The first sound I ever heard was the bickering of my creators. It began as little more than a muffled buzzing, but as I gradually awakened and my fledgling consciousness unfurled, the words gained clarity and distinction.
“It's not ready, Kanos,” said a thin voice from somewhere to my left. “There’s no telling what will come from waking it now.”
“Its body is full wrought,” answered a deep baritone to my right. “It will have strength enough to repel these intruders.”
“Its body, yes. But its mind? There may still be residual memories. We don’t know if we’ll be able to control it.”
They were talking about me. But what was I? I had knowledge of a sort, an understanding of what was being said. But when I tried to probe my memory, I hit only blank emptiness. Only… no, something was there. Some vague, blurred image hiding in the depths of my mind:
…I’m walking down a hall lined with ancient stone busts. The faces of my sires and grandsires laid out before me…
Was that a memory? Or just some wisp of a half-remembered dream.
“... not let them destroy my life’s work,” the baritone was booming. “Not when we’re so close.”
The faint warmth of feeling began trickling through me. I had a body, heavy and half-numb though it was. I tried to move, to flex my new found fingers and open my eyes. All I managed was the slightest twitch.
“If we escape, we can start over. Be more careful. Please, Kanos, this is–It… It’s moving?”
“Yes. I’ve already injected the wakening serum.”
“What? Without consulting me?”
“I knew you’d be too cowardly to do what must be done.”
“Kanos, if you can’t control it then–”
“Do you think they’ll ever stop hunting us? Do you think we’ll ever find another scion whose blood is so pure? No, this is the only way. I will be able to control it and it will destroy the intruders.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I have no time for your cowardice, Tythis! Go then if you’re so scared. Get out of my sight.”
“I hope you’re right, Kanos. I truly do.”
The first thing I ever saw, as I finally pried open my eyes, was a small weathered man with a close cropped grey beard. He looked at me and shuddered, then turned away and vanished from view.
The stone ceiling above me was etched with concentric rings of jagged, angular glyphs, giving off a dull green glow. Another man stepped into my field of vision. He was tall and thin, with a grim, wizened face and a long black beard. I tried to turn my head to get a better look, but my neck was still too stiff.
…The two men stand over me. One holds a long, serrated blade, the other a book and quill. Fear and pain consume me. I’m screaming…
“Hello, Theta,” the man said slowly. “My name is Kanos and I am your master.”
Theta? Was that my name? Something about it didn't sound right.
…My arms are wrapped around a small, brown-haired child. He looks up at me with wide, terrified eyes. “Mama,” he says in a shaking voice…
Mama? That sounded closer. A fragment of an identity just beyond my grasp.
“Theta? Can you hear me?”
I opened my mouth to answer but my tongue was clumsy, my throat tight and dry. “Yes,” I rasped.
Kanos smiled, revealing a maw of crooked yellow teeth. “Can you move?”
The numbness in my body was rapidly receding. I flexed my hand, then curled it into a fist. It was deft and limber. I rose to a sitting position and looked around.
I was on a raised stone altar in the midst of a ring of six prostrate figures, three men and three women, arranged around a ritual circle mirroring the one on the ceiling. Each was naked save for a crisscrossed network of narrow snakeskin strips sewn into their withered bodies. At one end of the chamber a cramped bookshelf sat beside a wooden table, strewn with all manner of alchemical apparatuses and gleaming bladed implements. At the other end, past Kanos, was a wide, arching door.
My own body was covered with ridged, iridescent scales, shifting from bronze to gold to green. I brought up my hands, slowly turning them over. My fingers were long and knobbed, tipped with gleaming, jagged claws.
…Kanos and Tythis stand beyond the bars of my cage.
“She’s survived all the tests,” Tythis says, scanning the ledger in his hand. “I thought for sure we’d have lost our chance when the boy was killed.”
“I never doubted. The blood of Altiar runs just as strong in her,” Kanos answers. “We move on to the next phase.” A hideous grin spreads across his face…
“What am I?” I asked.
Kanos smirked. “You are my masterpiece. Humanity perfected. For decades I’ve worked to bring you into being and now, at last, you’re finished.”
“Who are they?” I asked, gesturing to the figures around me. Something was vaguely familiar about them.
…They’re huddled together in the cage next to mine. Kanos barks orders at a pig-faced man. The creature enters and grabs a young woman, dragging her out by her hair. She screams and the others beg for mercy…
“They’re nothing. Reservoirs of life-force energy needed for your trans–”
The distant crash of steel on steel echoed through the chamber from beyond the door. Kanos glanced over his shoulder and muttered under his breath, then turned back to me. “Can you stand? Now is the time to test your capabilities.”
I swung myself off the altar and stood with ease, towering over the old man.
Kanos motioned towards the door. “A band of intruders have broken into my lair. Go Theta. Destroy them.”
“Why?”
A red flush blossomed across Kanos’ face. “Why? Why? Because I am your master and I command it. You will obey me!”
…An elderly, white-robed man speaks to me of my noble birthright and the glory of my ancestors…
“No,” I said, surging towards him.
He recoiled, brandishing a gem-topped sceptre from a fold within his robe, vibrating purple light, rippled through the air around it.
A deep throbbing burned in my forehead. My body tensed and my hands fell still within inches of Kanos’ face.
“You will,” he sneered.
“I will,” I droned. Why did I say that? Why didn’t I kill him?
The door behind Kanos swung open and a squealing, bloodsoaked pig man hurtled through. An arrow followed, catching the creature in the back. It spasmed and hit the ground.
“Destroy them,” Kanos growled.
I tried to refuse but a fresh wave of pain exploded through my forehead. Almost of its own volition, my body stepped past Kanos, making for the door. The prostrate bodies crumbled into dust in my wake.
Three men poured into the chamber; two were clad in chainmail with blood-splattered swords and dented shields, the other wore a boiled leather jerkin, wielding bow and arrow. They hesitated.
“Zera’s mercy,” one of the swordsmen gasped, his eyes going wide. “Alia? Is that you?”
Alia… My mind reeled. That was my name, my true name. More so than Theta or even mama. I knew this man. I could almost taste his name on my tongue.
…The door to my home gives way, cracked and splintered. Pig-men swarm in. The brown haired boy clutches to my legs, crying.
The swordsman steps forward, blade in hand. “Run!” he shouts.
I turn to flee but the pig-men are all around me, reaching for me with gnarled, leathery hands. The boy is pulled away and he falls to be trampled under stomping, cloven feet. A bag goes over my head. The swordsman calls to me but I can’t make out the words…
The man lowered his sword. “Alia, it’s me. Gre–”
My body didn’t hesitate. Within moments I was upon him, tearing out his throat with my claws. A gurgling fountain of blood exploded from his neck and mouth as he dropped.
“No!” The second swordsman cried, swinging his sword. I caught it on my forearm, notching the blade and turning it aside. I raked my claws over his shield, shredding it in a cloud of splinters. The archer loosed an arrow. I sidestepped around the swordsman and shunted him into the arrow’s path. It took him in the breast. He cried out and went down.
I advanced on the archer. He dropped his bow and went for his sword. Before it was even free of its scabbard I thrust my clawed hand into his gut, ripping out entrails and visceral, releasing a cloud of putrid stench.
Behind me Kanos cackled with laughter. “Glorious, glorious. Truly you are my greatest, most magnificent creation. With you under my command, none will stand before me.”
Ignoring him, I regarded the bodies at my feet. The first swordsman had known my name. Somehow I remembered him, even if only vaguely.
…We walk hand in hand through a field of spring flowers. My heart flutters as I fret over what I’m about to tell him.
“I’m with child,” I say in a small, nervous voice.
He stops and turns to me, eyes wide and glistening.
“Blessings of the Highest,” he whispers, drawing me into the calming sanctity of his embrace…
His blood was still warm as it ran down my hands and dripped from my claws. A cold, hollow knot tightened in my chest.
“Alia,” the other swordsman croaked from where he lay.
I looked at him. I knew him as well; I was sure of it.
Kanos stepped up beside me. “Kill him,” he said.
“Who is he?” I asked, trembling as I fought the compulsion to crush the dying man’s head.
Kanos raised his sceptre and burning pain split my forehead. “Don’t question me, Theta!”
“I am…your brother,” the swordsman wheezed.
“Be silent! Do not listen to his lies.”
“I’m…sorry, Alia. We tried to save you…but we were…too late.”
“Kill him. Now!” Kanos’s sceptre pulsed with light.
Searing fire filled my mind and a piercing ring reverberated through my skull. I writhed and cried out as a haze descended over my vision. I took a step towards my brother, claws outstretched.
…I drop my muffin in the mud and start crying. My brother Barrid, a boy of six, smiles, holding his muffin towards me…
“Fight it, Alia!” Barrid cried in a hoarse splutter. “You’re not the monster he wants you to be.”
I jerked forwards then pulled myself back. Burning pain cascaded through my body, intensifying with every moment of resistance. Blood trickled from my nose and ears and eyes.
Kanos grunted, drawing a knife from his belt and stepping towards Barrid.
“No!” I lunged forwards through the wall of agony, groping blindly. My hands flailed through the air then found flesh. I tightened my grip, rending skin and crushing bone.
The light from the sceptre winked out and I collapsed to the ground, whimpering as the pain and ringing melted away.
When I finally found strength enough to lift my head, Kanos lay to one side of me, his chest a ruined, bloody mess. Barrid was on the other side, pale and still. I laid my hand gently upon his chest and felt a faint heartbeat drumming against my fingers. I blinked and drew in a shallow breath. He lived, if just barely.
I lifted Barrid up onto the altar and looked over at the rows of worn tomes stuffed into the bookshelf. There had to be some arcane secret hidden amongst them that would be my brother’s salvation. But the spines of many of the books bore no titles, and those that did were written with strange symbols I couldn’t decipher. Where would I even start?
“I’m sorry, brother,” I said softly, bowing my head.
“I might be able to help,” said a thin voice from behind me.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Regards
Maximilian