The Game Called Revolution, - [ebook reader 8 inch .txt] 📗

sort of physical effort. The ghost then noticed a red aura which looked like it was emanating from all over her body. The participants must have seen it also, because their eyes went wide and they began muttering nervously.

“What is this?” the executioner gasped.

Amazingly, she chuckled lightly. “This is me…taking back my destiny!” Her left arm broke free of the ropes, and a small crack appeared in the ghost’s vision, just like she had seen in the tower when Jeanne d’Arc had learned of her fate. “My freedom!” Her right arm broke free, and the crack running down the center of the ghost’s vision grew longer. “My life!” Her left leg broke free, and the crack grew again. “You think you can murder me?” The rest of the rope fell from the wooden column, and she was completely free. Not only that, but the crack now completely ran down the middle of the ghost’s vision. “I’m going to start a family! I’m going to live my life the way I want!” With that, the ghost’s vision split in two, and she could swear she was seeing two images of the executioner—only the one on the right looked sad, as if he had successfully completed the execution. The executioner on the left side of her vision, however, still looked terrified.

The split vision then swiftly disappeared, replaced by the scene that had been on the left side. One of the participants muttered, “This can’t be!”

Jeanne d’Arc shouted, “God’s Body! Full power!”

Suddenly she leaped what must have been at least twenty feet through the air, past the execution’s participants. She landed on the other side of the town square, where a few English guards stood dumbfounded. One of them swung at her with his sword, but he hit only air; she was already leaping again. Before they knew it, she was gone.

 

***

 

After she had ran for what seemed like ages, she stopped to rest a moment.

Before she could, though, the left side of her vision began glowing with unbearable luminosity. It was as if her left eye was staring at the sun—up close. Jeanne d’Arc howled in pain and fell to one knee.

“The Father is disappointed in you, my sister,” said a voice behind her.

She turned around to see (with her left eye) the archangel Michael hovering ten feet off the ground. “Not…fair!” she gasped.

“All that the Lord does is fair.”

The pain subsided enough for her to form a complete sentence. “All I want is to be free to live my life! After all I’ve done for Him, I deserve at least that much.”

He shook his head. “It is not about what we deserve. It is about what the Father commands. He gave you life, and it is within His right to decide how it ends. You were forbidden to use the God’s Body, yet you did. And now your punishment has been decided.”

“What punishment?”

He said, “Open your left eye.”

She reluctantly did so, and she was confronted with exactly what the ghost expected: a crushing sea of information. Jeanne d’Arc, who was completely unprepared for this, once again screamed in mental agony. She began hyperventilating, and a stream of saliva escaped her mouth.

After several excruciating moments, she managed to close her left eye. “W-What is this?”

He looked genuinely saddened to be having to witness her suffering. “Your greatest power has now become a brutal curse. By looking upon something with your left eye, you will know everything about it. Your new God’s Eye has the potential to drive you mad, if you let it.”

Despite all this, she remained defiant. She even returned to her feet. “Fine, then. I’ll just wear an eye patch from now on.”

He actually seemed to sigh. “You are free to live out the rest of your life as you choose, but I must tell you that your descendants will each inherit the curse upon the death of her mother.”

Her right eye widened greatly at this. “What? You can’t punish my descendants for what I’ve done!”

“This is the Father’s decision. Just as Cain carried his mark, so too do you now have yours. But take heart: Each of your descendants will have the ability to break the curse, if they can show the world the power of the human spirit, and there is no one way to do that.”

“But…but…”

“Farewell, Jeanne d’Arc. We may yet meet again one day.”

The archangel Michael faded away, along with everything else within the ghost’s vision.

5

 

 

 

 

There was a blinding white light. Gradually, though, her eyes adjusted to it and she found herself in a pure white space. Nothing else was in that space besides her.

As it turned out, however, that wasn’t entirely true. In front of her about ten feet was a figure standing before a large object. When her eyes fully adjusted to the white space, she saw that it was a man in front of a book case. He then turned around to greet her. “Ah, such a good story, don’t you agree?”

It was Jacques du Chard, the forger who had saved her life when they fought the Count of Saint-Germaine aboard the royal airship, the Majesté Divine. Only now he was wearing a white robe like the characters in Biblical paintings. He was also holding a book entitled L'histoire de Jeanne d’Arc, which he promptly returned to the book case.

For a moment she stood silent; she still expected her ancestor to do the talking. Jacques said, “It is all right, now. You are yourself again, Jeanne de Fleur.”

She examined her body (now that she again had control of it), and discovered that he was telling the truth. Once again wearing her irodium armor (and having one eye covered by an eye patch), she had no doubt that she was Jeanne de Fleur and Jeanne de Fleur alone. She then returned her attention to the deceased (at least, he was supposed to be deceased) Parisian forger. “I am myself again, but what of you? Are you really the same petty criminal to whom I owe my life?”

He held up his hands in a That’s a good question gesture. “Perhaps, but I have only my word to give you. And the word of a criminal is not very good, no?”

She considered this. “Well, you certainly talk like him. Answer this, then: What did I just experience?”

He gave her a look that suggested she should have already figured it out already, but he simply said, “The answer to your questions.”

“So, all of that really happened?”

“Indeed, it did. But I’m sure living it gave you even more questions. Answers have a way of demanding further answers.”

She asked the first one that came to mind. “Where am I?”

“This?” His arms gave a sweep of the white space. “Think of it as the walls bordering Compiègne. Right now, you are within the walls, passing through on your way to Heaven, but you are not there yet.”

“So, essentially, you’re saying I am between worlds.”

“That is correct, Mademoiselle.”

She pondered this for a moment. “That would suggest, then, that I’m still not back in my real body. Where is it?”

“Back in the wreckage of the Minuit Solaire, I think. You see, you crashed—but you probably remember that part. Since you ended up so close to the afterlife, we took the opportunity to show you what ordinarily we could not.”

“The vision?”

He gave her a broad smile. “Oui. We wanted you to know the truth about Jeanne d’Arc—what she was asked to do, and how she ultimately responded to the demand put upon her by God.”

Jeanne remembered the intense suffering her ancestor was forced to endure in the final year of her life. “Why?” she asked him. “Why did God want her to be burned at the stake? I already know the answer given by the archangel Michael, but I want to hear the truth from you, Jacques du Chard.”

His smile persisted. “From me? You must have a lot of trust in me—”

She cut him off. “Enough! Your posturing is unbecoming.”

The smile disappeared. “It is not so easy to change your own nature, it seems. For that, I apologize.

“The answer to your question is not a simple one. The Lord did not desire Jeanne d’Arc’s suffering, any more than He wished the suffering of His own son all those years ago. It was necessary.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “‘Necessary’? How can you possibly justify the brutal murder of a nineteen-year-old girl, especially after all she did for Him?”

He sighed. “I told you the answer would not be a simple one. I shall spare you the answer Michael gave about it being the Lord’s right to take life, as you’ve already heard it. You see, it is considerably more involved than that. God never takes life simply because He can.”

“Then why?”

“In actuality, it is not so different from when he sacrificed His son. He wanted the world to be reminded of what humankind is truly capable of. Jeanne d’Arc was chosen to show everyone the power of the human spirit, to inspire people, to lift them to new heights. As you can see, she rejected His plan.”

“That,” she said with a clenched fist, “isn’t fair! It should have been her choice.”

“It was her choice. Why do you think she was allowed to keep the God’s Body even after she was forbidden from using it? There is always a choice, Mademoiselle. The Lord insists on everyone keeping their free will, despite the fact that we inevitably let Him down. In another world, she accepted His plan and faced her death with bravery. She inspired not just France, but the human race itself, with her selfless act. In this world, though, she will never be known outside of France. After being cursed with the God’s Eye, she ran off to an obscure village on the outskirts of France to quietly live out the rest of her days. She changed her name, and it was only on her death bed that she revealed her true identity. It would be another fifty years before anyone outside of that village learned the fate of Jeanne d’Arc.”

She didn’t know what he meant about ‘another world,’ but neither did she care. “So, it was either a horrible death and worldwide fame, or a quiet life and a horrible curse. Either way, she must live with immense suffering. What kind of choice is that?”

He simply shook his head. “When the Lord chooses you for a mission, there is no easy path. That is simply the way it is. Jesus Christ, Noah, the Apostles, King David; none of them had an easy time of it, did they?”

“Well…I suppose you’re right. It’s just that…it’s one thing to read about their trials; it’s another thing entirely to live them firsthand.”

“You become attached to them, yes? It jeopardizes your objectivity?”

She wasn’t sure if he was asking her a question or just being rhetorical. “I would say it puts a human face on their suffering. It makes it hard to simply compartmentalize them as mere characters in a book.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But we could debate this until the end of time. I think you’re missing the most important question, the one that directly concerns you.”

She thought for a moment, and then said, “Why is it so important for me to know all this? Apart from my own curiosity, that is.”

He chirped, “Now we get to the heart of the matter. You probably remember Michael telling your ancestor that each of her descendants would have the ability to break the curse of the