Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

Don’t think anyone ever starved in there.” I rubbed my eyes and forehead. “I’m not sure why I said that. I’m just tired, I guess.”

“Eh. Slip of the tongue.” Suri looked faintly troubled, and I saw her glance at my left shoulder. “On that note: how’s your pet black hole doing?”

“What?

“Your shoulder.”

“Oh, that. I haven’t checked.” I shrugged, then pulled my shirt off and had a look at what she was talking about. The hole in question was an eerie triangular patch of black nothingness that took up most of my left shoulder. It was a scar, kind of. The surface was solid, but it didn’t feel like skin. It didn’t feel like anything. You couldn’t push your fingers through it, but you couldn’t feel it with your fingers, either. I’d earned it during an airship crash soon after entering Archemi.

Suri leaned in to look at it as well. “It’s bigger.”

“This? Nah.” I pointed at the black space. “It’s always been that size.”

“No, Hector. It’s bigger.” She reached up to probe it. “It didn’t used to touch your collarbone like that. You need to show this to the Masterhealer.”

I frowned, turning my head to look at it again. Now she mentioned it, had it spread from my shoulder to my chest a little? “It’s fine, okay? It’s just the light. Even if it has gotten bigger, the Masterhealer isn’t going to be able to do shit about it.”

“We don’t know that,” she insisted.

I was saved from having to respond by an [Incoming Voice Call] popup. I kissed Suri on the side of the head and held up a hand. “Hang on: Rin’s calling.”

Suri rolled her eyes, and sat back with a sigh.

“Heya Hector! Sorry it took me a while to get back, I’m setting up a workshop in the smithy quarters,” Rin chirped. “Thanks for the materials!”

“Uhh... no problem.” I didn’t remember leaving Rin any materials, but maybe someone else had. “So yeah: is there a way to stream this thing you gave me?”

“Hmmm...” I could almost hear the gears turning in her head. “Oh! Yes! I’m pretty sure there’s meant to be a first-person streaming function, but I don’t know if it was actually included in Archemi’s beta launch. If you watch it while streaming a first-person POV in a video chat channel, you should be able to share it with us.”

“You want to see it too?” I asked her.

“Sure! A-as long as it’s not too gory, or a-anything!” She stuttered off. “I mean, you did, like... die.”

“I can’t guarantee it wasn’t gory,” I said. “Ororgael is a bad dude. For all I know, he whipped out Ororgael the Lesser and molested my tender, innocent corpse.”

“R-Right. I’ll pass for now, then. Even though I don’t have a stomach and probably won’t puke, there’s some things I really, really don’t want to know about Michael, you know?”

Once Rin DC’d, I opened a new video chat with Suri. Then, I ordered it to stream. Sure enough, a first-person video feed appeared in a small frame. When Suri accepted the invite, suddenly she could see what I was looking at. Her face split into a broad grin.

“Hey, mate. My face is up here, you know.” She pointed at her eyes.

“Face? What face?” I managed to tear myself away, also grinning. “Oh! There she is! Sorry, I must have missed you there. It was hidden behind this amazing pair of... chin... pillows.”

“‘Chin pillows’.” She laughed, throwing a cushion at me. “Fuck you and your prim Yankee bullshit. You will address Colonels Knockers and Norks with all due respect, soldier!”

“Apologies, ma’am. Ma’am. Ma’am.” I nodded to her, and saluted to each boob. “So, ready to watch me die pathetically at the hands of my arch-nemesis over and over again?”

“Not really, but let’s get on with it.” Suri looped an arm over the back of the sofa, closing her eyes.

I rattled off the words of power to the Heart of Memory and did the same. A warm sensation spread through my head, and then the playback started.

Chapter 13

I lost track of the room around me, my body, and sounds and smells of the present. Mentally, sensorily, I was back in the desert, mouthing off to Baldr, sending Karalti off, then realizing that the man in front of me wasn’t Baldr at all. It was just Ororgael. I listened with growing horror as he explained Baldr’s fate, then initiated the fight. There was a dream-like quality to the whole thing, the feeling of watching the battle like a movie. I was taken aback to see that Ororgael’s hand-to-hand skills were surprisingly sloppy, and all things considered, past-me was able to keep up with him. My excitement built as I landed what had to be a critical hit, the kind of vital strike that Archemi normally ruled as an insta-kill... but then the Heart of Memory’s feed blurred, and the next moment-

“Wait.” Suri’s voice broke through the feed. “Can you roll it back? What was THAT?”

I concentrated as the video dissolved into a bright flash of light, and scrolled it back to look at what Suri had spotted. The Heart of Memory recorded my vision as it existed in Archemi. I had about 210 degrees of peripheral vision thanks to the Trial of Marantha, and sure enough, my eyes had glimpsed something weird. While I had my vampire claws buried in his heart, a shimmering half-seen figure had come up on me from the side. It was transparent, like heat haze, but it hauled me off Ororgael and sent me flying.

“That must be the ‘invisible bodyguard’ Rutha told us about in Taltos,” I said.

“Yeah, right on. Let’s keep going. See what else he does.”

As I came out of the Shadow Dance, I saw the same shimmering figure merge into his body—and as it did, his