1.03 – Xironi Explains

“This… is not my house,” Carda said after a long moment. He was aware of Sera, Echo, and Michelle entering behind him and gawking at the huge room that was not where it should have been.

“Told you,” Xironi smirked, sashaying across the living room and tapping on the mantlepiece. “Esca, wake up.”

A metallic sounding yawn echoed across the room, and what appeared to be a green frisbee floated into view, somewhat lazily, from Carda’s persepctive. “Sorry, Miss Xironi, did I miss something?”

Xironi chuckled. “Some security system YOU are. You just had three—no, FOUR unauthorized people walk into the house unchecked.”

“But they were with you, so they must be okay,” the frisbee replied.

Xironi smiled and shook her head. “Oh well, you were due for an upgrade anyway… Esca, this is Carda. Carda, this is Esca. She’s my biomech, although she’s currently just an antigrav model. She’s been wanting a full droid upgrade for a while now.”

“Um, hi?” Carda felt just a tad silly speaking to an inanimate object, even if it could carry on a conversation back.

“Hi, Mister Carda! Miss Xironi talks about you a LOT!” the disk replied, zooming to within six inches of Carda’s face for a better look.

“She does, huh?” Echo quipped, giving Xironi a rather jealously protective look. Carda didn’t notice.

Xironi blushed and snatched Esca out of the air, fitting the biomech back into its slot on the mantle. “That’s enough for now, Esca, you can go back to standby.”

“But you just woke me up, and my batteries are fully charged—”

“Esca. Go. Standby. NOW.”

“Okay,” Esca replied glumly. “Nice meeting you all!” she added to the visitors.

“Let’s go into the kitchen and get you patched up,” Xironi said, guiding Carda out of the living room and into a hub of sorts. It was a wide circular room with doorways leading off in all directions. The floor in the center of the room was a good three feet deeper than the walkway around the perimeter, and the sunken portion was lined with comfortable-looking couch-like seats, except for where steps led down into the pit. “The kitchen is at five o’clock,” Xironi told Carda, guiding him into the fifth door clockwise from the large flatscreen television that dominated the north (or what Carda thought was probably north) wall.

The kitchen was only half as big as the living room, but still enormous. “Just how big IS this house, anyway?” Carda asked.

“Bigger on the inside than on the outside,” Xironi replied. “Back before Grandpa went into hiding, he designed this house and commissioned an offworld contractor to help him build it. The builders were just normal laborers from around Sun Valley, though, so Grandpa had to be very careful just how much anyone saw of the interior at a given time.”

“It’s spatially enchanted, isn’t it?” Carda guessed. “On the outside, it looks like any normal house in a normal neighborhood, but inside…”

“Inside it’s bigger than a German castle,” Xironi nodded. “And if you tried to map out the floorplan you’d hurt your brain, because the rooms technically overlap. Grandpa’s a genius, seriously. I wish I were half the strider he is.”

“I wonder where he is,” Carda thought aloud as Xironi searched for iodine and cotton. “My parents seemed to know more than they were letting on…”

“Who’s this Felix Grey person they mentioned?”

“Felix runs the Grey Museum and the Grey Foundation. He’s a self-made zillionaire, so he’s got the money to burn. The Museum specializes in old legends more than ‘real’ history, and the Foundation works with archaeologists like my parents to uncover the truth about those legends. Some people think he’s a crackpot, but if he is, then he’s the most stable crackpot I’ve ever met. It’s mainly because of him that I’m still able to afford to go to college.”

“Why ARE you taking archaeology classes, anyway?” Xironi found what she was looking for and proceeded to apply liberal amounts of iodine to a wad of cotton balls.

“To get my parents to shut up and leave me alone, to be honest. They want me to follow in their footsteps so badly that they’re practically blind to what I really want to do. YOW THAT STINGS.”

“Sorry, but stinging is good. Anyway, what is it that you really want to do?”

“I honestly don’t know. I mean, I like acting, which is why I’m taking — ow — theater classes. But Mom still has a point. How do I — ow — make a living for myself in theater?”

“How do you make a living for yourself in archaeology? Don’t they have to get lots of grant money just to break even?”

“My parents would be sure to hook up — ow — a deal with Felix for me, I know that much. I just wish they’d realize that I’m old enough to start running my own life now.”

Xironi finished tending to Carda’s scratches and locked eyes with him. “Now I understand why you’re so resistant to what I have to say. It probably feels like I’m trying to direct your life for you.”

“That and I have little to no idea what you’re going on about.”

“Come on out into the Lounge. I’ll explain as much as I can.”

The Lounge was the circular hub room from which the rest of the house branched out. Carda saw that the others had made themselves comfortable already. “This place is amazing!” Michelle was saying as Carda and Xironi walked in from the kitchen.

Xironi waved Carda towards a seat, but he shook his head. “I need to stretch my legs,” he said, beginning to pace around the perimeter of the room. Xironi shrugged.

“I promised an explanation, so now you’re going to get one. This could… take a while.”

“I’ve got all the time you need,” Carda replied.

Xironi nodded and continued. “It started about three years ago. Grandpa was on the Strider Council, sort of a governing body that runs the Strider Academy. The Council brought in a man named Octavius. I never did understand where he came from or why he was wanted on the council in the first place, but as soon as they gave him an inch, he took a mile. Before anyone knew what had happened, Octavius had taken charge of the Academy and dissolved the Council entirely. Grandpa and several others voiced dissent, and Octavius sent out assassins to kill them. That’s why Grandpa is in hiding.”

“So why was this Octavius so keen on getting his hands on the Academy in the first place? You don’t just stage a coup without SOME sort of ulterior motive,” Carda asked. “Unless you’re a total egomaniac, anyway.”

“That’s what no one has been able to figure out,” Xironi replied. “He must have some sort of master plan, but no one has been brave enough to try to infiltrate the Academy to find out.”

“Fair enough. So what does all this have to do with ME?”

“You’re the only strider that Grandpa was able to track down that Octavius’ recruiters hadn’t gotten to yet.”

Carda paused. “Wait, just how long have you been tracking me, anyway?”

“About six months,” Xironi blushed.

“Six months. In that time, how many times have I used this strider magic?” Carda countered, resuming his pacing.

“Counting today? Twice.”

“And you think I’m going to be able to stop a WAR.”

“Well…”

Carda didn’t wait for an answer. “Okay, let’s assume that, as I’m guessing, you believe that Octavius is building an army by way of some bizarre training regime, which is why he needed the Academy. Who’s he going to go to war against? America? Not even the best trained Marines can combat someone who can bend SPACE to their will. Striders win, good game. I can’t stop that on my own.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“What do you mean?”

“Octavius hates chronomancers. We think he’s going to wage war against THEM.”

“Chronomancers?” Carda translated the word in his head. “Time mages? There’s TIME mages?”

“Yes, and while striders and chronomancers have had disagreements in the past, there’s been a truce between the groups for the past three centuries. Unfortunately, something happened a year ago to change all that. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the Library of Worlds’ Ages?”

Carda stared at her.

“No, I suppose not. Well, up until the incident, striders and chronomancers could come and go as they pleased in the Library, which is a sort of dimension where all the histories of all the worlds in all the multiverse are recorded and stored. Problem is, now only scribes can enter the Library, because about a year ago a strider and a chronomancer were found dead there. By all appearances they had killed each other.”

“But you don’t buy that,” Michelle inferred. Carda was suddenly aware that the others in the room were taking great interest in the conversation.

“No, I don’t,” Xironi replied. “Personally, it wouldn’t surprise me if Octavius killed them both and staged it to look like they had fought.”

“What it all comes down to, though, is that I”m only one man,” Carda cut in. “How can I stop a war when I don’t even know how to use these powers I have?”

“It’ll take time for Octavius to train up his army. I can teach you everything Grandpa ever taught me about strider magic. It’s a start, anyway.”

“But why ME? Why some guy who’s struggling just to get through college? Why not some great big hero dude?”

“Because I believe that the Creator uses people who AREN’T ‘big hero dudes’ for His purposes simply because He can. And I believe that the Creator has a bigger purpose for you than even I can fathom.”

Carda was nonplussed. “Really.”

Xironi locked eyes with him. “Yes. Really.”

An unfamiliar voice echoed through the lounge. “Aw, how sweet. Heartlight’s little granddaughter thinks she can take on Lord Octavius with the help of a novice…”

Xironi’s eyes narrowed as she jumped up from her seat. “I know that voice…”

A dark-haired figure dressed in black appeared behind Michelle from literally nowhere and grabbed her. “Nice to see you again, Xironi,” he smirked, holding a very sharp-looking dagger to Michelle’s throat.

“Rayn,” Xironi growled.