by Rob J. Hayes
"Fuck you!" I sent the Djinn a withering stare then turned back to Hardt.
The big man had finished throwing up and looked at me with an odd stare. "What happened, Eska? I felt… encased. I couldn't breathe. Then everything just faded away."
"You weren't breathing by the time I got you free of the golem. I had to, um, breathe for you, I think."
Hardt narrowed his eyes. "How did you know how to do that? I've only ever seen one person do that before, my old ship's doctor."
I weighed up the options and decided I simply didn't have the energy to lie to him about it. "Isen showed me. His ghost has been following me since the Pit. I didn't want to tell you because… It's my fault. My power. My guilt, I guess, dragging your brother's ghost along behind us. I didn't do it on purpose. I promise, I didn't mean to…" I ran out of words. There was no excusing the pale existence I had trapped Isen in.
Hardt took a moment. I think he was mulling it over in his head, deciding whether or not he could excuse one more of my atrocities. "Is he here now? I don't see him."
"No one does, only me. And I think he's gone." I looked around for Isen's ghost. The rest of my ethereal baggage was still there, lingering close by, watching me, but Isen was gone. He never came back. Whether that was because he felt his time on Ovaeris was finally over, or because I felt I could finally let him go, I don't think I'll ever really know. But I hope he finally found peace, released of the servitude I had unwittingly forced upon him.
Ishtar growled out a string of curses that would have had me grinning any other day, but I didn't have it in me to smile. Hardt shook the metal knuckles, slick with blood, from his hands and reached out. I helped him up. I say that, but there was little I could do to help him. Sometimes it's the intent that counts far more than the effort. He made his way over to Ishtar. Hardt was our berserker and healer rolled into one and he could wound or mend as easily as each other, but he always preferred to help people where he could, rather than harm. I let him go and went a different way.
Silva's body, dressed in her white robes under leather armour, lay where I left her. I approached slowly, dragging my left foot and bracing myself for the pain of seeing her face one last time. Cold closed around me in a way I hadn't felt for a long time; a cloying, freezing thing that tasted of despair. I don't think Ssserakis did it on purpose, I think the horror was trying to pull away from me, either to give me space or maybe just hide from my grief.
My shadowy blade had caused a wide wound in her chest and her robes were stained red. Her skin was pale, no real colour left to it. Even Silva's hair seemed less vibrant than it had just minutes ago. It felt like so much had happened since I killed her, but in truth it was no time at all. I knelt over the body of the woman I loved, and tears dripped from my chin onto her face. She was gone. Every bit of her. The way her eyes lit up when negotiating a deal. The frown that always crinkled her brow whenever I found the right spot as we made love. Her love of favours. Her love of her family. The kindness she showed to everyone, even those who didn't deserve it. All of her, gone.
I remember a story, a romantic fable I read once back as a child. I was devouring fantasies in the library when I should have been studying. The story was about a prince, handsome as they always are, as well as ferocious and charming. He fought his way across a battlefield to find the woman he loved. The prince challenged her captor, a Sourcerer with designs on his kingdom, and somehow overcame all odds and won the fight. But the Sourcerer was a petty man, and in his final moments he struck a killing blow on the prince. Hero and villain died together. The princess ran to her would be saviour, amidst all the carnage and cried for her lost love. The stories always have the prince and princess in love, true love, despite never having met before. The princess's tears fell on the prince, and miraculously he came back to life, all mention of the fatal wound forgotten. They lived happily ever after, as people often do in stories.
Those stories are nothing but lies. True love takes time, not serendipity. No amount of will and skill and luck can defeat a Sourcerer without magic of your own. And all the tears in the world can't bring the dead back to life. Even knowing this, I still wept for her. My true love.
"I'm sorry, Silva." The words tasted like lies.
Are you? She was a weakness in you. You cut that weakness free in return for a promise of power. Real power.
I shook my head, weary from exhaustion and grief. "Not now, Ssserakis." I couldn't take the horror's accusation, but I couldn't help but consider the possibility. Silva was dead, killed by my own hands, and in return, the Djinn had promised me Sources, and the knowledge of how to truly use the power they contained. I'd be lying if I said the promise of power didn't feed a hunger inside of me, but these days I wish I hadn't paid the price. It was too damned high.
Chapter 4
Collecting ourselves and treating our injuries took some time. We were, all of us, wounded. The Djinn grew bored with observing us, and vanished, the rocks that had formed its body falling to the floor of the amphitheatre and a gust of wind blowing past us all.
Hardt laboured at binding our injuries. I think the work took his mind off other things, but I could tell by the glances he kept sending my way that we had a conversation coming. There were so many things for us to talk about, so many of my secrets to air, I wasn't sure which one was eating away at him. He snapped the haft of a discarded spear and used it to form a crutch for Ishtar but warned her the ankle was broken and it would take time to heal, if it ever truly did. A Biomancer would have been able to help, but I doubted we'd be seeing either Josef or the Iron Legion again any time soon, and I knew no other Biomancers. Tamura's arm was reset, the bone making a sickening crunch as it snapped back into place. The old Aspect hissed in pain but didn't scream. I think I would have screamed. Hardt bound the arm in a makeshift sling formed by tearing a dead soldier's tunic.
Horralain was another matter entirely. The giant thug had some cuts and scrapes, but no serious physical injuries despite the beating we'd all taken. But the Iron Legion had trapped him in some sort of nightmarish prison, a use of Empamancy I had never heard of before. It certainly wasn't one they taught at the academy or I'm sure the bitch-whore, Lesray Alderson, would have tested its effects on me. His fear was a cloying miasma around him that I longed to devour. Ssserakis drank it in from a distance, and begged me to move closer, but I wouldn't. The temptation convinced me I might lose myself in the intoxication. When I asked if Ssserakis knew how to snap Horralain from his fear induced stupor, the horror only laughed and asked me why we would do that, when the big man was such a hearty meal.
Imiko moped, and I had not the will to draw her out from her melancholy. I could barely keep my own head above the waves of grief that threatened to drown me. Only the thought of the power I would attain, and the idea that Josef was still alive, kept me from succumbing. Only her little ringlet, Kazh, seemed to brighten her mood as the little beast wound its way between her legs and perched on her shoulder, feeding itself something it found within the sand. Even Ishtar, normally so irrepressible, seemed beaten, depressed. She didn't even bother to insult me. It's not surprising really, she had just lost her entire company, so many of her friends were dead. Career soldiers and mercenaries expect to lose their comrades, but I think the mark of a true leader is when they still feel the pain of it, no matter how many losses have passed by.
We made a camp of sorts, right there in the amphitheatre. Once Tamura's wits had returned to him, the old man set about pulling together a shelter made of cloth and spear hafts. How he managed it with a broken arm, I don't know, but I'd already long since stopped wondering at Tamura's many talents and odd abilities. I tried to help him as best I could, but I feel I only got in the way, especially when he said: The rain is wonderful when you are thirsty, but a nuisance when you wish to cook dinner. I didn't let him push me away. Much like Hardt's ministrations were keeping him busy, keeping him distracted, I needed the same. Anything to keep me from slinking back to the corpse of my
lover. There were buildings nearby we could have moved to, some were ruins and others were dilapidated at best, but any of them would have provided some shelter from the wind and blistering cold. However, we couldn't leave Horralain, nor attempt to move him, and I wouldn't leave Silva's body. I wasn't ready to say goodbye.
Snow started to drift in, small flakes at first, but they settled all the same. The sphere had sheltered the arena from the weather, but now that it was gone, I knew the cold would soon turn even that place into a frigid ruin. I collected my Sources and placed them back in my snuff pouch, all except the Pyromancy Source. I turned it over and over in my hands, rubbing my thumb across every surface time and time again. It was a small Source, the size of grape, and smooth on all sides except one; that side was rough to the touch like unvarnished wood. I rubbed it again and again until I knew it's every curve and contour. I gripped it in my hand so tightly my bones protested and my palm bruised. I pressed it against my chest, and even picked open one of my wounds and pressed the Source against it until it was sticky with my blood. However, Josef had absorbed the Source from Neverthere, the ability seemed beyond me. Perhaps he really was the chosen one, fulfilling the Auguries. And I was once more just the deviant child holding him back from greatness. Eventually, I popped the Source in my mouth and forced it down. It was too soon, really. Only hours since I suffered from late stage Source rejection, and I had neither rested nor recovered, but I needed the warmth. I needed the fire inside to chase away all the icy pain.
Imiko had vanished, as the little thief was wont to do. I shouldn't call her little, by then she was already taller than I, but I always have. Hardt gathered as many spear hafts and axe handles as he could find and snapped them to make kindling. Then I set them ablaze. I could tell by the feeling in my gut, I only had a few hours, at most, before I rejected the Source again, and I had one more thing to do with my fire before I allowed that to happen.
Leaving the shelter and the little fire I had started, I crossed the amphitheatre and once more made my way to Silva's body. The cold turned her flesh a pale blue that matched her lifeless eyes. I settled down next to her on the ground, my left leg splayed out before me, and waited for my courage to show up. After a while, Hardt sat down across from me. He had a new coat, larger than before, and pulled it tight around him, his breath misting as he puffed it out.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked as he handed me a small stoppered bottle.
"Pyromancy keeps me warm." It was mostly true. I wore the same cured leather armour I had been wearing for days. If you have never worn the same clothing for an extended period of time, let me assure you, it becomes a part of you, like a second skin stuck in place by spilt blood and sweat. Underneath the armour, I wore serviceable trousers and a blouse that was stained with blood in dozens of places. I should have been freezing, but I was used to the cold. Ssserakis was darkness and fear and ice, and my body was a frigid place even at the best of times. The Pyromancy Source was a little fire inside, and I used it to warm my skin, but the cold from the horror possessing me would never melt. "What's this?"
"Rum," Hardt said with a smile. He had his own little bottle as well. "You'd be amazed what you can find on a soldier's body." The amphitheatre was littered with the dead. They were all there because of me, and yet the only corpse I made there was Silva's.
We both sipped at the rum in silence for a while. It was sweet, spiced, and fiery all at once, with an odd fruitiness to it. I liked it and the feeling it put inside, but I would have preferred wine. It was foolish really; I knew I had an hour at most before I would be throwing it right back up.
"Josef is alive," Hardt said eventually.
It was probably the one thing that was keeping me going. Well, that and the promise of power. "How do you feel about that?" I asked.
Hardt sipped at his bottle again. His eyes were on Silva, but his gaze went through her. I wish mine could have done that, but she was all I could see. "I'm not sure. He killed Isen. He tried to kill me, and you. We befriended him, cared for him, and he betrayed us."
"I betrayed him first." A hard thing to admit. Just a few years earlier I wouldn't have been able to. The truth, of course, is far more complex. We had been betraying each other for years, back and forth. I was just the first to not forgive.
"You didn't try to kill him," Hardt said.
"I did kill him."
"That wasn't you, Eska. That was Yorin. And Josef didn't die."
I shook my head, the rum turning bitter in my mouth. "He did die. And I killed him. It was my fault he was there, my choice not to bring him along. If I had tried harder to convince him… If I hadn't pushed him away… I killed Josef. I killed Isen." I paused, hating myself, the words festering inside like an open wound. I forced them out and my voice broke with them. "I killed Silva."
"Eska." A big hand gripped hold of my shoulder and Hardt turned me a little to face him. "You're not responsible for the actions of others. You didn't kill them."
"Silva..."
Hardt let out a sigh and drew his hand back. "You didn't kill the others. And she didn't give you a choice."
Some arguments are destined to go nowhere. Hardt would always excuse my actions, and I would never give up my guilt. It was mine. I had earned it, and I'd be damned before I let anyone take it from me. Even him.
"Do you want to kill Josef?" The question needed asking, but I feared the answer.
Hardt didn't reply right away. He had to think about it. That added weight to his answer, made it more certain. An answer in a moment is fuelled by passion and is likely to change as emotion wanes. But an answer given after a pause so long it becomes awkward… well, you know that answer has been considered. You know there is thought behind it, consideration. That's an answer that has been reached with both head and heart.
"I don't want to kill anyone, Eska. That doesn't mean I forgive him. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive him, even if you can." Hardt drew in a deep breath and shook his head, his eyes distant. "But I don't want to kill him, nor even see him dead. I'm not sure what form justice for murder should take. Maybe he deserved to be down in the Pit, but then maybe so did I." It dawned on me then, perhaps I was not the only one drowning in melancholy. We both fell into a comfortable silence, each sipping our rum.
"It's not a secret I didn't like her," Hardt said eventually. "I didn't trust her. But I saw how she made you smile. I guess it confused me a little… or… maybe it felt like a betrayal of my brother?" I didn't bother to point out that I never loved Isen. "She made you happy. And that's something worth mourning, I suppose."
I sniffed and wiped tears away. When I opened my mouth to speak, I almost choked on my sadness. No words came out.
"I blamed her for Kento," Hardt continued. "I know that isn't fair. I know it was your choice, but I blamed her all the same. Perhaps if I had been able to look past that, I'd have seen a bit of what you saw in Silva."
When Hardt looked at me, I broke. "I tried to find her, Hardt," I squeezed the words past my closing throat and the tears running down my cheeks. "I tried to get Kento back. I demanded it. She's gone. Mezula said…"
"Stop," Hardt snapped. He shook his head. "I don't want to know, Eska. I can't hear it."
He was right. It was my shame, my torment. I had no right to burden him with the knowledge that my daughter was dead. It was a weight I had to shoulder alone.
You're not alone. Ssserakis' words were a comfort, though they probably shouldn't have been. No doubt the horror meant to frighten me, but I found strength in the assurance of its company.
"The longer you leave it, the harder it'll be," Hardt said, his voice soft and comforting like a distant rumble of thunder.
I nodded and Hardt stood, offering his hand. I ignored it and instead crawled closer to Silva, bending down over her face and whispering my final words to her. I won't share them with you, nor anyone. Those words, my heart and soul poured out through a whisper, are private. Suffice it to say I choked on them, my final goodbye to
the woman who opened my eyes to love. Even Ssserakis withdrew, allowing me a moment of true privacy. I placed a final kiss on Silva's lips, and with it I breathed out fire.
When I drew back, Hardt helped me to my feet. His indomitable support was something I have come to rely upon, and I needed it then more than ever. Together, we watched the fire I breathed into Silva consume her. A localised inferno burning my love to ash. Something hardened inside of me as I watched her burn. I can't truly explain it. I can say only this, a part of myself burned along with her.
"What do we do now?" Hardt asked me as we watched the funeral.
Send me home. I ignored the horror.
"What do you mean?"
"We're all here because of you, Eska. Not blaming you, just stating a fact. We're stranded here on Do'shan. We can't go back. The Rand will be after us now, she'll know what happened here, and Coby… Well, she never really liked any of us." Least of all me. Coby had been looking for a reason to kill me from the first day we met, and her resentment only grew as did my relationship with Silva.
Hardt continued. "That old Sourcerer might have claimed the Terrelan Emperor is done with us, but Prena Neralis doesn't seem the sort to let it go. And I don't think the Emperor will be willing to let an Orran Sourcerer go about his kingdom. So, where do we go? What do we do now?"
Home!
"I'm not looking for answer right now, Eska." Hardt clamped a big hand on my shoulder. "But it's something worth considering. In the meantime, let's get some rest. I think we could all use it."
I let him turn me away from Silva's ashes. A good thing about Pyromancy, you can set a fire so hot even bone will be reduced to ash. Hardt steered me towards our makeshift shelter where Tamura and Ishtar huddled around the fire, both injured and morose, sharing their own bottle. Imiko was nowhere to be seen, and her little ringlet sat on Tamura's lap, huddled in a woollen cloak, nervously twitching its head around as it looked for its mistress. Someone had draped a couple of cloaks over Horralain's shivering form, but the big man still hadn't emerged from his nightmare. I alone had not robbed the dead for warmer clothing, but I knew it wouldn't be long before my Pyromancy Source killed me, boiling my insides. I would need to retch it up once more before that happened.