[Recollection Log No. 8 – “Oberon’s Sin”]
“Do you remember your sin?” The man heard a soft, yet muffled, voice resonate in his head.
He figures he must be dreaming, and lets slumber reclaim him. “Do you remember your sin, knight?” the voice was sharper, but with a metallic static hiss, almost serpentine.
A sharp pain jolts the man awake. As he opened his weary eyes, a white-haired maiden with a single silver eye met his gaze. The maiden appeared to be holding a red book of some kind.
An endless array of dark books were behind her, bearing forbidden knowledge.
“An angel?” The man says out loud, unwittingly. The maiden gently brings her hand to her mouth, restraining a smile. “Quite far from it, depending on who you ask.”
The maiden scoffs.
“I am Recollector Ell of the Zaleri Research and Preservation Institute.” Ell says as she reaches out to the man, offering a handshake.
“Welcome back, Knight Oberon.”
“Knight Oberon?” The man recoils at the mention of the name, and smacks the angel’s hand away. Lightning suddenly surges throughout Oberon’s body.
He instinctively nurses his head in an effort to stop the searing pain, but the gesture offered no respite. Instead, the man felt the unfamiliar feeling of cold steel touching his head.
Confused, Oberon brings his hands up, and sees what appeared to be metallic gauntlets covering his arms. In panic, he flailed his arms in an effort to take out the gauntlets, but to no avail.
It almost seemed like the gauntlets were fused to his flesh.
“What kind of foul magic is this?” Oberon screamed. The man looks up frantically, and sees the white-haired angel smirking.
“What did you do to me?” Oberon stammered. He touched his cheek, and felt the same metallic sensation. His flesh was no more.
“You’re experiencing neuro-mechanical transference syndrome. Standard bio-recollection protocol. You’ll get used to it in a few.” Ell says, crossing her arms. Oberon’s hands trembled.
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten? Well, then let’s check the story book.” Ell leafs through the pages of the red book she held, her silver eye scouring through the text, her finger tracing each word.
Oberon notices that the angel also had a metallic hand like him.
“Ah, there you go. Look here.” Ell reaches in closer and holds up her red book in front of the Oberon’s face. Oberon ignored Ell, as he was busy opening and closing his steel hand, as if rehearsing his new found form.
“So lazy. I’ll read it since you’re so sensitive.” Ell feigns a cough, as if to clear her throat.
“In the final engagement before the Albirean gates, it is recorded that Knight Knight Sartoria confronted Holy Maiden Inaris, The Silver Witch, amidst the relentless snow that covered the remains of the dead. Bearing her black sword, Sartoria advanced and attempted to drive the blade into the witch’s heart, seeking to subdue the witch…”
Ell looks up at Oberon, who suddenly banged his fist on the table at the mention of SARTORIA. The inhuman pain in his body yet again surges in Oberon.
This time, a thousand visions flood into his head: The waves of a red ocean. The scent of ash and blood in a battlefield. The sensation of cold snow. The image of a black sword with a crimson eye. And then, a white-haired child, crying. And then, a name that would not go away: SARTORIA.
SARTORIA. The man repeats the name in his head. SARTORIA. A familiar name, but he can’t remember her face.
Ell continued. “…Yet Inaris did not fall at that first strike, because by some unimaginable luck, the great Knight Sartoria – oh the great Sartoria — somehow missed an unmoving, prone target…” Ell says sarcastically, and looks up at Oberon again, who was now leaning in closer, like a hound ready to pounce.
“Though wounded, Inaris managed to reach for the dark blade with her bare hands, and invoked some foul magic. At once, her black sword slipped from Sartoria’s grasp.” Ell continued.
Oberon yet again inched closer at the mention of Sartoria. Ell waves her hand to signal him to back away.
“Seeing the knight Sartoria disarmed and the witch still standing, Sir Oberon rushed in to his aid and struck Inaris, driving his sword upward toward her face.
The point found its mark in the witch’s mechanical silver eye, which was dislodged and fell into the snow.” Ell glanced at Oberon, who was now visibly growing impatient, and now staring intently at her silver eye.
“Amid the chaos, the Knight Sartoria knelt in the snow, blade in hand, but paralyzed by some unseen force. Oberon desperately called to Sartoria, but Sartoria’s eyes remained transfixed at the bleeding Inaris. A curious moment of hestitation, perhaps sympathy for the enemy? Maybe it was something else. Perhaps, a certain kind of…tragic fondness.” Ell continues, but appeared to have stopped herself from saying a particular word.
“Gathering what strength remained, Sir Oberon seized the black sword from Sartoria’s hand, and thrust the black blade straight into the heart of Inaris himself.”
As she read the final passage, Ell closed the book, and looked at Oberon, who was now gesturing to grab the book. “Sir Oberon, the great Witchkiller — or is that Queenslayer? I always liked that part of the story. And yet the legends only remember Sartoria. Great Sartoria. A curiosity.” Ell says in a mocking tone as she drew the book closer to Oberon, gesturing him to open it.
Oberon opened the book and turned to the last page. It was blank. “This is where you help me. I’d like to test a theory of how it all ends.”
Ell passes a playful glance at Oberon and winks with her mechanical eye. “If we consult the Albirean archive, there was a different outcome.” Ell says as she rummaged at the bookshelf behind her, and pulled out a small, black book, that looked more like a diary. She turned to a page with a book mark, and started reading out a marked passage, as if she’d pre-rehearesed this action.
“At a moment of weakness, a blade pierces Oberon in the back, by an unseen shadow. And so his name was reclaimed by the Albirean frost.” Ell dropped the book, and leaned closer to Oberon’s ear, and whispered.
“Tell me, Knight Oberon, do you remember your sin?” Ell’s voice was no longer aloof, but cold and accusatory. She stood up and placed her hand unto Oberon’s metallic shoulder.
Oberon looked up to the angel, and a fragment of his broken memory returned. The passage in the story book felt familiar, but remained incoherent. The Silver Witch Inaris. A final battle in the snowfield of Albireo, the realm of eternal winter. And the Grand Knight Sartoria, his mentor.
But somehow, he could not even remember her face. A void in his memory. A phantom pain manifested in his back like an old wound resurfacing — a memory of his death? “I’m sorry, Sartoria. ”
Oberon let out his final words as the pain consumed him. His steel body broke down and fell from his chair, the sound of metal crashing reverberated throughout the library hall, piercing the silence. Ell leans in closer and kneels beside the fallen body of Oberon, now unmoving: a faceless steel machine.
She knocks angrily at the machine’s head. “Ugh, not again. We were getting so close, Oberon, buddy.” Ell pleads. “Then again, i’d go mad too if I woke up in a steel coffin. Poor you.”
A cold, monotonous feminine voice reverberated in the darkness of the Falzchen Library. The voice came from a corner of the library. “Recollection Simulation Terminated. Sister Ell-19 do you wish to restart the Palingenesis Lazarus Protocol?” the voice asks. “There’s no point, he’s fried. That’s enough for today. And I need a break.” Ell sighs, and stands up and collects herself. “That apology to Sartoria was new…how curious.” Ell wondered.
“Kashopeia, please send a servibot to retrieve our buddy Oberon here back to the machine bay. Send a note to Sister Valkyrie too. Tell her I’ll pay her for last time, but I need another favor.” Ell called out. “Instructions received. See you again soon, Ell-19.” Kashopeia responds in the darkness.
Ell reaches into a black shelf to return the red book. She stares at the cover for awhile: SONG OF INARIS, the title proclaims. Ell dejectedly pushes the book into the shelf, which she watches disappear into the darkness.
Ell sighs. “Tell me Father Zaleri, what’s the point of a songbook, if no one remembers how to sing?”
//RECOLLECTION SEQUENCE TERMINATED
