The Knighthood

After his bloody evening, Noah was in no rush to leave the baths, and the fact that he had the room all to himself was a welcome source of serenity. Besides, he would soon be back to living on the road, where hot baths were few and far between. It was good to savor it while he could, as well as the feeling of a fresh uniform. He stopped by the mess hall and grabbed some bread and an apple, then returned to his dorm, having spent the last several hours lusting for the softness of his bed like an old flame.

It seemed like as soon as he closed his eyes, they were opened by the sound of knocking. “Noah, are you in there?” It was Alexis. Noah looked to the nearby window and studied the shadows. It was probably the middle of the afternoon.

“No, I’m currently elsewhere. I’ll be back later after I sleep a few more hours.”

“You’ve slept long enough. Open the door.”

“Fine, but I don’t have any clothes on. Are you sure you want to see the angle of the dangle?”

There was a pause. “You get one more hour.” He heard her walk away, and he closed his eyes, only to once more be stirred by knocking. The shadows had shifted again. “Come on, Noah, time to wake up,” Alexis said from outside. “And you’d better have clothes on.”

“Fine, I’m coming.” Noah got dressed and opened the door, finding Alexis and Sophia standing in the hall. “What’s so important that you had to wake me up twice?”

“We wanted to make sure you were all right after your shift last night,” said Sophia. “No one knew what happened to you after you left the castle with Sir Elyot.”

“Some fools came after me, and I took care of them. Nothing to worry about.”

“Good, because it’s the end of the year, and you have a promise to keep,” Alexis said, flashing him a steely gaze.

“I suppose I do. We’ll talk in your room. Just a moment.”

He retrieved something from his desk, and then he followed them to Alexis’s room. Before doing anything, he pulled out his soundproofing device and activated it, ensuring their conversation was kept secret. He looked around the room, finding it as neat and tidy as always, but he could still pick up the faint scent of sex.

“I’m glad the two of you were able to sort things out. I just hope waking me up wasn’t an act of revenge for me interrupting your sapphic seclusion yesterday.”

A smile, Noah had never seen Sophia blush with a smile. Instead, she always averted her gaze sheepishly, but now her lips raised her rosy cheeks, and she even giggled.

“Shush!” Alexis said with reddening ears. “Contrary to the lifestyle you live, intimacy isn’t something that should be casually spoken of!”

Noah said to Sophia. “She is just so easy to tease, isn’t she?”

“Every now and then, I’ll give her a little poke, just because I love seeing her pout like that,” Sophia replied with a soft laugh.

“Can we move on already? It’s time to tell us who you really are.”

“Very well, both of you sit down.” They each sat on the bed while Noah retrieved the chair from Alexis’s desk and sat before them. “I don’t put much faith in promises, no matter who they come from. Regardless, what I tell you next, you must swear you’ll never repeat, not to friends, family, anyone, unless it will save your lives. If you’re ever interrogated and risk imprisonment or death, feel free to sell me out. Keep my secret when you can, but don’t waste a second weighing my life against your safety. Understand?”

“You have our word,” said Alexis.

“That’s right,” Sophia added.

Noah took a deep breath. “I’m not the person I appear to be. I am much older than I look, and I come from a world far from this one. This human body is a temporary vessel that I inhabit. For thousands of years, I have died and been reborn, each time on a new world, a new reality. Your planet is just one of the infinite stops in my journey across time and space.”

Alexis and Sophia stared at him as though his words had bounced off their foreheads. “You’re being serious right now, aren’t you?” Alexis asked.

“Completely serious. I told you before, I was alive long before you were born, and I’ll be alive long after you die. If you kill this body, my consciousness and memories will move to a new body, that of a baby being born elsewhere. I came to this academy searching for answers, not just to my magic, but to this reincarnation curse.”

“Can you prove this?” Sophia asked.

“I can. Of all the worlds I’ve traveled to so far, this is the only one with magic, and because of that, my current reincarnation was different from usual. I ended up here with the same body I died in, as well as the clothes I was wearing and the stuff in my pockets.” Noah revealed a black rectangle with a glass surface.

“In worlds without magic, mankind advances through the development of technology and tools. This is called a cell phone. It is a device that lets you communicate with someone in another location and grants you access to whatever information you want, as well as plenty of other interesting things, though it’s lost those functions since I came to this world. Everyone had one of these, and they would use them almost nonstop.”

He removed the back and showed them a silver square inside, where a runic formula had been written. “This right here is called a battery. It contains the energy needed to make my phone function. When I arrived here, I had no means to restore that energy, so it’s been mostly useless, but thanks to runecrafting, I’ve found a way.” He turned his phone on and pointed the camera at them. “Both of you, smile.”

“Excuse me?” Alexis asked.

“Just smile.”

They each gave an awkward smile, and Noah took their picture, then showed it to their mutual shock. “What is this?” Sophia asked, staring closely at the screen.

“It’s called a photo. My phone has a glass eye that can record what it sees, as well as hear. And speaking of hearing….” He opened the music folder and played ‘Could’ve Been’ by Two Steps from Hell. “It also holds music from my world.”

The playing of strings filled Alexis’s room, taking her and Sophia’s breath. The festive noisemakers of the holidays and the folk songs of adventurers and farmers could not compare to the symphony of notes flowing into their ears.

“So, all your knowledge about the human body comes from another world?” Sophia asked.

“Multiple worlds, actually. In several lifetimes, I was what’s known as a ‘doctor,’ someone who heals the injured and sick. However, since there were no magic potions or healing spells, humanity had to learn everything there is to know about the human body. Imagine reattaching a severed limb by stitching together all the severed veins and muscles with a needle and thread.” He took out his wallet and showed them his driver’s license. “This is an identification card that everyone my age had. See this spot right here? It means I have volunteered to be an organ donor.”

“Organ donor?” Alexis asked.

“In my old world, people who suffered organ failure could have their bodies cut open, and the malfunctioning organ replaced with a healthy one from another person. People who volunteered to be donors, upon their death, would have their organs removed and transplanted into other people who needed them. My heart, lungs, kidneys, and all other valuable body parts would be used to save the lives of others. Well, since I’m here in this body, I’m not sure if anyone actually got my organs. I myself experienced this procedure in past lifetimes, and even performed it when I was a doctor to save lives, transplanting everything from skin grafts to brains.”

“This… this is all too much,” Sophia groaned.

“Strange as it may sound, it is the truth.”

Alexis leaned forward. “So what you told me at the basilisk party, about manmade monsters and experiments….”

“I am thousands of years old. That’s long enough to have done and experienced just about anything, including, shall we say, ‘abominable’ practices? There are lines man is supposedly not meant to cross, and I’ve crossed them all, just to see what was on the other side. Whoever created that basilisk, they’re going down paths that I have walked.”

The three all sat in silence, Alexis staring at Noah while Sophia gazed at the floor. “So, what happens now?” Alexis finally asked. “Since you couldn’t get your answers here at the academy, what are you going to do after Knight’s Day?”

“I’m going to help Lady Zodiac track down her brother, who went missing after performing an incredibly powerful psychic experiment. I can’t give you all the details, but the incident occurred last spring, the same time I arrived here. I believe there is a correlation, but even if the events are unrelated, I’m hoping that his research can help me break this curse.”

“Wait, but if you break the curse, you’ll die, won’t you?” Sophia asked.

“Don’t let this young face fool you. I have died more than a hundred times already, and I have lived and experienced more than you can possibly imagine. I’m ready for my journey to end.”

“Does Lady Zodiac know this?” Alexis asked, her voice trembling.

“Of course, it’s part of our agreement. I help find her brother, and she’ll help me break my curse. We’re going to leave the day after tomorrow.”

Sophia got to her feet with tears in her eyes. “You mean you’re going to leave us behind, and we’ll never see you again!”

Noah sighed and formed a weary smile. “You and I had a wonderful night together, didn’t we?” The unexpected question left her spinning her wheels. “You understand now where all my bedroom experience comes from, don’t you? I’ve had hundreds of wives and lovers, many whose names I have forgotten, same with my children.

I have lain on my deathbed, surrounded by my loving family, none of them knowing who I truly am. I have heard them weep while I close my eyes and release my last breath, only to be reborn into a new world. I live on while everyone from my previous life dies one by one, unaware that they have been replaced.

Maybe instead of traveling with Valia, you and I could get married. We could build a home, raise a family, and grow old together. Can you imagine it? The kiss we’d share on our wedding, the two of us arguing over whose turn it is to tend to our crying newborn in the middle of the night, the dinners we’d have with our friends while joking about our children falling in love, making memories during the holidays, both good and bad, spending the years in a comfortable routine of work and love, watching our kids grow up and have kids of their own, and finally, the end comes for us. I can imagine it, because I’ve lived it so many times before.

But whether I ride off into the sunset after Knight’s Day or die of old age with you holding my hand, I will inevitably be forced to leave you and everyone else behind and start a new life, and you’ll just end up as another chapter in a book that should have ended long ago. I don’t want to live like that anymore.”

The three sat in silence, broken only by Sophia’s sniffling as she tried to maintain her composure.

“Noah, look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re really who you say you are, that what you’re saying is true,” Alexis murmured.

Noah stared straight into her soul. “Everything I’ve told you is true. My past, my identity, my goal, all of it. The two of you now know more about me than most of my previous families did.”

“So where do we go from here?” Sophia asked.

“Well, I suppose we have a few options. We can either leave this conversation on a sour note, and things can be awkward until our farewell, or we can spend this precious time together making memories.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an herb-filled pouch. “Might I suggest we smoke this alchemically-enhanced gonlief and spend the rest of the afternoon listening to music from my world? What do you say?”

“I don’t smoke,” said Alexis.

“Neither do I,” Sophia added.

“If there was ever a time to give it a try, it’s now.” He filled up a pipe with gonlief and powdered THC, then lit it with a match and inhaled deeply. After releasing a thick cloud, he held it out to Alexis.

“Fine, I guess I should see what all the fuss is about.”

Noah pressed play on his phone as she and Sophia each took a hit from the pipe with a loud cough. The three sank into bliss, and for the next several hours, the room was full of music, smoke, and laughter.

———-

The sun was soon to set, and the cadets were preparing themselves for combat once more. This would be their third and last Red Revelry, and if history had any say in the matter, it was to be a bombastic evening. Noah was in his room, fiddling with his armor. Sitting on his bed was Valia, having snuck in so they could talk. He had just finished telling her about his conversation with Alexis and Sophia.

“I’m surprised you didn’t invite them to come with us,” she said. “A healer and an archer would have been useful on our journey.”

“I’m surprised that that’s your reaction. I thought you wanted me all to yourself. As fun as it would be to travel with three beautiful women, I feel it’s better that we part ways for now.”

“You don’t want to intrude on their happiness, right?”

“You knew about the two of them?”

“With how Alexis was always gazing at me, it was obvious which direction she swayed.”

“So then what was that hug you gave her the other day?”

“Genuine care from teacher to student, as well as me throwing her a bone of sorts. Plus, she’s so cute when she gets all flustered.