Being marked by death, probably for death! There’s probably some irony in there, but I was too scared out of my mind to find it. All I could do was stare at the scythe embellishing my tattoo and think of the impact it represented. Did I resent the consequences of my actions? Wholeheartedly! Would I do it again to save Samuel? You can bet your bottom dollar I would!
I finally let my shirt fall back down again and looked up to see the council members still looking at me, although now their gazes had morphed from one of dismay to a look that one gets when studying a goldfish who has lived way beyond its expected lifespan. Spoiler alert: your parents are probably replacing the goldfish every so often.
“So how do I get out of this?”, I asked them, eager to find a remedy to my problem.
The old man, I really needed to get his name, was the one who took the initiative to answer my question yet again.
“There is no getting out of this, boy. It’s like being branded by a force of nature. The only way you get out of this, as you so eloquently put it, is becoming a force of nature yourself. And when that happens, boy, I will be questioning you regarding the solutions to my problems.”
His words didn’t set my mind at ease at all. He was talking as if I told him his milk had expired, not that I had been marked by the reaper.
One of the other council members decided to chime in at this point. He looked like a young boy, younger than me in fact. I hadn’t seen until now but now that I did, I was shocked beyond measure.
He said, addressing me directly, “Hello, David. You can call me Light. There are many things that you have to know, now that you are finally here. Many things that you aren’t aware of, many things that most Untethered never learn in their lifetime. But we in the council think that you have the potential to be great and will learn the things we are going to tell you in due course anyway. So, we are going to give you a head start so that you can keep these things in mind in the future.”
The other council members nodded when Frost decided to help me out a bit, as he could see I was getting overwhelmed. He called out loudly to the other members of the council, “Why don’t we do this in a question-answer form, council members? He can ask questions he feels most curious about and then we can address the topics not covered by his questions. We cannot overwhelm a guy with just a month as an Untethered under his belt with too much information, can we?”
I smiled warmly at Frost, glad to have a familiar face I trusted in this group of strangers. Light nodded and told me to ask any questions I might feel curious about. And before I could control myself, I asked him the one question that had been bugging me since I saw him.
“You must be really strong to be on this council at such a young age, right?”
Most of the council gained an amused look on their face when they heard my question. I swear that even the old man was smiling under his beard.
“Young age? David, I am more than a millennia-old.”, he replied, seeming to have fun at my expense.
My mind froze at that revelation. “What? How could that be? You look barely older than sixteen years old.”
Light replied, the amused smile still on his face, “David, I am going to give you a bit of advice that I give most Untethered who I see vast potential in. “If you ever achieve immortality or stop ageing, wait until you are 30.”
“Immortality?” That was all I could get out, in a high pitched voice that would have sounded better coming from a pre-adolescent rather than an eighteen-year-old.
Frost was quick to intervene, “Not true immortality, per se. We just stop ageing at a certain age, when our abilities and control over miasma achieve a certain level. We can still be killed though.”
‘That does not make it any better, Frost.’ That was something I was screaming in my head.
That was when a woman chimed in, “I think we have broken him. And here I thought we were going easy on him.” The women seemed to be of Indian origin, her accent and appearance giving her away.
When she saw me looking at her, she introduced herself, much to my relief, “Oh, my name is Saaya. Which means ‘Shadow’, which is what I am referred to as in this council.”
I couldn’t help but ask, “Why does everyone have names like Shadow and Frost and Light? I mean, this surely can’t be a coincidence.”
It was the old man who replied this time, “Oh, it isn’t, boy. Many of us are so old that our original names have been lost in the corridors of time. I can’t even remember the name I was born with. So, it was decided that anyone who sits on this council has to give up their old name and adopt a new one, which reflects their abilities and personality. That is why I go by Nova.”
I nodded to myself, that made sense in a weird sort of way, I suppose. Although the fact that some of these members were so old that they had forgotten their names really hit home the fact these guys were living, breathing parts of history.
But there were most pertinent questions to ask rather than having them recount history. And so, I did. I addressed the council at large when I asked, “What is the purpose of this council? Why have the strongest Untethered in the world gather into a single council?”
To my utter bewilderment, Nova scoffed, before saying, “The strongest Untethered in the world? Boy, you seemed to have confused the world with just our planet. The world is much bigger than that. We are but a tiny and, frankly, insignificant speck of dust in the wide world that is the cosmos.”
Before I could even recover from the shock of that reveal, Nova continued, “The reason this council was formed was to form a line of defence for our planet so that external forces couldn’t direct their nefarious intentions at us. We aren’t the original members of the council so we aren’t really aware of all the details. Our leader is the only Untethered who was a member of the original twenty-one.”
This leader that Nova talked about seemed to be held in great reverence by the council. I was especially surprised to hear the admiration towards the leader in Nova’s voice.
Nova continued, “What we are aware of is that there was a war against another race belonging to other planet or planets. A war that our planet lost decisively, crippling the Untethered of this planet and leaving our number in the hundreds. It was our leader who picked up these fragments and strived towards providing this planet protection against any such aggression in the future. The leader gathered the strongest Untethered survivors of the war and formed the council of twenty-one, named so after the original twenty-one members of the first meeting of the council.”
The whole council seemed to hold a moment of sombre silence at the end of this recollection of the history of the twenty-one. I could see that the words of Nova held great meaning to them and that they held this council and the sacrifices it represented in the highest of regards.
Shadow took over the next part of the explanation. “The twenty-one then proceeded to reach out to the various parts of the world, establishing their bases in different parts of the world, according to the occurrence of the red Luna. They searched for other Untethered, either born from the union of two Untethered parents or human beings who had transcended the mortal plane.”
“Thus, the golden era of Untethered on this planet began. Unbridled prosperity and a long period of peace were ushered in by the council. And it looked like things would continue the way it was. But such thinking was naïve and led to some complacency.”
Nova interrupted at this point, saying, “I should continue from this point onwards, as I was there to witness it.” Shadow nodded and asked Nova to proceed. I waited with bated breath to hear this part of the story, although, from the enraptured gazes of the various members of the council, it seemed like I wasn’t the only one.
“We hadn’t known of one thing, or one kind of being, in fact. Miasma-monsters. Monsters that were borne from the same substance that provided with our sustenance and abilities. It seemed like the miasma-monsters had avoided our planet for the longest time. We were unworthy of their attention, the miasma on our planet and the miasma contained in the Untethered not enough to capture their attention.”
“But the long era of peace brought about more Untethered and more importantly, stronger Untethered. While before, most Untethered were slotless or without unlocked abilities, now, most were having at least one ability, with many having two slots.”
“We still don’t know where they come from, who they answer to or what is their ultimate motive, apart from their hunger. They came in droves and overwhelmed us. Ordinary Untethered were helpless and fell at the hands of these monsters. Even the council hadn’t faced anything of this magnitude before.”
“Before long, it seemed like the extinction of the Untethered from our planet was inevitable. It was at this moment that the council decided to sacrifice themselves to drive out the monsters from our planet. One of the council members had an ability that used the life force of living beings to attack or defend. He used his ability to gather the life force of all of his brethren, except the leader, to try and drive out the monsters. And the leader was left alone once more, to pick up the pieces again and start back from square one.”
“The attack used by the member worked, but only to an extent. The monsters were left severely injured but they were still alive. They retreated to the deepest recesses of our planet and we rested easy once more, glad that the calamity was over.”
“The leader began forming a new council. I am proud to say that I was the first member of it. We again strived to welcome a new age of prosperity and worked hard to do so. But during the war against the monsters, we had neglected one thing. Completely ignored it, in fact.”
At this point, Nova seemed unsure of how to proceed. I saw him struggle with his emotions and words for a bit before he gathered himself and proceeded with the story. I could see that recounting the past was taking a toll on him, mentally and emotionally.
“You might be wondering, what had we been neglecting? You see, the thing we had been neglecting and underestimating was the mortals. You see, mortals have the surprising ability to advance and evolve in the blink of an eye. Before we could realise what was happening in the mortal world, they had begun advancing at a rapid rate, far beyond our control.”
“We were amazed to see the advancements that the mortal world had made, the leaps it had taken in the various fields. Art, religion, architecture and everything else was thriving. They had even divided the various parts of earth into nations themselves, with leaders and kings of their own. We saw this and hoped that humanity, too, would enter its golden era parallelly with us.”
“But we had forgotten about the basic instincts of man. With advancements in wealth, religion and craft came an advancement in the art of war. Leaders were no longer content with the patch of land they ruled. They began labelling themselves as conquerors. And this led to battles and wars and bloodshed. So much bloodshed.”
“And the monsters we had thought gone forever, rose again. It turned out that the blood and death of mortals provided the miasma with the monsters needed to reinforce themselves. And this time they were scattered and didn’t attack in droves. No, they began picking off the Untethered one by one, when they were at its weakest.”
“The strongest and the most intelligent went for the council members and succeeded in ending most of them, gaining a major power boost themselves. We were woefully unprepared and hadn’t prepared any heirs to take up our position, should death befall us.”
“The leader’s spirit was finally broken. After we had some semblance of control on the situation, I was handed the reins of the council and tasked with gathering the newest members. Seeing the calamity that had befallen us the last time, I realised that successors needed to be nurtured as soon as new members were chosen.”
“Thus, each member now mentors someone or sometimes, even a group of people they think worthy of taking over the mantle should they meet their unfortunate end. And that is the history of the Council of twenty-one.”
To say that I was shocked beyond measure would be an understatement. To think so many great Untethered had sacrificed themselves so that the rest of us wouldn’t be driven to extinction. I was incredibly moved by the recounting of history by Nova, who looked on the verge of tears himself.
Light took over the explanation at this point, seeing that Nova seemed incapable of going on. “And for over a millennia, this council has kept the monsters and the attentions of other planets at bay. But we have always lacked something fundamental. Something to galvanise hope. Or rather, I should say someone.”
I was really dreading where Light was going with this. I was prepared for what I thought was going to happen.
Light continued though, not minding the dread that must have shown on my face. “We have been searching for a third-slotter forever, you see. An Untethered to lead us into another era of peace, of prosperity. A person to hold off the attentions of other planets and miasma-monsters alike.”
“You see, apart from our leader, there isn’t any third-slotter present on our planet. The council is strong together, yes, but even that has its limits. We are limited by our potential. And we needed a third-slotter, an Untethered of unimaginable potential. We needed to find a person who understood what the council stood for so that one day he could take the mantle of one of the council members. A person who could shoulder the burden that the leader has carried since the formation of the council. We hoped that the discovery of such a person would even result in our leader coming back.”
“But it seemed fate was not in our favour. Until now, that is.”
“So, David here is our proposition for you. Now that you have finally unlocked your first ability and done something even, we in our lifetime haven’t done, that is capturing the attention of the grim reaper, we would like to train you. All twenty of us.”
“So, tell us, David, are you ready to accept our proposition so that we can guide you to someday take over the mantle of the leader of the council?”
MAN, WHY DOES THIS SHIT HAPPEN ONLY TO ME???????????
