Mythica 1, Chapter 3 + war core cover!

Thought you might want to see the full cover for book 4 in color!


Chapter 3.

Time passed and Sabine enjoyed the silence as she floated in the nothingness around her. The darkness receded a bit and it became more like a foggy, overcast day, where everything was shrouded in a grey mist. There was no pain, and she couldn’t feel her body at all. Her existence was neither good nor bad, it just was.

Something clicked in Sabine’s mind, her old stubbornness surfacing once more. Annoyance and boredom replaced the contented numbness she had felt earlier. Sabine tried to remember what had happened, but it was like trying to think her way through thick molasses as the memories refused to surface. That was fine, it gave her an objective, a challenge that she would conquer. The process was painfully slow, but once she began to remember, her mind opened and flooded her with everything she had been before.

“Some afterlife this is turning out to be. I may not have been the best person, but you’d think I would have rated something more than floating in grey mist for all eternity,”Sabine complained to herself.

She tried to put on a brave face, well, she guessed face wasn’t exactly accurate given that she didn’t seem to have a body anymore. Was this one of the hells that awaited evil souls? There was a decided lack of torment, but maybe the punishment here wasn’t direct pain, but boredom. Maybe if she had done more evil deeds in her life, she would have been cast into a pit of fire, or a pit of snakes, or something along those lines, instead, she got the pit of boredom.

Given the alternatives, floating in the grey mist wasn’t the worst outcome, but it wasn’t exactly the type of eternal reward she thought the gods would provide for someone like herself. Time passed inside the mist, but without night and day, Sabine had no idea how long she languished in this place. Seconds or years could be passing without her any the wiser. It was then that Sabine noticed her memories fading away once again.

She was not going to let that happen, her memories were hers, each one hard-earned, and she wasn’t going to let the nothingness take them from her. Sabine considered what she could do, she needed a task, something to focus on to keep her mind active. At first, she tried to recount her life from childhood, remembering the people and places that were familiar to her. After doing that a few hundred times, she grew bored and looked for a new distraction. Her life had been one of action, not pondering, and this afterlife put her at a severe disadvantage.

Maybe that was it, she needed to focus on actions. Sabine replayed the last battle in her mind, the fight with the orcs and her final confrontation with the ogre. The last image she could pull up in her mind was the ogre’s foot, which was almost as big as her entire body. One element of that image gave her some satisfaction. It took her a few dozen reviews of the battle to spot it, but there it was. As the ogre kicked her, Sabine managed to land her strike with the dagger. The thin blade had slipped between the ogre’s disgusting toenail and soft meat underneath. It may have killed her, but at least the monster didn’t escape unscathed.

She had a new activity to keep her mind occupied. Sabine revisited all her past battles. Her new existence in the afterlife allowed her to watch each memory in perfect detail. She could even stop the memory and study everything around it before continuing. Each fight was reviewed, from the first brawls with her sister when they were little kids, to the toe stab she gave the ogre that killed her.

Patterns and insights began to emerge. She could see where her attacks and defenses were lacking. Sabine pondered what she could have done better in each fight, teaching herself more and more about battle with each viewing. Just like she had done earlier when reviewing her life, Sabine went through each fight hundreds, then thousands of times, absorbing the information. The constant focus kept her mind intact. Where others might have lost their sanity, Sabine kept hers.

Eventually, something changed. The grey fog was replaced by darkness once more. Sabine kept reviewing the battle memory she was currently working on. It was a bar fight where she got beaten down by a much bigger man. She had worked out her flaw, she had tried to keep her distance and ignored openings she should have taken advantage of. Her thoughts were interrupted by voices that pierced the silent darkness.

“Is this all that you can do? How will this thing you wish to create change the course of our decline?” A woman’s voice asked. It was dripping in disdain for whoever she was talking to. The voice was strange too, there was power behind it. When it spoke, Sabine could see images of light, and an owl of all things dance in her mind. The voice made Sabine lose control of the memory of the fight she had been reviewing. Worried, Sabine found she could still recall everything, that brief lapse in control hadn’t allowed any of her memories to slip away permanently.

“And what do you do? You have no champion and seem content to speak to your remaining worshipers through images and vague nudges toward your desires. You favor or punish this one or that based on little more than your current mood. The others of your ilk are content to do this too. Only Tek dared to face this threat head-on,” another voice argued. This voice was much different from the last. It was darker than the void around her and carried the feeling of death and finality.

“What was the result of Tek’s actions? He ended one threat, but another rises from the ashes of his victory. One threat begat another and his sacrifice was folly in the end,” the woman replied.

“At least he made a direct effort, if only I had done so before our strength began to wane. While I no longer have the power to face the threat directly, at least I can do a bit more than you are willing to. I can force this one to do my bidding and give it some direction. My instructions will be a bit more precise than your vague dreams and images,” the dark voice said.

“Yes, and I agreed to help you, and with this assistance, my debt to you is complete,” the woman said.

“Agreed, help me with this, and your debt is cleared. We are of different aspects, but we face the same end if we don’t work together,” the dark voice said. Too much was going on for Sabine to follow. Who were these people and what were they yammering on and on about? Make no mistake, she was grateful for the distraction but failed to see why she was privy to the conversation in the first place.

“As an act of good faith, I will even include a small gift that should make life for this hideous thing that you’ve created a bit easier to manage. Now shall we get on with it?” The woman asked.

“Yes, let’s begin,” the dark voice said, his words feeling like a pronouncement of doom to Sabine.

Sounds faded away and the silent darkness continued for a time. Sabine tried to review more battles but found it hard to focus as her thoughts kept returning to what she had heard. Who were those people and what were they talking about? They had mentioned Tek, was it just someone’s name or were they referring to the legends of the fallen god. Did these beings somehow converse with the gods themselves? All thoughts faded from her mind as a light began to fill Sabine’s vision, light, and pain worse than she had ever felt.

It was like two conflicting energies were coursing into her body, and that was the strange part, she could feel things again. Some of the energy was light, bright, and pure, but to Sabine, it burned like dragon fire. The other energy was black as midnight, and it was cool and comforting, like a cold, familiar embrace. After a short while, the light ended, though she could still feel its energy coursing through her body.

The dark energy continued to trickle in, like a leaky roof slowly filling up a bucket left on the floor. She was the bucket, and she couldn’t get enough of this dark energy. Sabine needed it, it was everything to her. If she wasn’t able to get enough of it, her afterlife would be over, and something much worse than the grey mists of the void would await her. The flow cut off before it had accomplished its purpose, but she held on.

Both the light and dark energy inside Sabine began to dissipate, leaking from her soul one drop at a time. By pure force of will, she held back the leak, keeping herself whole and refusing to drift away to the horrible fate that she knew was waiting for her if she gave in. Slowly she stemmed the tide and felt things stabilize inside her.

“I didn’t think that would be enough, but it looks like you’ve survived, my little creation. Now let’s get you ready, there is much for you to accomplish,” the dark voice said. Sabine could feel its pull, the dark voice’s will overpowered her own and demanded that she follow its command.

Sabine could somehow sense that a body was nearby. It was not her own, but it beckoned to her. An incomprehensible word of power flowed from the dark voice, forcing Sabine’s soul into the body. The empty husk filled with her being and was forced to take on a semblance of life once more. Sabine opened her eyes and found herself lying on her back and unable to move. Flickering lights, like those from a torch or candles cast a dim glow, but she couldn’t turn her head to see anything around her. The only thing she could feel was the cold stone slab she was lying upon.

“Rise,” the dark voice commanded. Sabine at first felt that she had no option other than to obey, but something clicked inside her. She rebelled against the command; Sabine was not some puppet for this strange voice. Her soul was her own and nobody would force her to do anything without her consent. With a supreme effort, Sabine resisted the command, forcing the body she now inhabited to remain upon the stone.