Singer Sailor Merchant Mage

Chapter 66: Wheel of Truth

“Try to remain truthful. The power of the truth never declines. Force and violence may be effective in the short term, but in the long run it’s truth that prevails.

Dalai Lama

Despite my anger at my choice in the matter being removed. I was struggling to think of any lie or omission that would not sound as equally strange as the actual truth. They say truth is stranger than fiction but in my case, I couldn’t think of anything saner than the strange truth that was my reality. Resigned to my fate and compelled by a skill, my words fell from my lips like a dripping tap, drawn like blood out of a stone. Gradually they grew quicker and quicker until they fell like a torrent of water. They rushed out my mouth over the edge of the cliff like a river of words, crashing down over my chest before hitting the silent rocks of reality down below.

. . .

That I remembered another life.

. . .

That I had been someone else.

. . . .

A teacher, writer, soldier, son.

. . . .

A farmer, father, magician.

. . . .

A student, scholar, salesperson.

. . .

I had lived a long and full life.

. . .

That I had lived in a different world.

. . .

A world without levels, without experience or system.

. . . .

A world with monsters true, but only ever in human form.

. . . .

But despite the ocean of words that came forth to many of the questions he had asked all I could say was . . . I don’t know.

How did I arrive here?

I don’t know.

. . .

Why am I here?

I don’t know.

. . .

Why I was reborn?

I don’t know.

. . .

How did it happen?

I don’t know.

. . .

Where is my world?

I don’t know.

. . .

Who are you now?

Kai, son of Aliyah and Kaius, brother to Aleera.

Lord of the Wester Isles.

. . .

I spoke until the potion had faded and my temporary dexterity left me once more. The occasional twitch, was the only symptom of my crippled condition as I once more attempted to move and failed. My body, once again, was too slow to respond to the speedy signals my brain was sending it.

Compel truth, although an insidious skill able to overcome an individual’s free will, was based on what they actually knew, so I couldn’t tell him anything I didn’t. What I didn’t know could fill a book, a computer, an entire library. There were certainly still a lot of gaps in my understanding of what in the earth, the world, the universe had happened, and maybe I would never know. No matter how hard I searched for answers.

Grandfather sat there in silence, head bowed as my words babbled forth until by the end of them we both sat there in silence. He looked conflicted both vindicated in proving a point, yet at the same time still bewildered by the weirdness of my answers. Both of us were surprised by the answers I had given and the depth to which I had described a life now lost to me. How I had described a new life, how I had embraced my family as my own and held close a new name, I now identified myself with.

Finally, after what felt like forever. I lay there uncontrolled and unmoving but watching him and waiting the whole time for his decision. I couldn't affect his choices, I had to follow the way the wind blew. Eventually, after thinking so hard I felt that I could hear the cogs turning and burning, he sat up again. He leaned forward to give me another drop or two of the dexterity elixir allowing me once more to sit up and giving me enough control to continue our conversation. where we had left off. But he had no more questions it seemed.

“You need to tell the rest of the family what you told me.” This seemed to be the final nail in the coffin that had been my night. Although, it also seemed like a bit of a moot point by this point as he already knew. I doubted he could be kept from passing it all on. I winced at the thought of how they might respond.

“And it will sound better coming from you.” He surprised me with this statement. It was almost as if he was trying to be helpful. I wasn’t sure I agreed. I didn't know if it would or would not be better for them or for me, at all. But he would certainly seem less crazy if I was the one to explain it all. Although then again, I might seem equally crazy or possessed if I did.

“No.” I replied.

I didn’t want to tell my family. They loved me and I didn’t want to risk losing their love. Surely revealing all my stats and skills had been enough truth for this year. Was I actually someone else? Perhaps I had just dreamed my former life. I could feel I was rewriting history but Kai was who I was now. Sure, I could draw on knowledge of another world but this was the one that I was living in. This one was real. The other was the past, history, no longer the reality I lived in.

I thought about my family and how they might react. It was easy to see and easy to understand how Aleera was taking my own unreasonable stats hard. My success eclipsed hers and she had struggled to come to grips with that. I didn’t want to see what the revelation, that I had a former life, would do to our relationship. Would she ever trust me again? How would my mother look at me when she realised that I had once been another mother’s child? Would my father still consider me his legacy if he knew I already claimed another family’s history? I didn’t want to know and I didn’t want to find out, certainly not tonight at least. Maybe one day, someday when all was well and we were secure but not now.

Grandfather stood to pick me up. I could imagine him carrying me back along the tunnels to the house. “If you won’t tell them I will.” He said as he picked me up and moved towards the door. I could imagine the walls shrinking in on me as he threatened to change my comfortable family dynamics. The stats and status had changed plenty today but we had all gone to bed the same family as we had awoken. This though felt a far riskier and damaging truth that he wanted to reveal.

“No,” I shouted this wasn’t happening, not again. “Stop.” I cried.

And to my surprise, he did pause as he headed towards the door. He lifted me up and turned me to face him. “Okay. Look I understand that you’re worried about how they are going to react.” I nodded internally, that wasn’t something difficult to work out. Who would want to tell your family that you remember being someone else? The idiot. Why was he forcing this on me? “Once they know, that you are who you are. Who knows how they will feel?” Thank you very much for reiterating the obvious I felt like screaming at him.

That really wasn’t helping me to feel better about telling them. “I will tell them but not now.” I hoped to delay this reveal until they had at least begun to be a little more comfortable about the absurdity of my stats. Before introducing them to the insanity that was my reincarnation within a world not my own.

Once more grandfather tried to convince me that honestly was the best policy. “Best to tell them now, the longer you let the lie, lie the bigger it grows.” He seemed oddly fixated on me telling my family the truth. Offering once more to tell my family for me. “I can tell them if you don’t want to.” He said turning to leave the room again.

Again, I said, “No!” But he kept heading for the door till once more I shouted: “Stop!”

Amazingly, and rather confusingly he appeared to listen standing at the door on the edge of carrying on into the tunnel. He had never listened to me before . . . or had he and I never noticed.

I don’t know whether fear of the future loss of love inspired me but I took it one step further and commanded, “Put me back on the table,” before softening it with, “to talk.”

Interestingly enough he complied despite his clear reluctance.

Although as he did he continued to talk trying to persuade me that the truth was the best policy. Almost as if he was trying to distract me from the revelation I was having. An idea that was taking root in my mind. Moreover, while his arguments carried weight I ignored them and concentrated on something else, a thought, a feeling, a suspicion. Motivated now by curiosity on top of the fear I currently held, I was focussed on the fact that whenever I had ordered him to do something he had done it. Had I never commanded him before? I had asked, questioned, but maybe I had never commanded. Had I discovered a new skill?

I took a quick look but didn’t notice a new skill anywhere with my list.

Things really couldn’t get much worse in my opinion and he was suggesting I throw caution to the wind in telling my whole family. I would tell them one day, when I was older. When they knew me not only for what I was, their son. But also for who I was as an individual. Scared to try, yet hopeful at the same time. I interrupted his arguments to say, “Stand on one leg.”

Nothing happened. My heart plummeted back down into my stomach. I felt hollow. Then I pondered the possibilities. One moment I thought that he had to listen to what I said and perhaps was simply ignoring me while talking or rather talking over me. But then in the next moment after thinking about how facetious I had been in answering his questions earlier while avoiding actually answering his questions. Maybe I had to do something similar now with him. I repeated my words adding in the word now. “Stand on one leg, now.”

Surely, if you had to follow my instructions then now would be the time . . .

Nothing happened as he shifted to lean against the wall continuing his arguments for telling my family.

Then again other than a slight shifting of his weight he . . .

A shifting of his weight . . .

Arguably you could say that you didn’t have to lift up one leg to stand on the other leg. If he was shifting his weight he was obeying the letter of the command if not the spirit of the command. He would be standing on one leg while resting the other even if it appeared to still be resting on the ground.

In for a penny in for a pound

"Sit down now." I unequivocally commanded

Grandfather… sat… down. Stopped talking and stared at me in . . . was that shock, horror or fear. He never stopped talking though, changing tack and saying, "I understand if you don't want to tell them right now. Maybe waiting a while would be better. But some day soon we need to tell them if we are going to make you as strong as you can truly be."

Bingo!

This was interesting!

I ignored his rapidly changing arguments to consider the most critical question. Why did grandfather have to obey my commands? There was something strange going on here. How would he like it when the shoe was on the other foot? I have to confess that I found the idea of being able to tell my grandfather what to do somewhat thrilling. But didn't want to count my chickens before they had hatched.

“Why are you following my orders?” I asked inquisitively about this strange development unwilling to let it drop. Especially if I could find a solution to having to tell all to my family tonight.

“I don’t want to upset you or your family. But I believe telling them the truth would be for the best.” That was a bit of a non-sequitur and about as obtuse as you could get in answering a question.

That was perhaps his worst lie or rather stretch of the truth he had ever given and kind of proved the point that he was avoiding answering it on purpose.

I didn’t have ear for deception or the ability to compel truth getting him to answer clearly and concisely without obfuscating the truth was going to be …

Wait just a second maybe I did! Just in a different manner.

Phrasing my question very carefully as a command I said.

“Answer the following questions without misleading, avoiding or attempting to deceive me in any way and answer immediately.”

He suddenly stood, attempted to flee the room and my questions but the benefit to being Quick Witted and on a dexterity elixir meant that my words or rather commands could keep up with my brain and shot out of my mouth like bullets striking him still.

"Stop!" I shouted.

He stopped and turned to me resigned to his fate much like I had been to mine. I wondered if he would be as angry about having to answer as I had been or find the experience as equally cathartic.

“Why grandfather, do you have to follow my commands?”

Grandfather sucked his lips together as if he had just bitten a bitter lemon, before answering.

“Kai, I’m not your grandfather.”