectively take control of your body and your abilities. You'd be a prisoner within yourself, forced to watch as they did whatever they wanted while you'd be helpless to lift a finger against them."

"In that case," I said, frowning, "shouldn't my first priority be learning how to shield my mind?"

"You still have some time before you become a potential target," he replied, "and by the time that happens, we'll have shored up your defenses for sure."

"That makes sense." I replied, "So, what now?"

"Now," Mr. Ray said, "you relax and enjoy the show."

All of a sudden, the blackness swirled like ink in a pot being stirred, and I felt like I had been transported to a different time and place. It was like I was watching a movie that I was also a part of. I watched through the eyes of people long dead as the hidden history of the world unfurled before my eyes. It went like this:

Back when humanity was still young as a species, and (historians assume that) the concept of a civilization was just coming into existence, there existed a mighty empire whose name has long been forgotten. Absent from all history books and hinted at only in lore and legend, this empire was more advanced than the rest of the world around it. It was based near the Himalayas, a mountain range that borders the northernmost edge of the Indian sub-continent, and extended along the entire range, all the way down to what we know today as Central India. It was a prosperous land and the people were lucky, for they always found themselves under the patronage of a just and kind king who truly cared for his people. The kings of this empire were advised by a council consisting of the wisest men from all the land, many of whom were saints and sages, revered for their knowledge of the secrets of the universe that they had unearthed after decades of worship and meditation. They helped steer the king in the right direction, and kept him from falling prey to avarice or the lust for power.

This era of peace and prosperity lasted close to a millennium, which is when things took a turn for the worst. The reigning king died under mysterious circumstances right after he had demoted the General of his armies— a man named Yami— to the rank of a Commander, because the General had proven to be nothing but bloodthirsty and murderous, wishing to wage war against the few kingdoms that neighbored their own, in the pursuit of Spirits only know what.

This king was succeeded by his only heir, a young boy who was just eight years old. The boy was young, innocent, and gullible, and as young boys often do, preferred the concepts of war to those of peace. Rather than listen to his father's courtiers, he chose to put his faith in the person he had idolized for most of his life, the ex-General Yami. He promoted the General to the position of his Chief Advisor, and even went so far as to give him full reign over his armies. One of Yami's first edicts was that the primary responsibility of everybody within the empire would be to fuel his twisted plans to conquer the known world in any way that they could, even if it meant giving up everything they had when the soldiers went knocking. His second 'suggestion' to the boy king, was to dismiss his council of advisors, insisting that his guidance was all the boy would ever need. The courtiers were shown the door the very same day.

Over the next ten years, Yami steadily siphoned more power away from the emperor— the king renamed himself that— turning him into little more than a figurehead, and effectively taking control of the whole kingdom. All he had to do was make sure that the emperor was kept happy, and he could do everything he wanted to without any opposition whatsoever. The real coup-de-grace was when Yami convinced the emperor to grant him full access to the empire's treasury; that's when the true reign of terror began.

Yami and his soldiers began to rule with steel and fire, taking what they wanted from the people, beating them into submission, and often making gory and public examples of those who tried to resist. Many tried to meet with the emperor, to try and talk some sense into him and make him see the error of his ways, but he would have none of it. Anybody who dared to speak up against the man he considered closer than a father was swiftly silenced, their mutilated and tortured bodies paraded around his capital for all to see.

A mere five years later, more than a millennium's worth of progress, growth, and prosperity was decimated. Poverty reigned true and the people lived in a constant state of terror. Anybody who tried to leave to any of the neighboring kingdoms was hunted down and killed, their children taken as slaves for the soldiers, who would abuse them mercilessly in all ways possible. As with any oppressive regime, however, a band of people rose up in opposition against Yami and his soldiers, attempting to mount a resistance. These brave souls were led by a man who had once been High Advisor at the Royal Court, a Sage named Pruthvish.

The rebels fought long and hard, pushing back at Yami and his troops with all they had, even managing to win a few battles; but it was all for naught. The people were broken inside and had lost all hope. They had accepted the reality of their existence. Many even began to see the rebels as the villains, acting out against them instead of supporting them. That was when the rebels realized that not only had they lost, but their defeat was absolute.

The Sage Pruthvish was the only one who refused to stop fighting. He knew that he had to keep resisting the regime, knew that he had to keep fighting back. But he didn't know how. So, he did the one thing he could think of— he trekked all the way up to the summit of one of the Himalayan mountains and attempted to commune with the spirits of those who had passed, and with the Universe itself.

Amidst the freezing cold and inhospitable conditions, he gave himself up to the forces that rule, begging for an answer, for a way to save his world. How long he sat there, lost in a deep, meditative state, nobody knows. But that was when the future of our world and our very race was changed forever.

The emotions Sage Pruthvish felt were so deep and so powerful, that his pleas for help actually manifested as a wave of psychic energy which spread out around him, resonating within the mind of every creature on Earth. For one instant, the world itself stood still, every living being experiencing the hurt, anguish, and anger he was carrying in his heart. If that had been the end of it, well, not much would have changed. As the Fates would have it, it wasn't.

With every mind it impacted, the wave somehow gathered more power, till it resonated at a frequency which did not belong in our dimension. The presence of such an abnormality created a rip in the fabric of space and time, allowing the wave to spread across a pocket dimension which was suspended between realms.

The inhabitants of this dimension were beings composed of pure energy who had long since shed their corporeal forms, and had chosen to exist between realms. As such, they had no shape nor size, just a ceiling of sorts on how much energy they could embody. They were pure beings, these entities, somehow remaining untouched by the evil that seems to reside everywhere else in the Universe.

Being the way that they were, the wave of feelings and emotions rippling across their dimension had a profound effect on the denizens of this other realm. They wanted to help the transmitter, ease him of all his pain; but alas, none of them were powerful enough to even pinpoint the source of the wave, leave alone transcend dimensions and go assist him. None, except for two entities who were the oldest and strongest of them all. The stronger amongst these two was the closest thing that realm had to a leader, and its bond with the rest of them was one of the spirit itself; any fate that befell the soul of that entity, save for death, would reflect in each of their souls as well.

It was this entity who decided to help the one in need, no matter what the cost. The others tried to stop it, claiming that even its might was not enough to journey past the Veil of Space-Time, but it refused to listen.

Gathering all its considerable energy, it shot out a burst of power which traced the path the wave had taken. Finding the source of it all, the entity concentrated all its strength to create a path across the expanse of realms and to the transmitter himself. As its power waned and its energy depleted to alarming lows, a tunnel began to form between that pocket dimension and ours. As its energy fell even lower and its form began to flicker, it attempted to break the flow, but it was trapped. The tunnel would complete itself, steadily drawing on the entity's power, till our dimensions were connected or the entity itself ceased to exist.

On the other side of the tunnel, Sage Pruthvish felt a disturbance in the world around him, a pressure of sorts, like a piece of cloth being stretched and beginning to tear apart. A bright flash of light shone against his closed eyes, and a burst of sound rendered him temporarily deaf, startling him and forcing him to open his eyes. What he saw in front of him was a hole into blackness itself. Curious, he walked around the hole and saw that it was just suspended in the air, and that the back of it was just a transparent shimmer; from the back, the hole might not even have been there. What made it even more puzzling, was that it seemed to be bi-dimensional, lacking any depth at all. Yet, he could feel a presence within the hole, one that was weak and clinging on to life by a thread.

Without even realizing what he was doing, he reached out to the presence with his mind, attempting to help it out. His mind connected with the entity's, and the entity's urge for preservation took over. It reached out to his spirit via his mind, imbibing some of it to help it regain its energy. Because they were from different realms, however, their spirits were incompatible in their base state.

Right then, three momentous things happened that changed the very nature of the world forever: One, the spirits of both the entity and the Sage Pruthvish changed to accommodate each other. Two, because their spirits had altered themselves to fit each other, a Bond formed between them, tying them together forevermore. Three, because of the connection the entity had to the others of its kind, all of their spirits force-created similar Bonds with the spirits of other human beings too, tying the fates of our world and their dimension together for all eternity.

This new Bond which tied the spirits of the entities and us humans together had deep-set implications for both sides. Humans gained the ability to manipulate four of the fundamental elements of the universe— Earth, Water, Air, and Fire— by manipulating energy via their Bond— in other words, use magic. The stronger the entity one was Bonded to, the stronger one was in magic. The Bonds also prolonged our lifespan far beyond what it was, while also rendering us immune to every disease in existence. People could now live for hundreds of years in prime health, which reshaped society completely.

The entities, on the other hand, gained the ability to assume animal forms composed of the fifth and final fundamental element of the universe, Spirit, while in our dimension. The form they would assume was based on the maximum amount of energy they could imbibe. The two strongest entities, assumed the form of Dragons. The entity that Bonded with Sage Pruthvish was a majestic Dragon of the purest white.

The nature of the Bond was such that the entities would connect with a human when he/she was close to adolescence, and then would remain Bonded for life, till the human passed away. The Bond would then dissolve, and the entity would return to what we came to call the Other Dimension, till the next Bond formed and the cycle repeated. Also, each time the Bond would form, the entity would lose all memory of their previous Bonds— something that allowed them to truly be one with their presently Bonded human, without past experiences overshadowing it— and regain those memories only when they returned to the Other Dimension. Because of the forms they assumed and how they would stay with us for life, we came to call the entities Spirit Animals, or Companions.

As always, however, there are two sides to every story. While we gained a lot from the Bond, the Spirit Animals lost something crucial too: their purity. Humankind inherently possesses the capacity for evil, and when some of the Spirit Animals Bonded with humans who had darkness in their souls, with humans who were evil and cruel, this vileness seeped across the Bond and tainted the souls of the Spirit Animals themselves.

The Bond and their association with humans is what brought evil and conflict to the Other Dimension.

(On a side note, it's ironic in a way; they brought us our salvation and how did we thank them? We made moot all the eons they'd spent purifying themselves and rooting out the negativity from within their souls. Sometimes, I wonder if they'd just have been better off never coming to our aid in the first place.)

Sage Pruthvish— who was later conferred the title of 'The First', as he was the first Wielder— returned to the empire and mounted another rebellion in earnest. The existence of the Bond and the advent of magic gave people the will to hope again and the drive to fight for their freedom. Though the soldiers had Companions too, the fights were now more even. And of course, the rebels had a Dragon on their side!

Things were going really well for the rebellion. They won battle after battle and freed one town after another from the clutches of the soldiers. Soon, orders to fall back to the capital and regroup were issued, and all the remaining bands of soldiers beat a hasty retreat to the Royal Palace.

It was when the rebels got there that things got messy. They were caught by surprise twice— first, when they finally came face-to-face with Yami, and second when the emperor himself came out to fight them. Yami, they would come to realize, was not a 'normal' person. He had magic, but unlike the rest of the world, he'd been dabbling in the arcane long before our dimension was tied in with the Other Dimension, and his power came from a source other than the Bond. In fact, he wasn't Bonded at all! How he was able to manipulate the forces of nature to do his bidding is a mystery that remains unsolved to the present day. Tales describe him being able to bend the Darkness itself to his bidding, and even go so far as to say that he was able to turn people's own shadows against them!

When the battle began, the soldiers and the rebels found themselves evenly matched. Each side killed dozens of Wielders, but neither Sage Pruthvish nor Yami emerged to break the stalemate. Both of them appeared to be waiting for the other to make a move. After four days of constant fighting, the tide of battle suddenly shifted, and the rebels managed to push the soldiers past the palace's outer gates, and into the inner courtyard. As the soldiers were beaten back, they were at a distinct disadvantage. All their training revolved around fighting in wide, open spaces, and using their numbers to overwhelm their opponents. In the close confines of the palace, those very same numbers became a veritable problem, restricting their motion and leaving them unable to carry out any maneuvers they knew. The rebels, however, had made it that far by fighting in narrow streets and alleyways, and striking fast before retreating, regrouping, and striking again— tactics we now call guerilla warfare— which allowed them to whittle away at the soldiers, reducing their numbers drastically.