Beyond Oblivion

by Daryl Banner

  The man turns all his emotion into one grunt, then says, “You bastard, you use my Legacy better than I’ve ever, and you know it.”

  Everyone in the room laughs, the tension broken. Then Wick is given a firm slap on the shoulder by the man, who then gives each person in the room a meaningful nod before he slips out the front door of the house. It doesn’t shut itself, left open and letting in a cool evening breeze, which stirs up the curtain at the front window.

  Puras’s soft voice becomes part of the breeze. “And you, Chaos? Where will you go?” His question is not asked without a pained sort of reluctance, like he fears the answer.

  Chaos’s reply is a quiet, solemn one. “I’ve no family any longer. I know not where I wish to go, but I know what I wish to do.” He looks toward the front window and its billowing curtain. “I want the final strike of my red bolt to be through the heart of Sanctum.”

  “I’ll be there by your side,” says Ferra suddenly, and everyone in the room turns to her. “I judged you too quickly, Chaos. I was afraid of you when you first appeared in Gaea. I realize now that we are of the same blood, the same hurt, the same conviction. Sanctum took my world out from under me.” Her eyes harden. “I will be there with you, and I will happily watch Sanctum burn.”

  The five of them in the room share a silence, a strong, convicted silence. Wick is reminded deeply of his moments in Rain when all its members came together with such certitude. It feels like ages ago.

  Perhaps once and for all, we can truly prove that nothing stays in the sky forever, thinks Wick with a private smile.

  When the sun is completely down, Puras and Chaos share the upstairs shower first, followed by Ferra, who apparently loves to sing as she washes herself, her song heard throughout the whole house and halfway into the street. Afterwards, the pair of Puras and Chaos get comfortable on the couch together wearing hardly anything at all—a pair of shorts each that belong to Prat or Arrow, if Athan is correct—while Ferra, dressed in a loose gown left here by Ivy, takes to sitting cross-legged in the front lawn, saying something about wishing to connect with the stars and the spirits, a habit which Wick always leaves alone, never asking much about.

  Wick is last to head to his own shower, and it is there that he grows emotional again. “I can’t believe I’m home.”

  Athan was about to give him a moment’s privacy, but now is stopped at the door, his soft and curious blue-grey eyes seeming to twinkle. “And no one even knows you’re here.”

  Wick shrugs. “I’m not so sure I’m ready to see everyone and endure a hundred questions and tears.”

  “Good point.” Athan’s eyes run down Wick’s body, perhaps still not believing he is actually home, either. “I’m not so sure I’m ready to share you yet, anyway.”

  Wick smiles and bites his lip.

  Athan meets his eyes. There is hunger in them.

  “Why don’t you … come in with me?” suggests Wick. “I’ve … I’ve had this dream, over and over in the Oblivion, a dream where—”

  “Me too,” says Athan at once, and then he peels off his jacket and his pants, tackling Wick with a fevered kiss.

  Wick doesn’t even bother to undress, and Athan hardly seems to notice he’s still in his underwear as the pair of them fall against the shower wall with a loud boom. The cool-tempered water of the showerhead sprays over them, soaking what little they wear, and flattening their hair to their faces as they kiss, lips locked, and hands gripping one another’s bodies in starved, long-awaited passion.

  “I’m never letting you go again,” promises Wick between their breathless kisses.

  To that, Athan kisses him, then says, “We’ve sworn that to one another at least a hundred times …” They kiss. “… and each time, we are ever so surprised when we get pulled apart yet again by some unforeseen force.” Another kiss. “So how about we just say, fuck it all, and let’s take this a day at a time, whatever the universe dares throw our way?”

  When Athan’s next kiss comes with a growl, Wick pulls back.

  Athan stops and looks upon him, frowning. “What is it?”

  Wick can’t help but smile, water dripping down their fevered faces as the boys catch their breaths. “You have changed, Lifted boy. You’ve got … this fire inside of you.”

  Athan appears to consider his words for a moment, his eyes steady on Wick. Then, like a sweet calculation, the boy comes in for another kiss, but this one is a slow and tender one, taking its time to feel every bit of Wick’s soft, plush lips.

  Then the boy pulls back, tilts his head, and says, “I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Wick lifts his eyebrows, listening.

  Athan kisses him softly once more. “I lost my family at the hands of an unknown murderer, and I survived. Janna. Radley. My mother and my father. I have managed to overcome the darkest of my own emotions.” He licks his lips, kisses Wick again, then says the next part so soft, the shower nearly takes the words away. “Then I lost you, and … and I fought to keep my head above the water, and it was the hardest, the most difficult, the most trying thing of all …” Athan kisses Wick on the forehead, then either cheek, then his lips once more. “I doubt anything can hurt me again. I am invulnerable now, Anwick, don’t you see? I am fearless.”

  “You astonish me with your strength. Over and over, I just …” Wick bites his own lip. “I underestimate how strong you are.”

  Athan takes Wick’s hands, slaps them to his sides, then makes him slide them down his body, coming to rest at the top of Athan’s ass. Wick takes the lead and gently pulls their hips together, all the weight of Athan against him, pinning him to the shower wall.

  It is the sweetest prison, to be pinned here by his Lifted boy’s body with no chance of escape.

  He has grown everywhere since I last saw him, Wick admires, feeling their meat swelling between their bodies, flexing and flexing again, hard.

  “I certainly haven’t let the loss of you crush me,” Athan goes on, even as their dicks throb between their breathless bodies. “It fortified me. I’m not going to just cower into the corner of the ninth, ignoring all of Atlas in its dire plights and battles. Arrow kept us in peace, and perhaps it’s a peace that’s necessary for now, but I can turn us into a force.”

  Wick lifts his eyes to Athan’s. The words strike him deeply. “A force …?”

  “I made a deal with the Slum King,” he tells him. “It was part of the agreement for him to come out and restore the Greens. I vowed that if he was to take arms against the sky, the ninth would fight by his side, and I intend to keep that vow.”

  “Athan …” Wick searches his Lifted boy’s eyes, looking for the sweet, young thing who’d giggle at all his jokes, play with him like a schoolyard boy, and blush at the smallest thing.

  He’s still in there somewhere, Wick knows. He’s in there, but the boy’s wearing armor now, and he holds a broadsword, and he grits his teeth when he swings it.

  The Lifted boy is a Lifted warrior now.

  “I fight for you,” says Athan Broadmore. “I have always fought for you, Anwick. You are my only reason now, my only everything.”

  As Wick searches his boy’s eyes, suddenly he finds a different set of words upon his tongue.

  All the noise of the shower fades, and the worries of a long journey are melted away, and all that’s left is the face of his lover, hovering in front of him—Athan’s honest eyes that hide nothing, the determination that lives in his every word, the life, the vigor, the infectious hope and the brimming compassion that explodes with his every handsome, dimpled smile.

  And just like that, Wick lets out the words: “I want you to marry me.” He swallows hard, resolve settling in his chest like a stone. “I want you to be mine forever, Athan Broadmore.”

  Athan pulls back, staring into Wick’s eyes, stunned speechless.

  Perhaps my Lifted boy had one unforeseen thing left in the world to surprise him, after all.

  0339 Kid

  I have to do something important.<
br />
  Something huge.

  Something that changes the face of Atlas forever.

  I have to do this big important thing or else every horrible act I’ve done will be for nothing.

  And Kid has no idea what that big important thing is.

  She has already told herself a hundred times that Link is fine up here, wandering the Lifted City. Maybe he’ll just become Shye of the Eastly. Or Link of the Westly. Or any other name Link so wishes to call himself. He’s already wearing Lifted attire; he’ll blend in.

  But who will I become, other than the ghost girl I’ve always been?

  She needs to do something important, but with each passing day, and no matter how many times she tells herself that Link is fine, she realizes how foolish it was to abandon her only person in this world who she trusted and loved. It took losing him to see that.

  And what is this big important thing she abandoned him to do on her own, anyway? Save Kendil? Capture him again? Break into Cloud Keep and rescue Faery?

  What was I thinking?

  Another day passes, and Kid despairs as she picks off pieces of a loaf of bread, wondering idly what Link is eating, if Link is eating, and where in this vast, shiny, perfect, stupid city he is, and how horrible a person she is for abandoning him.

  Her hope in chasing her destiny flees fast, and it flees strong.

  Sixteen suns have risen.

  And sixteen suns have fallen.

  And on the night of that sixteenth sunset, a brilliant moon rises and beams in the night sky so bright, it’s like a pale sister of the sun, except it doesn’t bring hope to Kid’s anxious heart.

  It brings foreboding.

  She wonders if it is fate or mere coincidence that on this night, she happens to be in the Eastly, and the noise of a crowd draws her curiosity. It takes her down a long street lined with obsidian, then on a wider street made of it, and soon, she is peering over the edge of the Lifted City into the slums where a loud, exciting party is taking place. Tents are erected all over the square down below in every conceivable color, and there are so many people gathered that she can’t even see the ground between them.

  Unfortunately, her view is less than perfect, and she must head farther down the street where the road descends into steps that lead to a large circular garden overhanging the square. She is certain she will find a better view there.

  On the way, her eyes are caught by a familiar blond Lifted boy who, like her, is clearly seeking a better view. He nearly hops as he goes, excited to observe the spectacle down below—whatever it is.

  Though the boy doesn’t know her, she finds his mere presence to be a boost to her morale, because the boy had met Link that one time by the Eastly Gym, thanks to the boy’s nosy sister. And maybe, if Link was smart, he would have returned to that Broadmore place and made friends with them—the teenage sister, especially, who had seemed to find Link curious enough to guide him all the way to the Eastly Gym. Perhaps Link will show up any minute to join his new friend … whose name Kid regrettably cannot recall.

  In her pursuit of the handsome blond boy, however, Kid stops halfway down the wide, curving, obsidian steps leading into the overhanging garden.

  Her eyes are wide and unblinking as she stares ahead.

  Her breath is caught in her throat.

  There is, right at the entrance of the garden, a tall, twisting tree with lavender bark. Its three only branches have soft, white, flowery leaves, like petals, and each of those petals bears a tiny blue flower, and all the blue is glowing brightly, fiercely, brilliantly.

  Beneath that tree, the reason for its glow, stands Link.

  Link, whose whole body seems oddly dark, shadowed, peculiar.

  He is like the opposite of a glow, like a vacuum of light, cloaked in nothingness. Kid finds herself disturbed by his appearance. He has found a new twist to his reversed Legacy, Kid realizes. He’s found a way to apply a negative glow to himself … if something like that exists.

  Before Kid can reach Link, however, his words stop her. “Don’t you remember me?” he asks, staring off across the garden.

  Kid, confused, follows his eyes.

  Then she sees her.

  Mother …

  “We don’t have to hide any longer,” Link tells her. “Sanctum’s secrets are unfolding, one by one. We hold the future in our hands.”

  The otherworldly woman stands on the edge of the garden. Her hair hangs in one long, uninterrupted curtain of black down to her feet, the whole length of her body—her naked, flawless, slender body. Just one step back, and Faery falls to the slums below. Just one step forward, and she steps into a spread of tiny pink roses.

  Just another stroke of pink …

  “Please, Faery,” Link begs the woman, taking a step toward her. “We have been searching for you. For ages. For years and years. She is up here with me. Akidra. Do you remember her?”

  There is absolutely no trace of emotion on Faery’s face. There is something about her eyes, something wrong. It’s like she’s lost all sense of humanity. When Faery looks upon Link, the one she shared so many years with, she might as well be staring at a stranger, bored. There is a flippant dullness about her eyes, like she’s just a tired bird upon a branch, staring down at the world, waiting for a worm.

  “Our girl …?” Link tries. The shadows and the swirls of darkness dance across his face, down his spread out hands, around his feet. “Our little girl Akidra …? Faery, we can have that life again. We can be safe. We can get away from these evil people who pursue us.”

  Faery hasn’t blinked once, nor has she moved. If it weren’t for her hair now and then being picked up by the wind, Kid might think the woman was some Lifted artist’s strange, lifelike statue.

  “Please.” Link is begging. “Please come down from that ledge.”

  “That will be quite enough,” comes another voice, sharp, clear, and cold as steel.

  Kid flattens herself to the nearest wall, a smooth, polished brick next to an exhibit of tiny gold-and-amber bushes. Before her, the tall and regal form of Kael Mirand-Thrin comes down the wide, curved steps, flanked by no less than six of her private guards, armored only in white chestplates, white pants, and a plain white circlet upon each of their heads.

  At the front of her guards stands Kendil, blank-faced and stony.

  Sanctum took him back, she realizes, her heart sinking. But how?

  Link and Faery both look toward the To-Be-Queen—Link with a dark anger in his eyes, and Faery with absolute indifference. But just as quickly, Link notices Kendil too, and his face collapses.

  “Apprehend them both,” commands Kael.

  Two guards move toward them, swords drawn.

  Faery, nearly undetectable, flinches her head.

  Both the guards fly back as if pulled by an imaginary rope attached to their necks. The guards twirl in the air, screaming out, and then land heavily upon their backs with a grunt. One of them clambers back to his feet. The other landed on the steps wrong, right on the back of his neck, and he does not rise from the ground.

  Kid watches her mother, wary.

  “That was most unwise,” states Kael coolly. “I do not wish to use my Weapon, but I will if you do not comply.”

  Prompted by her words, tiny crystals of ice begin spreading out from the feet of Kendil, coating the tiled ground.

  “Not yet,” states Kael, and her order is obeyed instantly, as the spread of coldness halts.

  Kid stares across the way at her mother. Like it’s some profound concept, she realizes this is her opportunity to repay Faery for all the years of protection, wisdom, and compassion she shared with her in that house at the edge of tenth. She gave me my Legacy for a reason, Kid encourages herself. Perhaps it was for this night.

  And so she begins to cross the wide garden courtyard, a direct line across the triangle of tension made from Link, Faery, and Kael standing at each point.

  Kid puts one foot in front of the other, her eyes upon Faery. I’ll bring her into the
invisible plane with me. I’ll protect her.

  Faery’s colorless, detached eyes flick upon her at once.

  Kid stops, alarmed.

  She sees me?

  “Kid!” cries Link, pulling her attention his way.

  Kid turns to her father, doubly alarmed. They both see me? She turns her head back and forth between Link and Faery. How have I been revealed? I’m invisible. I’m nowhere near Link or his backpack with the vial of Kendil’s mother’s hair. I shouldn’t be seen.

  “Oh, Sisters have blessed me,” exclaims the To-Be-Queen Kael, her eyes wide and hungry. “All of them. Girl and father and mother.”

  “To me!” Link reaches out a desperate hand, the darkness and the anti-glow and the shadows swirling all around him, and through that unsteady darkness, only the whites of his eyes glow, intense.

  The look frightens Kid. She takes a step away from him.

  “Kendil, your power,” commands Kael.

  “To me! To me!” cries Link again. “Don’t go near her, Kid! She is not what she was! Your mother is gone! Kid! Don’t!”

  Kid turns to Faery, fear in her eyes.

  And when Faery stares back, her cold gaze is like a bird’s, sharp and watchful. Her too-far-apart eyes look even farther apart than they ever were, and her black as coal irises swell, swallowing nearly all the white of her eyes.

  Kid lifts her face to the strange, terrifying woman.

  Faery bares her teeth. They are sharp and pointy, each of them like a long white knife made of bone.

  Terrified, Kid backs away.

  “To me! To me!” cries Link.

  A freezing blast of wind rushes forth, blinding and painful.

  Kid finally turns and charges toward her father.

  Everything seems to slow, as if time itself is dragged to a crawl by the wintry, swelling cold of the Weapon’s power. The glow of the beautiful purple-and-blue tree hanging over Link’s head fades, dying as chips of ice creep up the purple bark, coating it with icy armor in seconds, turning it grey and white.

  Then Kid finds her feet sticking to the ground, and ice begins to creep up her legs. She screams out in pain as she pulls at her feet, but they’re stuck, and the ice crawls up to her knees, then past.