Refraction | Part 2 | Multiverse
10) The Trouble With Burning Bridges
The Ninja meditated. In general, and specifically. To wit, he meditated every day, and at the moment he was practicing this, his second most accomplished skill. The night was still, the moon full, the ninja invisible. In a general, not able to be seen by the untrained, naked eye, not the specific light waves were passing through him type of invisibility. He sat perfectly still on a small outcropping of rock along the road to the Ponja dol Jagganata, or what had been left behind of it. He was neither hidden by cover nor cloaked in shadow, but the stillness he achieved during meditation was so complete that even passing animals mistook him for another inanimate part of the environment. He had spent two days in this position, theta waves crunching data as his mind swept out over the landscape of infinity.
He knew he would be leaving this plane of existence soon, but he was unsure of how this transition would take place. He had long been ready to make the transition into death, an integral part of his early training had been those preparations, but the Ninja felt sure this transition would come another way. After all the Ninja had been there during the fall of the Citadel. He had seen the fissures form and disappear. He himself had fought and killed two soldiers that had run out of one of these fissures and trained their weapons on King Charles.
The Child Prince had been one of the first disappearances, that fact, coupled with grief at the loss of his Queen, had nearly driven King Charles mad. At the urging of his advisor Mosiva, The King went into seclusion in the war room beneath the Citadel. Above them the battle raged with the invaders. The city burned, the fighting thousands clashed and died. Then the Wasting Plague started.
Mosiva had himself suffered the tragedy of watching his wife recuperate from the injuries sustained in the train station, only to be torn apart by the wasting plague. The Plague had always been assumed to be some type of bio-weapon of the invaders, but the Ninja had his doubts. It was true that in humans it was not as contagious, and rarely resulted in symptoms that bed rest and herbs could not cure. What it did to the Jagganata giants made even The Ninja shudder to think about. It had been terrible, and it had laid low the empire of Collasalia. In the end the only choice had been flight. Ancient machines were put into motion, and the Ponja collapsed, cutting off the Citadel from the mainland. A small party including The King, his advisors, and the remaining members of the Royal Guard and their families had escaped out the tunnels and onto the plain at the bottom of the mesa. The Ninja watched The King as they raced through the night in the open topped trucks. Not once did Charles look back at the ruins of his once mighty kingdom. In fact King Charles Xavier would never see his ancestral home again. He would never meet his son, the once and future King. The Plague took him just a week later.
The Ninja opened his eyes. Silently he unfolded himself and stood, reaching out with his senses to the physical world he had been largely ignoring for the last forty eight hours. In the trees across the road the large amber eyes of a four hundred pound, nocturnal predator focused on the sudden motion. The Ninja had long been aware of the presence of the great cat, it’s heartbeat and quiet breathing having been picked up and integrated as the Ninja meditated. The cat had no doubt caught his scent and heat, but as it had not yet made a move to attack, The Ninja assumed it was waiting for smaller game. He turned and doffed an imaginary hat, a salute from one deadly animal to another, and without a sound slipped off the rock and down the road to the ruins of the bridge. In the years following the death of the King he had searched the world for the Prince, as he promised Charles he would. So many fruitless years later his trail had led him only back here, a cliff’s edge on the border of a land of ghosts.
He reached the edge of the great chasm, reached into his gunny and produced a long coil of very light, very strong rope. The Ninja slipped one end into the guide on a highly specialized bolt, and knocked it in his bow. He loosed the missile and it whipped away into the night, playing out line behind it. A tiny flash, followed a moment later by a quiet pop announced the arrow had hit something and dug in. He hoped it was rock. He tugged the line and it held fast. Pleased with the good fortune of the shot, he worked quickly, tying a large loose loop around a boulder near the edge of the chasm. Then he swung up and linked his ankles around the rope, and moved out into the void. After a time he came up against a rough rock wall. He popped the line out of the guide and tied it around his wrist, began climbing up. His fortune held, and it turned out he was on solid rock and close to the top. When he reached a flat surface. He turned back toward the loose line glimmering in the moonlight.
This, The Ninja knew, was the part that would be a pain in the ass.
Patiently he whipped the line high above his head then down to the ground, watching the wave move out into the darkness. He counted silently to himself as the parabola slid down the rope. Seconds ticked by. The rope jumped weakly in his hands. He repeated the process, patiently whipping and counting. The rope bumped. He grinned hoping to please his so far good fortune, and whipped the rope a third time. As the wave moved away he tightened his grip on the rope, and yanked. He almost pulled himself off into the night. The eighteenth time he tried it the rope popped free of the boulder and fell slack. The Ninja coiled it slowly and carefully. Fitting the end of the rope into the guide of a new bolt, The Ninja moved the far edge of the support tower and looked into the distance at the next vertical spike of stone. Took aim, fired.
His good fortune stayed with him. It only took him three more days to cross the destroyed bridge. When he finally scaled the final wall and pulled himself over the ledge, he even had two explosive catch bolts left. Two out of twenty five, but still.
“Note to self”, thought The Ninja as he finally stood wearily before the gaping arch that once held the city gates, “Never make a vow to a dying King.”
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