The path was not real. Neither was she who walked upon it.
The path… every grain of dust, every blade of grass, even the gravity that enabled her to walk on it, none of it was real. They were part of a dream world, made up of her thoughts, her emotions, her memories. Yet even now she wondered how much of this world was really hers, and how much was His.
Him, the Master. The one who created her. The one who controlled her. The chooser of her power, her actions, and even her emotions. She called herself Zalmunna Sabrenchei, but to others she existed not at all, or simply as #8. Project #8. She was indeed a project, an experiment in the code of raw magick. She was not born, rather she was created. And she remembered this creation well, as she remembered all things that He deemed she should.
Zal Mu Nna Himn Ra…… fragments of code, the first pieces of the spell that made up her entire existence. The first words she had seen as she took form. That was all she was, just a jumble of words. And the code grew… and she began to be…
The words, seemingly random, arranged themselves in the black space that was her conscious. And then, being of them, she began to understand them, and into the void she watched herself take form. First there was light… in the darkness a faint star that grew into a shining orb. This orb began to change, to morph, into a being. It had arms, and legs, long and slender, a face delicate and perfect, a human form, and yet somehow inhuman. The woman shone like white sand, dazzling and golden beneath the sun. She was a creation, one of measured yet perfect beauty, as she was made to be, yet she was somehow vague as well. Created, she was a free spirit, and this body was simply one form she wore.
With a tone of finality, the figure floated lifelessly, suspended in the cool void, glowing softly. Yet it was not yet complete, there was still one thing left to be added. Even as she hovered there silently, two black shaped cut out suddenly from her shoulder blades and burst into glossy wings of brilliant black. Only now was the dwelling complete. Only then, the dwelling created at last, the soul-less creature looked up. As if from far away, Zalmunna saw her own eyes open, and when they did, she was looking out from them.
She had no emotions then, whether her own or not. She simply was. Yet the programmer, The Master, did not stop. More words he spoke, more spells he wove, until the void was filled with spell letters, glowing and glittering with an eerie green hew. Then at last, he turned to his creation.
Out of unblinking eyes, like oceans of deep blue, she stared back at him. A silence passed, and then she spoke, slowly and deliberately.
“I am Project 8.”
Those had been her first words. She didn’t know then what they meant, nor would she have cared. That was long ago. Her feelings had changed, and then grown. First, she began to know Him. Once The Voice had been able to go directly into her thoughts, she had not even known it was there. She had taken them as her own thoughts, and believed them, every word.
As time went on, slowly, imperceptibly, things began to change. In her inner mind she began to see herself and her master, linked but separate. Knowing him, she could at last begin to know herself. With knowledge came questions. Questioning became resentment, resentment turned to hate. She hated Him, who could always see what she was thinking or even remembered, who could edit or delete these at the slightest whim…
For he was not, at the moment, listening, but he could always hear.
There was no tomorrow for Zalmunna, but today would last forever, an endless and break less eternity filled only with infinite missions and duels.
She didn’t understand her life, she only knew that it was not her own. She knew the master made her, that he controlled her. She knew he was training her, and she knew that the missions he sent her on provided this training. And she knew Cerephino.
Her thoughts, as a project, were orderly, exact. They could take twists and turns, but they well defined. She thought in complete sentences, and when she remembered, it was like being there again. Now, however, her thoughts had jumped to Cerephino…
Zalmunna was Project 8. There were others before her, and not all of them had failed. There was at least one other she knew about. The Master called him #3, but to Zalmunna he was Cerephino. He was her partner, in the cruel system of The Master. They did all their missions together, came to trust each other, think about one another. It was not love… at least under the control of The Master, neither were capable of such a strong emotion. But when it came time to duel, when The Master fought them together, they were as different people, turned against one another as The Master easily altered their emotions to that of total and overwhelming Hate. Time after time, Cerephino was forced to battle her, and she him. As her awareness grew, she dreaded these duels, dreaded the cold hearted betrayal of the only other creature she had ever known.
She remembered meeting him as well, or at least she thought she did. For all she knew, The Master could have simply added that day to her memory, and she would never know. Reminded sharply of the control he had over their lives, Zalmunna reached down to the ground of her dream world. Sitting lazily on a bench, trailing her hand across the dew covered grass, she came upon a flower, lit it on fire, and watched it burn.
And she remembered. She remembered that day so long ago when she had first seen Cerephino, another of her kind. The joy in her heart, programmed by The Master, but nearly real nonetheless.
It was a remarkably plain dimension, endless blue sky above her and below her, a realm of nothingness. Out of the nothingness, he came. She cried for joy, for she felt somehow she knew him, and she bolted forward suddenly, her human body running as her spirit sought to soar…
She remembered it like it was now, the clouds that were suddenly there, the sun coming out, its golden beams raining down upon his silvery hair. He turned, slowly it seemed, but she also felt she was moving slowly, lost in a warp of time and space. He turned, and he smiled at her….
: Cerephino…..:
With practiced skill, Zalmunna stopped all thoughts as she received a signal from Him, from The Master. He mustn’t know her inner thoughts. In the beginning, she did not understand these signals, or even know she was getting one. She would simply be transported to wherever he had arranged. But now she felt it, a sort of tingling to which true humans have no equivalent.
Imperceptibly she shuddered as she interpreted the signal. It was time for a duel.
Endless blue, just like in that long distant memory, spread out below her feet and high above her. Even as she appeared Cerephino was there, yet somehow she knew that he, too, had only just arrived. For a moment, they looked at each other, expressionless. For just one moment, they knew each other. They spoke no words. They thought no thoughts. At other times, a subtle message might slip through unnoticed, but both were monitored heavily during duels, and neither dared give away any hint of their growing awareness.
He dared not even to think it, but Zalmunna knew he meant it.
: I am sorry…:
The hatred hit them like a wave, the command from Him. She hated Cerephino now, with every fiber of her being, with ever ounce of her power. She urged to reach out to him, tear him apart… His eyes, steely grey, returned the intense hatred. The spirit rose, eyes closed, palms outstretched as he recited as spell in the Magick, one to destroy this black winged one before him. He finished the chant, throwing his arms forward, long grey hair moving with them in a rather mortal way. He was in a rage. He hated her. Hated her with all the power he had. He hated her with such a passion it could not be described by anything or anyone.
He was floating, feet pointed as he rose higher, the lights surrounding him pouring in towards his form. He began chanting another spell, this one quieter, as he began weaving a web of power around himself. It was a weak shield, but it was a shield nonetheless. As he finished he stopped his rise and floated there, facing her, his form wavering as the light pulled and pushed upon it.
“Sabra’sul” Zalmunna said softly, her eyes closed, pronouncing every syllable clearly and coolly, knowing her voice would soon be lost in the vast emptiness that surrounded her and Cerephino. As she spoke, tiny balls of indigo power formed at her right; spinning, dazzling orbs that radiated with energy. Her eyes came open, blue and icy but also very much alive, they matched the orbs perfectly and each was reflected in the other. They were formed by her spell, but they were fueled by her hatred.
The pause was brief. Her hand was up, streaking across the emptiness with a loud cry,
“Telemenos!” Streaking from right to left, the balls followed it. And as they tore through the nothingness of the void, they began to change. From sphere to knife, from knife to creature. Dragons of ice and lightening and hatred were born of the free energy.
They hit his shield. They did not go through it easily, not breaking it, but seeming to bore through, like acid, wriggling tiny holes in the bubble of protection. They tore, through the nothingness, to get, at him…
The scene reflected in Zalmunna’s emotionless eyes. As they stayed the same, a slow and bitter smile came over her lips. An urge welled up within her, to leap at him herself, to rend him from limb to limb… Why bother with spells when she could tear him, rip him…
Cerephino raised his hands in a counter spell even as the Dragons broke through his shield.
“Ikan’sul!” he shouted, producing a disk of pure red light over his crossed arms for a moment before he finished the spell. “Telemenos!” out from the disk came bolts of red hot energy, snaking and cracking through the air. They met the dragons, full force, around the two inches from his face. For just a moment, suspended there, as time seemed to freeze around the two immortals, locked in a hopeless battle, the two forces fought each other.
Inch by inch, impossibly, each seemed to gain and fail. A moment’s time was all that passed, the space of a human breath, and then with a clang like a brazen gong the energies passed through each other, what was purple separating once again into red and blue, gold and silver.
The dragons hit Cerephino, knocking him heavily to the ground, but the snakes of fire continued towards Zalmunna, rending air and whatever else stood in its path.
She raised her arms, creating the strongest shield she could summon, as she prepared to launch her attack. And then, suddenly, she stopped. Some piece of her inner mind, her heart, maybe, came back to her.
And then she was tired of it. Tired of being a number. Tired of being a project. And tired of the betrayal. She wouldn’t do it.
: I won’t. You can’t make me:
A cold rush swept through her, like the spirit of an eagle, flying swiftly as wind icy cold, knocking down the remains of her shield at its faintest breath. A force surrounded her, like a cold hand, pushing her.
: I won’t. You can’t make me:
The cold hand encircled her, closing in on her. It was impossibly strong. She fell to her knees.
:I WON’T! YOU CANT MAKE ME!:
She screamed aloud, pushing with all the strength she had, rising desperately to her need, lashing out at all near her, trying to get at Him, The Master. The cold hand left. Then suddenly she whimpered and collapsed again. Even as she thought he left her, a dart of pain smote her breast.
The Master had made her feel many things. Hatred, Sorrow, Fear. But never before had he made her feel pain. Never before had he hurt her. The sensation, new to her, tore through her as she fell to the ground.
: leave me alone. I won’t hurt him…you… can’t…:
She whispered feebly, though she knew it was no use. It was over. She was broken…
Far away and very near, the programmer leaned back and sighed. The project had been weak, of course, easy enough to defeat. Still, the rebellion was unexpected.
New thoughts and feelings, even turning against me… She wasn’t created to have those… it must be a glitch in the programming. I’ll have to rewrite her, and Project 3 as well. They seemed to know each other all too well, and there no use taking chances….
