《There Once Was a Guardian Named Jacob》 Prologue Prologue Tyne castle ¨C Spring of 1017 BE ¡°Will he be like a giant?¡± asked the little girl as she looked up. ¡°No one really knows your highness, it has been over a thousand years since the Guardian entered the bridge, artists have made paintings that portray the Guardian as everything from a legendary beast to a man the size of a Titan, some few even say it was an order of knights that defended The Bridge to the last man.¡± Said the old man as he led the Princess to the courtyard. The Princess looked away from the old man and over to her father, the most powerful man she could think of and tried to picture this guardian, or guardians, as being more powerful. It was a difficult task. As she approached her father she could hear him speaking with his advisors. ¡°The seal is degrading your highness, we will need to act soon if we hope to prevent it from opening.¡± Her father looked at the speaker as his booming voice responded, ¡°what is the chance that we will succeed?¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°better than it has ever been your highness, we believe we understand the bridge enough to break it.¡± Her father didn¡¯t look pleased as he responded, ¡°yet the seal itself will need to be opened first before you can collapse the bridge.¡± ¡°Yes your highness, but this will allow us to retrieve the Guardian.¡± Her father did not look impressed and nearly snorted with derision. ¡°I don¡¯t care about fairytale stories, there is no guardian. The seal has kept us safe and now that it is failing, we must take action.¡± ¡°Of course your highness, I merely¡­¡± ¡°Enough of this, call upon all the lords and our allies, we will marshal our full force in front of the seal. We will open it, bring down the bridge, and end this looming threat to the kingdom once and for all.¡± Her father¡¯s abrupt tone as he cut off the other man nearly made the Princess turn around and flee. She didn¡¯t like it when her father got this upset, even if he rarely did so with her. Her father¡¯s voice was stern, an end to the conversation, and all the men around her quickly broke up and headed on their way. ¡°Can I watch?¡± Came her timid voice from behind her father. ¡°I¡¯d like to see the Guardian when he comes back.¡± ¡°There is no guardian Alisa, and I would not want you near the seal when we broke it.¡± As she looked up at her father she could see his eyes shift from the intense look they had to the much softer one he often used with her, ¡°it is good to dream, but never place all your hopes upon those dreams because if they fail to materialize you must still have a way to keep your people safe.¡± After a few moments of thinking her father added, ¡°I hope the Guardian exists as well, I would certainly like to meet whoever, or whatever, they are.¡± Chapter 1 Chapter 1 The Bridge ¨C Summer of 1017 BE It had been hundreds of years since I had entered The Bridge. I hadn¡¯t slept, hadn¡¯t eaten, hadn¡¯t had a sane thought since. It was because of the nothingness The Bridge was made of. It turns out that bridging two worlds together causes the space in between to have strange properties that certainly did not help anyone keep their sanity. I had been sent, along with all the other Guardians, because I had an affinity with the nothingness. Coexisting with it I nearly became nothing myself ¨C just enough of something remained to maybe be called alive. I vaguely remembered they use to call us anti-mages, but the title I mostly remember being called was Guardian. The nothingness that made up The Bridge was what permeated my skin making us one and the same. It prevented any magic from directly interacting with me. It also meant that unlike normal living beings I did not slowly fade away when surrounded by nothing. I just continued to exist along with it. I remember the other Guardians vaguely. They like me looked almost like ghosts in this strange place. These days I was the only one left out of the Guardians. I had the greatest affinity with the nothingness out of everyone. They all slowly failed to balance being one with the nothing. Becoming too much of something they slowly aged or if they lost their something entirely, they vanished. Not me, what must have been hundreds of years after my last phantom friend died of old age, I was still nothing ¨C and a tiny bit of something. I stood and waited for the enemy to try to cross again. There had once been a purpose to this, we Guardians had held The Bridge while others worked to collapse it. I only vaguely remembered those plans. I stood, I fought, and I stood some more. Never growing tired, never fading. I was the nothingness, and the nothingness infused every part of me. Until it didn¡¯t. At my side of The Bridge, the door that I had protected my entire life, opened. The enemy noticed from their side; their door also opened. I could feel the massive spell wash over me and attack The Bridge. That¡¯s not right, it shouldn¡¯t have been able to touch it. For the first time a crack appeared. The enemy charged at me and I stood my ground. The ground, however, fell away. The ground, the enemy, and I were pulled towards the door at my back and flew into the world I had, probably, once known. The door that linked to another world dissolved into the nothingness it was made from. I flew through the air and stared at the lines of people in gleaming armor charging towards me. I could feel my hands, my square clean-shaven face, broad shoulders, and the slight fat that prevented me from being perfect. It must have been the condition I entered The Bridge in. Or I was actually a ghost and just took over someone else¡¯s body. How is one supposed to determine if they are in their own body or not? Such thoughts bombarded me in the cacophony of sensations I was suddenly subject to. Then a thousand years of no sleep hit my mind all at once and I felt a painful sensation in my stomach that I was unfamiliar with. I would not fail to these new challenges. I stood fending off the growling beast in my own stomach. The lancing pain in my mind telling me to close my eyes. I would not give in; I would fight to the end. I reached for the nothingness, it was distant and difficult, barely there at all. I struggled to pull at it and become one ¨C I had it, I was so close, I just had to get used to the new difficulty. Then my head started to hurt for an entirely different reason, I looked back at the hammer wielding enemy for a second before falling over. For the first time, in a long time my eyes closed, and sleep took me. ¡­¡­¡­. It felt amazing. I was on a cloud in heaven, the cloud was so soft, so comfortable that I never wanted to move again. It was the best moment of my life. I opened my eyes and looked at the god given gift. I was laying on a long rectangular piece of perfection with a blanket over me. Another human, like me but different, started walking over to me. I think they were called girls or was it females, women? What was the difference between these words? I didn¡¯t want to look like an idiot and use the wrong word so I said nothing when the human reached me. It would have been just my luck to say, ¡°hello woman¡± and haveing that be wrong. The human spoke with the strangest accent I had ever heard, not that I really remembered hearing anything but my own voice. It was hard to understand, and she was talking so fast. Did I just think of her as she, that means that she must be a woman! Right? Or was it a girl? What was the difference? Something in my face must have given away that I wasn¡¯t understanding her because the tirade of sound stopped. She looked at me and spoke much more slowly, ¡°What¡­ is¡­ your¡­ name?¡± That was easy I was Jacob¡­ she was still looking at me. Why was she looking at me? ¡°What¡­ your¡­ name?¡± this time she spoke insultingly slow and used hand motions. I didn¡¯t understand why she was doing this, my name was Jacob¡­ she was still looking at me. Suddenly I remembered! I had to speak! ¡°Jacob¡± The way I suddenly came back to myself and answered must have made the woman - or was the word lady? - think I was ready for her tirade of sound again. All I really understood was the question at the end, ¡° anyway, what army are you from?¡±Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. My army? What was my army? It had been so long I couldn¡¯t remember, ¡°I don¡¯t remember,¡± I told the woman ¨C for now, I would stick with the word woman at least in my head. ¡°You don¡¯t remember anything?¡± ¡­ ¡­ Was I supposed to be doing something? ¡­ ¡­ That¡¯s right I need to speak as well. We were having a conversation! But what was I supposed to say? I remembered things, like my name. ¡°I remembered my name¡±. The woman looked a little concerned as she spoke, ¡°I am going to discharge you and send you over to the duty officer at the capital''s army¡±. I didn¡¯t understand. After a few seconds, she sighed and continued, ¡°with an escort, it looks like you will need it¡±. At least it was getting easier to understand the words she was saying. Even if I didn¡¯t understand the meaning behind them. She should really fix that accent, it sounded nothing like how I vaguely remembered people sounding. However, I couldn¡¯t think about that because the greatest smell ever reached my nose as the woman handed me a plate. I just looked at the things on it creating such amazing smells. In what I could only call frustration the woman grabbed the object and shoved it in my mouth. The greatest thing I could ever remember tasting hit my tongue. It was after all the only thing I could remember tasting. This day truly could not get any better. I could not get over how big the world was. It was huge. There was so much space. I didn''t even have to fear falling off the edge! ¡°Did you hear me son?¡± Oops, I forgot to listen to the duty officer. ¡°No sir¡±, Why did I call him sir? It must be another one of those habits I just can¡¯t remember having. ¡°I do not like repeating myself¡± ¡°Yes sir¡± ¡­ ¡­ What was this tension, was I sweating? Was this duty officer doing this to me on purpose? This was why I had missed his words the first time, he just sat there looking at me for so long my mind drifted to how massive the world was. It had a blue sky! This time was different, I could feel his gaze on me, and it was uncomfortable. I wanted to shift, but I had stood still for longer than this before. This man would not make me move! I shifted my weight. Who was this man? A god of making others nervous? ¡°Since you don¡¯t remember where you¡¯re from, I am sending you as part of the replacement force for the lady Thea White. She lost most of her knights at The Bridge Battle, so the army is providing replacements. We don¡¯t want to lose good men, so I am sending you. Any questions?¡± I thought about all the questions I had but I could see he wasn¡¯t going to answer them so I prioritized with one I hoped he might, ¡°What do you call humans that are like men but not men?¡± I used my hands to demonstrate the major differences especially in the chest area. The officer laughed, ¡°a woman¡± he managed to get out as he waved his hand in dismissal. The slightly more composed man by the tent flap moved me back outside to get what he called ¡°real clothing not a rag from the hospital¡±. I didn¡¯t care I was just happy I had been right. I had been talking to a woman! This truly was the best day ever. I couldn¡¯t keep the smile off my face, from the god given so-called ¡°bed¡± to the ¡°food¡± to the big world with sights and wonders it had been the best day I could ever remember. Now I had clothing, the man who gave them to me said they didn¡¯t fit me right but obviously he was wrong. They weren¡¯t falling off so they must fit right. You would think a quartermaster who gives out uniforms all the time would know that. Besides with how everyone keeps looking at me I must look good in the uniform. ¡°Stop making eye contact with everyone. And smiling, stop smiling¡± My escort jolted me from my thoughts. How else was I supposed to look at people? And why was he against smiling? I looked at him in utter confusion, he looked back before turning away and speeding up. He didn¡¯t look or talk to me the rest of the way. We finally made it to our destination, a group of sorry looking men in miss matching uniforms standing around a carriage. The escort with me handed a small man with glasses a piece of paper before speaking. ¡°you are cleared to go, here is your last replacement¡± The man with glasses looked over at me, ¡°where is his weapon?¡± ¡°ask him¡± my escort replayed looking annoyed, and all eyes fell on me. ¡­ ¡­ ¡°well where is your weapon¡± My weapon? Did I ever have a weapon? I definitely borrowed weapons, mostly from the enemy, ok only from the enemy. Sometimes I returned them, sometimes I didn¡¯t. Did that make me a bad person? Should I have returned all my borrowed weapons? They never seemed happy when I did. I just couldn¡¯t remember having a weapon of my own, I must have at some point. Right? ¡°I can¡¯t remember if I ever had one¡± ¡°You can¡¯t remember¡± ¡°Right, they said he got hit in the head and was an idiot now¡± My answer didn¡¯t appear to make the man with glasses happy. When my escort called me an idiot, Glasses looked even more upset. I was just insulted at being called an idiot. I knew more about clothing than the quartermaster after all. ¡°I don¡¯t know how we are supposed to make the trip safely if you keep giving us men like him¡± Glasses was clearly pointing at me, my escort responded but I was busy looking over the other men around us. Men like me, were they really? My excitement overtook me, and I started to inspect them. One man who hadn¡¯t been paying attention stood up when I approached and held his hands at his sides as I inspected him. That is until others nudged them and whispered in their ears. I didn¡¯t see any that looked like me, were they Guardians too? I didn¡¯t detect the nothingness in any of them. How odd, in what way were they like me? I was sure I would figure it out eventually. Then the small man with glasses suddenly bent over for some reason. ¡°My lady we are ready to depart¡± The so called lady ¨C how was she different than a woman? ¨C appeared and walked towards the carriage. She nodded but didn¡¯t speak as she entered it. Two men climbed up onto the driver''s bench one grabbing the reins and the other a crossbow. The man with glasses mounted a horse as did one other man and road out in front of the carriage as the rest lined up behind. Someone grabbed my shoulder and led me behind the carriage as it started to move. We followed at a fast walk and for some reason I felt excitement bubbling up inside me. This was a new feeling, I didn¡¯t know where we were going but we had a lady, a stern man with glasses, and a group of people apparently just like me. This was so much better than nothingness. Chapter 2 Chapter 2 The Forest ¨C Summer of 1017 BE If you have never tried walking, you definitely should. I loved it. I had aches and pains all over; my feet hurt, my back hurt, my shoulders hurt, and it was way too hot! The sun had an unobstructed view of the top of my head. That coupled with the overly large pack on my back and the sandals that were clearly breaking was causing my aches and pains. It didn¡¯t bother me; when one problem tried to interrupt my happy walk, I just pulled on the nothingness and that part of my body went numb. I did learn a few things; for one the nothingness was not endless in this big world ¨C by the end of the day I felt like I needed to rest before pulling on more of it - for another, it is required to complain when marching. After internalizing this lesson and making up some complaints I was able to make lots of friends. The only thing I learned that made my mood sour was the fact that there were no heavenly beds to sleep on. At night we complained about the rations until glasses yelled at us. I was happy he did because it meant I could enjoy the amazing meal without having to talk it down. My new friends, John and Frank, thanked me for carrying their loads and let me know I only had to do it that first day. This completely confused me, but I just nodded. Jerald took me aside and told me to stop craning my neck around to make eye contact with people behind me and to stop smiling all the time. It is apparently OK to not smile when doing work, he reminded me a lot of my escort from the other day. That was when Frank brought out what he called Vodka ¨C I don¡¯t fully remember the rest of that night, but Jerald took me aside the next morning and told me I absolutely needed to stop making eye contact and smiling all the time. I vaguely remembered the eyes of a woman, slightly tinged blue, but they were certainly not the smiling kind of eyes. It took too much time to learn how to numb my headache with the nothingness and it was more difficult to do than I first hoped. It was time to make a list of things not to do, Vodka was now on that list. ¡­¡­¡­. When we reached the first tree, I decided that I liked forests; the smell of the trees, the sound of the critters, and the shade from the sun combined to make my day that much better. Glasses didn¡¯t agree, according to him, forests were the home of bandits. ¡°We don¡¯t like bandits¡± explained glasses. He made me repeat after him, ¡°If you see a bandit, you kill a bandit¡± ¡°If I see a bandit, I kill a bandit¡± It was odd that I was the only one who needed to do this, but it was a fun enough little game. It reminded me of something I had forgotten, it was called copy something or other. I realized he was treating me like a child and so were many of the others. I didn¡¯t mind. Children learned through experiencing the world and that was what I was doing. In the quiet of my thoughts, I hoped I would never lose the childlike wonder that infused my every experience. I did not want to be like Glasses. I enjoyed thinking about how big this word was and how much of it was new, or forgotten, to me. Of course, not everything could be new. There was one thing that I need no help learning, something I had been doing since before I could remember ¨C fighting. In this place of wonder, with my mind stuck in perpetual joy, I was asked to do something I knew far too well. The tree before our group fell, the ground shook, and Glasses yelled ¡°bandits¡±. ¡°If I see a bandit, I kill a bandit¡± The sound left me in a whisper and John looked over at me with shock. I wasn¡¯t smiling. I knew what came next and, although it wasn¡¯t really on purpose, I had been training my use of the nothingness as I marched and now, I pulled on it with all my might. It infused me, became me. Unlike on The Bridge, I did not appear as a ghost; the best description others would have had of me was that I became less. As if a shadow was hiding some of my features. I had no pain ¨C no feeling at all. I pushed my body beyond what it could do, I had no limit, I couldn¡¯t feel anything after all. What Glasses had failed to say was that the bandits would have mages. I recognized them intensely. The enemy had always sent mages to break the seal, they were the only other beings who could exist on The Bridge in their own power, besides the Guardians. They used magic to do this, they used magic to bring many different monsters into The Bridge to kill us. Protecting them from the nothingness so they could fight and die by my hand instead. The mage raised his hand and threw raw magic at me, he should have attached the environment. He should have hit the earth before me to shake the ground and shoot rocks and dirt at me. He should have known magic would have no effect on me. I was nothing, I ran right through it. ¡°If I see a bandit, I kill a bandit¡± For years I repeated my duty to myself to stay sane but whispering ¡°you shall not pass¡± to this bandit was not as relevant here as it was on The Bridge. I knew that in this big world more would be expected of me than the narrow single-minded mission that used to be my life. But here, reminded of my life up till now, the words I repeated for Glasses felt right. Today, for this moment, I was a Guardian with a single-minded mission once more. I repeated the phrase five more times and five more bandits fell. I stopped when they started to run. The carriage and everyone else were to my back, I had run far into the forest. There was something wrong, I had learned to trust myself even when I could not feel anything. I had a sad excuse for an ax in my hand. Picked up from the ground. I threw the ax to my right, and it was incinerated. Walking from behind the trees were five mages and they were clearly more powerful than the one I had already faced.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. It took them one death before learning spells directed at me would not work. A mage in clean brown robes was struggling with a spell and I knew I need to stop him. Two others dressed in red stood in my way. The last, another mage in brown, circled me and focused on messing up my footing by changing and shaking the ground beneath my feet. I tried to run through the two mages before me but failed. The wall of magical flame did not burn me, but the heat could still be deadly. I could not feel the heat, yet my instincts were warning me about its dangers. Even if I could not feel it, I had a body to protect. ¡°Pin him down Char, and I will keep him off balance. We only need to buy time¡± ¡°What do you think I¡¯m doing? Maybe if Chelsea would help it would be easier¡± I stopped for a moment, where had the other red mage gone? I had seen her move off but thought it was to circle around. It did not make a difference I knew I had lost this round. Turning towards the brown mage causing the ground to shake and shift, I charged. Fire lanced at my back, and I took it. The heated air would burn my body, but not too much, and that was an issue for after the fight. I knew it would not cause enough damage to hinder me now. The mage must have expected me to dodge or stumble but he had never faced someone infused with nothingness. Erecting a wall of dirt, the brown mage tried to turtle into the earth. Breaking my hand, I forced it through his wall and grabbed him. The next ball of fire didn¡¯t hit me but hit my new shield. The mage I knew as Char was red with anger, but no more fire came. He swayed on his feet struggling to stay standing. Yet, I was too slow, finishing his long spell the brown mage behind Char smiled. ¡°Done,¡± he said with such finality it was as if he thought it would solve all his problems. ¡°Don¡¯t worry Char we have him now¡± Walking around in front of the mage was a stone golem. I disliked stone golems, you had to hack and hack at them until the magic they were made of could no longer hold the stone together. Another mage might be able to dispel it, but I was not a mage. Some Guardians were able to project the nothingness outside of themselves and disrupt golems, I could not. I was the best at infusing myself with the nothingness, not at using it outside of myself. So, I usually just held them off until the nothingness all around them drained them dry. This wasn¡¯t The Bridge; nothingness was not all around, and my usual tactic would not work. I picked up the only part left of the ax, its metal head. The two mages looked to be out of magic, they stood back and watched as I ran at the golem. I dodged under its arm and knocked some of the loose stone free. I dodged again. It pulled at the ground and stones filled the gap. We repeated. It finally hit me half an hour later. I know my ribs broke and my skin was scraped raw. I didn¡¯t feel it and we continued our dance. My ax head was chipped and dented but the stone golem was pulling stone back slower and slower, it would be enough. It took a little over an hour for it to crumble into dust. I looked over to where the two mages had started to crawl away and followed their clear trail. That was the danger of using all your magic it sapped you of even your normal strength. The red mage shot a crossbow bolt at me. When that missed, he pulled on his nonexistent magic in a final burst of flame killing himself in the process. He probably pulled on his own life to cause and fuel the fire. The brown mage crawled to the crossbow and started reloading it. ¡°If I see a bandit, I kill a bandit¡± I whispered. ¡­¡­¡­. I walked back to the carriage keeping myself infused with the nothingness. If I let go of the infusion, I knew I would not be able to walk. I had gained too many injuries that I was frankly unsure of how to deal with. I never had to heal myself on the Bridge, probably because I barely had a body there and was always infused with nothingness. Coming onto the path I saw two slightly blue eyes of an angry person. Unliked my limited memory of the time with vodka, the eyes were not looking at me. An older woman with black hair and the finest traveling clothes I had ever seen ¨C my only other point of reference being the soldiers around me ¨C was angrily staring at a younger woman. Brown hair reaching behind her shoulders and wearing red robes similar to the other mages the younger woman standing before Lady White was only a little shorter than me. ¡°And why should I do as you ask Mage Chelsea?¡± Lady White pronounced Mage Chelsea with a snap her eyes glinting dangerously. I stopped walking forward. There was no way that I wanted to draw attention to myself and have those eyes on me. ¡°I will tell you everything I know about the contract we had on you, and I will accompany you as added protection for the rest of your trip.¡± ¡°And what makes you think I would ever trust you.¡± ¡°Because I didn¡¯t attack you, and I can¡¯t buy what I want with the gold from the contract.¡± Frankly, I was confused. Was this Chelsea a bandit or not. Were the other bandits not bandits. No, Glasses definitely called them bandits. It was hard for me to think about something changing, after all, I was used to nothing ever-changing. But things changed all the time in this bigger more complex world. It must be that bandits could change to be not bandits. I listened as the two women talked back and forth, negotiating what the Mage Chelsea would give Lady White in order to join our group. I just couldn¡¯t figure out why she would want to. It was clear that something had been discussed before I arrived, it took all my willpower not to interrupt and ask what I had missed. The problem was, I was having difficulty keeping up my infusion with the nothingness. My time was running out and I did not know what I was going to do. I knew nothing about how to heal my body. Was this how the quartermaster who obviously knew nothing about clothing felt when issuing uniforms? I suddenly felt great pity for him and regretted looking down on his shortcomings. I found myself unable to move. It was all I could do to keep pulling on the nothingness. Any loss of focus would end my infusion. I noticed that the conversation had ended at some point but was too internally focused to understand the outcome. What I did know was that I would not hold on much longer. Then I felt everything, it came at me all at once and I knew I couldn¡¯t keep quiet, I knew I couldn¡¯t stay standing. I was not used to pain and a body that did not work properly. All I could do was follow the progress of my own fall as the ground welcomed me with sharp rocks and packed dirt. It was a few moments before hands rolled me over and I could follow the red robe-covered arms up to a face with brown hair falling around it. The soft brown eyes were apologetic set in a face that was so beautiful. I felt the heat from her hands, then it entered my body and burned. I tried to fight back, to call upon the nothingness, but I had no strength left. Fire raced through my body; I painfully felt my bones shift. The muscles I had pushed beyond their limit started to fuse back together. Was I healing or burning? My rational mind could not think straight I only knew one thing for certain, I was in pain. I could hear the screams of my voice until I lost conciseness.