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Schrodinger’s Locket

Knowledge is useless unless it is seized

By Walter RheinPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
1
Ephraim Moses Lilien, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Children cried when they saw him.

Artemis didn’t blame them.

The first time he saw his face, he’d almost cried himself.

“Who is that?” he’d thought. “That isn’t me, that can’t be me!”

It was then that he realized he had no memory of his own features.

Had he always looked like this?

Had his skin been forever stretched across his skull like a thin, nearly transparent membrane?

Had he always been a thing that didn’t look like it had the strength to stand much less survive?

Some part of him didn’t think so.

Some essential, inner part from his past that lingered just out of reach.

The Bliss had done this to him. The mind altering drug that made slaves easier to control. At first those that took it became docile. As the years passed, they became addicted. In the end, they were reduced to shuffling monsters that would tear each other apart to get at any trace of Bliss that might linger in the veins of their victims.

When they deteriorated to that stage, the people called them “demons.”

He had been a demon once.

He was the first to have been reclaimed.

But the Bliss had changed him. Now, even though he had been robbed of all knowledge of his past, fate mocked him by granting a perfect recollection of trivial information. Images of diagrams and schematics and pages and pages of words flashed behind his eyes with defiant and offensive clarity.

Useless!

But there were some who didn’t see it that way.

All books had been destroyed decades ago. Somehow, his memories contained the sacred knowledge.

“Sit, write!” he’d been commanded.

“Write what?”

“Write everything.”

So he wrote, even though the words didn’t make sense, even though the drawings were incomprehensible. Where had it come from? It was as if some part of his mind had made a perfect copy of every scrap of paper he’d ever laid eyes on.

Artemis put down his pencil and lifted his hand to finger the heart-shaped locket that hung around his neck on a silver chain.

When they found him he’d been naked except for the locket. It had a clasp on the side which he had not yet dared to open.

The time wasn’t right.

Not yet.

Perhaps later, when he was less confused.

Later, when he’d recuperated some memory of who he was and didn’t have to pin all his hope on the desperate chance that the locket might hold the answer.

He was too fragile to open it now and find it revealed nothing.

Unknowing, he could pretend it held the key.

The revelation that it didn’t might destroy him.

“Schrodinger’s locket,” he said to himself. He even started to laugh before he began to wonder why. The random words were more of the jumbled, perplexing clues that filled his mind.

Shaking away a sudden sense of melancholy, he lifted his pencil and returned to his task.

Schrodinger’s... He wrote, and paused to look at the word. ‘Locket’ wasn’t correct. Artemis waited for a moment, taking a deep breath to get back to that mental place where his conscious mind didn’t interrupt and the words flowed freely. When he looked down he saw that his hand had completed the line.

“Cat?” Artemis said aloud.

“What did that mean?”

His musings were interrupted by the arrival of a woman.

It was the archer.

From the look of her, she’d just come from battle. Her leather armor was spattered with blood. Artemis couldn’t tell if it was hers.

“I need a new bow,” she stated.

Artemis nodded.

The archer held up a piece of paper. The paper was smeared with blood and dirt, but Artemis recognized it as one of his recordings.

“Tell me about this,” the archer said.

She placed the paper on his desk.

The image looked like a bow, but there were circles at the top and bottom. Instead of a single bow string, lines criss-crossed the space between the upper and lower limbs.

Artemis studied the picture, but it meant nothing to him. He looked at the archer. She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“It’s a bow,” she stated.

“It appears to be,” Artemis replied.

“But what are these?” the woman said gesturing at the circles.

“I don’t...” Artemis began.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know!” The woman snapped. “You do know. The information is locked within that grotesque head of yours!”

Artemis almost smiled, but he stopped himself. He’d learned that smiling only made his horrific appearance even worse.

“I lost a dozen good men today,” the woman said. “I lost my bow. Are you even aware of the fighting? Are you aware of the sacrifice others make so you can sit around all day making child’s doodles?”

“I am aware.”

“I don’t think you are!”

“What are you trying to say?” Artemis asked.

“I’m saying you don’t pull your weight!” the woman snapped. “And I’m not the only one who is sick of bleeding for you.”

“I don’t weigh much,” Artemis responded.

“That’s what makes your lack of effort even worse.”

Artemis looked at her. He could tell she was both physically and emotionally exhausted from battle. “I didn’t ask to be brought back,” he said calmly.

I didn’t bring you back,” the woman replied. “In fact, I’ve hunted your kind. I’ve slaughtered them from a distance, and I’ve killed them up close. When I leave this room I’ll kill more.”

“Is that why you need a bow?” Artemis asked. “To kill others like me?”

“No, I need it to protect myself.”

Artemis looked back at the drawing and nodded. “Fair purpose,” he said. “Let me study this.”

The image was strange. It was both a bow and not a bow. As always, Artemis felt the tingle of comprehension in the depths of his thoughts, but he couldn’t access it. The harder he pushed, the more the knowledge seemed to retreat from him.

Changing tactics, Artemis picked up pencil and paper and closed his eyes. He let his hands move without thinking. When he opened his eyes again, he read what he had written.

“H. W. Allen.”

“Who is H. W. Allen?” the woman asked.

Artemis looked at her in surprise. “You can read?”

“Of course, why?”

“Not everyone can.” He looked back at the paper. This time he didn’t close his eyes or write, but he cast a mental net and caught a thought. “Knowledge must be harnessed before it can be used.”

“What?” said the woman.

“It’s not enough to know something,” Artemis continued. “You must wrestle with it. You must drag it down into the trenches and force it to submit.”

The woman said nothing.

Artemis took a deep breath, he found the work came more easily. “Holless Wilbur Allen became frustrated when he recognized his arrows traveled too slowly,” he said. “Allen was a hunter. Sometimes the deer had time to step out of the way.”

The woman snorted. “He should have tried hunting dumber animals, like men.”

Artemis fixed the archer with a serious gaze. “He learned to make his arrows travel faster.”

“How?” the woman replied with obvious interest.

“Energy,” Artemis replied saying the word without truly understanding. “Kinetic energy.”

The woman looked up at the ceiling. “You’re wasting my time again.”

“Wait,” Artemis snapped. “This is progress. If you have the patience to be an asset rather than an obstacle there’s a chance we might skip over a thousand years of labor. Would that be worth my weight?”

Silence.

“Energy is a spell,” Artemis said. “It’s the strength in your arm that allows you to pull back your lethal string. How strong are you?”

“I’m strong enough.”

“What if you were ten times stronger?”

“If you grant me that strength, I will name you wizard.”

“Titles mean nothing,” Artemis said. “Only understanding matters.” He closed his eyes as if in great pain and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. When he spoke, it was with effort. “There is a relationship between the strength of your arm, the flex in your bow, the speed of the arrow, and the arrow’s weight.”

“Complex elements working together to produce a kill,” the woman said. “The death dance.”

“H. W. Allen’s first thought was to use a lighter arrow. He knew that if he changed the value of one element, another element would compensate. Since the strength and the flex remained the same, he hoped a lighter arrow would achieve a greater speed.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” Artemis admitted. “The arrow crumbled.”

“So he failed?”

“No!” Artemis replied, “He had just begun. The answer resisted him, but he persisted. Failure is a point along a journey. It means nothing unless you stop.”

“What did he do?”

Artemis fought for the answer. Deep inside, he found something written in a language few living people could understand. He picked his words with care. “Allen sought out a book of wisdom. The book contained a spell of energy. Allen took this spell and used it in a way it was never intended.”

“Forbidden knowledge?” the woman asked.

“No.” Artemis corrected. “Creative knowledge. There are no rules. There are only tools, and you may use the tools as you see fit. If a tool brings you failure, use it in another way, or try a different tool.”

“What did Allen try?”

“He needed greater energy. Before the arrow flies, the energy resides in the bow.”

“That’s true,” the archer said. “But a rigid bow requires a stronger arm.”

Artemis pointed at the drawing. “These circles make a machine.”

“A machine to make you stronger?”

“No,” Artemis admitted.

The woman looked disappointed.

“It’s a machine designed to multiply your strength. It’s called a pulley. Humans have used them for generations...” Artemis’s voice trailed off. When he spoke again, it was with defiance. “You must make the knowledge yours or it is nothing! It is worse than nothing! It is useless!”

The woman leaned back, disturbed by the urgency in Artemis’s voice. He turned to her, and she jumped to her feet. This time Artemis hadn’t stopped himself. He was smiling.

“My god!” the woman exclaimed. “You look like death himself!”

“You see these?” Artemis said with excitement. “These are pulleys, or cams.” He pointed at another part of the drawing. “These are cables, this is the riser, these are the limbs, got it?”

The archer nodded in surprise.

“Where do you go to scavenge?” Artemis asked. “Where do you find useful things?”

“Beneath the sign of the white bird on the red field, but there is little of use there now. Too many have come.”

“You will find it there. The ones that have come before didn’t know what to look for. Bring the pieces! I’ll help you assemble them. If you do this, I will give you the strength of ten men.”

“I’d prefer the strength of ten women.”

Artemis nodded, “The sooner you’re back, the sooner you will have it.”

The archer stood and moved toward the door. She stopped for a moment and turned as if she was about to say something, then she thought better of it and slipped silently into the hallway.

Artemis listened to the sound of her retreating footsteps. The stained drawing sat on the table. He lifted it and considered both the image and the chaotic pattern of dirt and blood.

“Random,” he said to himself.

Pushing the image aside, he reached for his pencil. Then he stopped.

Knowledge was useless unless it was seized.

Without hesitation, he reached to the locket at his neck, placed his thumb against the clasp of the locket, and flicked it open.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Walter Rhein

I'm a small press novelist. Shoot me an email if you want to discuss writing in any capacity, or head over to my web page www.streetsoflima.com. [email protected]

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