Remnants of Atonement (True paths Book 1)

by G. P McKenna

  Pogue sighed but gently hooked his arms around Ilya’s waist and lifted him into sitting position. I nodded, tracing my thumb over the red sigil carved into Ilya’s arm. The was soft and warm, so vastly different to the cold stillness of his face. I folded the sleeve and moved behind him to tie the makeshift mask over his mouth.

  “K-kilco?” Pogue called shakily just as I tightened the knot.

  “What?”

  “Um-”

  Ilya’s entire body shook, dry coughs blocking out the Warlock’s snores. Rushing to the opposite side of the bench, I almost choked as lifeless red eyes stared back at me, “what did you do?” I demanded and punched Pogue’s shoulder. He yelped and jumped backwards, losing his grip on Ilya’s waist. The Ilvarjo didn’t flop like a sack of potatoes but remained upright as the coughing morphed into retching, as if Ilya’s body was attempting to expel its vital organs, lung-by-lung.

  “I-I didn’t do nothing,” Pogue stuttered. He covered his ears as I ripped the mask back down, praying that more air would calm the horrible noise. It continued for several more beats before Ilya managed to expel a frothy pink substance. On reflex, I held out my hand as it projected forth, almost gagging myself as wet mucus oozed through my fingers. A large hand grabbed my shoulder, and I swung around, aiming a punch at whoever owned it.

  It was only Pierous.

  Ignoring me, he placed his hand on Ilya’s chest. The violent heaving calmed instantly, leaving the hut silent once more. “That was certainly more dramatic than expected,” Pierous said and looked at me with his customary tsk “my dear, why are you clutching a handful of sick?”

  Groaning, I wiped my hand on my dress. Dirt, blood, toad slime and now puke. There was no saving it. Pogue uncovered his ears and squinted at Ilya, “Sorry, but what was that?”

  “Your friend’s brain just kick-started,” Pierous replied as he rested two fingers against Ilya’s pulse, “though it will be some time before he is walking and talking again, your friend is officially back in control. Congratulations.”

  “And the vomiting?” I asked.

  Pierous gave me a sympathetic look, “a mere confrontation between his brain and body. His bodily systems won’t hand over control laying down. Literally. I’ve calmed him for now, but once he begins again it’s probably best just to let nature run its course,” Nature had played no part in that. I waved my hand in front of Ilya’s eyes. Not so much as a twitch. It wasn’t right. Pierous touched my arm and smiled, “We should leave him alone now. My other rituals reacted similarly. If anything, he’s recovering at a remarkable rate, but returning to the living is still emotionally and physically taxing. Hopefully, Erebus will calm him before he-Watch out!”

  I was thrown off my feet as the air itself exploded. The dust hadn’t even settled before Pogue was back up and checking on Ilya. Pierous coughed and rolled off top of me. I wobbled onto my feet and held out my hand to him, “What was that?”

  Pierous grunted as he found his own feet, spitting onto the floor, “No idea.”

  The entire right side of the thatched roof was on the floor, allowing the harsh wind and dregs of fading sunlight to pour inside. I swallowed, remembering the scene at camp earlier, and looked to Pierous, “so nothing to do with the ritual?”

  “Absolutely not,” Pierous groaned and cracked his neck, “that felt more like an aftershock more than an energy wave. Like somebody trying to bring down a building.”

  “Or a gate,” Pogue looked to us with a scowl, “the camp’s under attack?”

  “It would appear so, and whomever the Warlock is she’s exceptionally strong.”

  “She?” I asked.

  Pierous blinked too slowly to cover up the flinch, “Shield, might I make a suggestion? Go and assist. Kilco and I will care for your friend.”

  Yeah, like ignoring me would help. I was suddenly captured in a rib crushing hug, and Pogue pressed his lips against my ear, “I’m the Shield, if the camp’s under attack I’ve gotta go. Please, please take care of Ilya for me. I don’t trust the Warlock.”

  “I will,” I whispered back, “with my life.”

  And meant it.

  Pierous and I remained still as the hut shook once more. An hour had passed since Pogue had left and in that time the aftershocks had come regular as clockwork. They’d lost their shock value after the eight or nine time when the remaining roof stood strong. Ilya coughed, and I adjusted my grip on the wooden bucket to hold it beneath his mouth. His episodes came almost as regularly as the quakes. It seemed my life was unexpectedly thrust into a new routine. I didn’t much like it.

  When Ilya’s coughing failed to progress into vomiting, I placed the bucket down beside him and went to Pierous. The Warlock had been attached to his window as if by an umbilical cord for the better part of an hour, flipping page after page of that stupid book. Each aftershock was accompanied by an increasingly irritable sigh, but beyond that, he’d remained utterly silent. The grimoire still sent a shiver down my spine on sight alone, but it passed quickly if I didn’t focus too hard, and so that was my game plan as I poked Pierous’ back. No reaction. He remained white knuckled and still, the vein in his forehead straining viciously as if he was on the cusp of making some grand cosmic discovery. I poked harder, “what do you know?”

  Pierous looked over his shoulder, owlish brown eyes blinking, “nothing more than you. Have I not been cooped up here?”

  “But you still know something I don’t,” I narrowed my eyes, “who is She?”

  Pierous stared at me for a long moment before chuckling, “my dear, I know plenty that you don’t,” he slammed the grimoire shut and walked to the bench, looking at Ilya. He clicked his tongue, “but there are things even I cannot begin to comprehend. For example, why would you risk life and limb to save this boy? It makes sense why the Shield would, for he is obviously infatuated with him, but you’re not. Nor are you particularly fond of the Shield, so why?”

  Unsure of how to answer such a question, I walked to his side and looked into Ilya’s face to see if I could find the answer there. I couldn’t, for there was no answer. All I knew was that I didn’t want to live if he couldn’t. After several long beats I shrugged, “he’s my friend.”

  “No, you don’t know him. Not really,” Pierous stroked the sigil on Ilya’s arm, “I’ve seen many a strange thing in my life. I’ve seen Mariquil choke on water and Kaori warriors faint from heatstroke. I once even saw a Poota curled on its back like a pillbug after indulging in an entire trunk of honeycomb, but never have I seen a single child of the Ilvarjo remove their mask to bask in the glory of the sun. Tell me, do you understand what this sigil represents?”

  “It’s the eye of the one true path.”

  “Yes, but what is the eye of the one true path?” Pierous asked. I didn’t know. Nobody knew, the meaning having been so distorted by rumour and superstition that if you asked ten different people, you’d receive ten different replies. Pierous sighed, “the myth states that soon after the fall of the great technological empires, in a time when the Deities still spoke in mortal tongues, the Ilvarjo emerged into the deepest sands of the Kaori desert.

  Blood-eyed and fair-skinned, they moved with stealth and deception in the way of the shadows, as comfortable in darkness as ghosts. They performed strange rituals by moonlight and practised even stranger magic. The Kaori took great offence to their presence in their desert and declared war upon them.

  It quickly became known that the Ilvarjo did not follow a leader in the traditional sense, rather they followed their paths, and their paths drew them together as a race. They refused to name these paths, as was customary for other such Deities, of whom they knew nothing, and so they came to believe that they followed a higher power, for the path they followed was true.

  Of all the races, the Ilvarjo are the most innately magical for truth is indeed a powerful force, though it can only be accessed in its purest state by those not yet corrupted by the lies of men. That’s why the Ilvarjo veil their children, for th
ey are the vessels of truth whose visions must be followed as the keepers of the path. They hide their bodies and faces until the eve of their sixteenth birthday, upon which the crescent is added to the scarification, and only then are they permitted to cast off their coverings and feel the sun’s heat on their skin.”

  Another wave shook the hut, but Pierous and I refused to move as we stared at each other. That time I shrugged first, “why are you telling me this?”

  “You’re a physician, correct?” Pierous snorted and shook his head, “What happens when an injury is corrected using healing magic?”

  “If the patient doesn’t have adequate energy reserves to counteract it, the healing magic will overpower them, paralysing their natural life energy and turning it to bone,” I replied.

  “In other words, there are consequences,” Pierous hummed as he stroked Ilya’s arm, “do you see the problem here?” he traced the circle of the eye, “this scar doesn’t have a crescent. Your friend is only a baby, isn’t he?”

  “He’s fifteen.”

  “Fifteen or five, it makes no difference. He is still veiled. I would never have agreed to revive him had I known. We have done him an unspeakable injustice,” Pierous dropped his hand and sighed, “to remain a vessel of truth would be a cruel fate for any adult, never mind a dark souled Ilvarjo assassin.”

  Something bubbled inside of me at those words, “he isn’t dark.” Pierous laughed merrily, as if I had just told the grandest of jokes, and that only made the bubbling rise into my throat.

  “Oh princess,” Pierous sighed once his laughter died, “that wasn’t a moral judgement. When you live as long as I, you lose faith in the colour system. I’ve witnessed immense acts of love and kindness from those labelled as dark, and just as much cruelty from deemed vessels of light.”

  “Well there is a fine line between good and evil, at least that’s what they claim.”

  “But that then begs the question: exactly who are they?”

  I rolled my eyes, turning around to grab my bag and pull out a flask of water. As if I was going to take moral philosophy from a notorious criminal. As if. Ilya was coughing again, and I placed the flask down to pick up the bucket instead. There was simply no rest for the wicked. Absentmindedly shoving it under his mouth, I almost fell to the floor when it was knocked away. Looking up, blue met dazed red. I jumped backwards with a gasp, “hello?”

  Ilya winced and reached out for the bucket, and unsure of how to react, I handed it over and watched as he leaned over to spit. Huh. What did you say to an alive-again dead kid? I cleared my throat, “your name’s Ilya, right?”

  He looked up at me for a moment, his face twisting into an expression that was somewhere between disapproval and disbelief, which spoke louder than words ever could’ve, before burying his face back into the bucket. At least we could cross memory loss off the list of worries. I didn’t know why I felt so displeased by that, “Um, Pierous…?”

  “Ah, I see you’re awake,” Ilya’s head snapped up as Pierous approached from the left. The Warlock held up his hands and smiled, eyes flashing a baby pink. I stared at him, and he huffed, “what? It’s the most non-threatening colour I know.”

  Typical. I pointed at the idiot Warlock and cleared my throat, “that’s Pierous. He’s the one who brought you back.”

  “That’s right,” Pierous said as he gingerly moved beside me, “how are you feeling?”

  Ilya looked up, blinking at our faces, “thirsty.”

  “That’s unsurprising,” Pierous shoved my abandoned flask into Ilya’s hands before taking three steps back while he drank. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve said Pierous appeared almost frightened of Ilya. But that was stupid.

  Ilya finished the last of the water and dropped the flask, forcing me to scramble to catch it before it could hit the ground. As I placed it on the bench, a finger jabbed my chest. Ilya coughed slightly before rasping, “Kilco, where are we?”

  “The maintenance shed in the maze.”

  “…why?”

  How to answer such a question. I looked at him, red eyes meeting mine with dazed intensity. Slowly, I took the bucket from his lap and placed it on the ground before covering his hand with mine. He didn’t pull away, and I smiled. He could handle it, I knew he could, “do you remember what happened?” Ilya nodded, raising our joined hands to his heart. I smiled, “The Shield and I-”

  “Pogue?” he looked around with a frown, “where is he?”

  “Outside somewhere. The camp was attacked and-”

  “Sword.”

  I blinked in amazement as all signs of confusion on his face instantly vanished, “sorry?”

  “I need my sword.”

  Twenty Seven

  Apotemnophobia

  Fear of amputees

  The leaves above stood still. It was as if the Armoury itself understood that something important was happening right outside its hedges as after every droning boom shook the ground the leaves above would stop vibrating unnaturally quick, quiet and foreboding in their stillness.

  My mouth, however, was not still.

  “Did you know clinical guidelines say that you should pass urine before being discharged?”

  Far from the first time since leaving the maintenance hut Ilya sighed, his grip on my hand tightening in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent me from stumbling into the weeds below as the hedges shook once more. Even through the darkness, I could feel his eyes on me. That was his problem. We had made a deal with the enemy to bring him back, yet there was not an ounce of gratitude. If anything, he seemed determined to throw the gift of life straight back in the horses face. No sooner had the dagger belt been buckled to his thigh than he was out the door. I was of the opinion to let him go. He didn’t know the maze, and by the time he found his way to the action yule would be upon us. Then Pierous had hissed in my ear that people in a panic were pre-conditioned to stupidity, and Ilya positively did not have the energy to teleport himself. And so, I had given chase, allowing each rumble to knock me flat onto my butt.

  “I wasn’t hospitalized, Kilco. I died,” he spoke with unmistakable annoyance in his voice.

  “I feel the same principles probably apply.”

  There was yet another tired sigh as Ilya tightened his grip and pulled with more strength than should’ve been afforded to the newly revived, forcing me to stand least he snapped my wrist, “Kilco, now isn’t the time for principles. Left or right?”

  “Left,” I lied.

  He went right. My hand went loose in his. Pierous had brought the concept of truth to the forefront of my mind, and now I saw it in Ilya’s every movement. Or rather, he saw it in me. Ilya instinctively seemed to know when I was lying. I tried to tell him it was Monday; he knew it was Tuesday. I claimed a year had passed, he looked at me like I was insane. Had he always been able to do that? The very thought made my blood run cold.

  Another clammy drone buzzed through the air, bringing with it pained screams. They were easy to ignore when you focused on something else, but the bodies that lined the walkways as we drew closer to the entrance were less so. Dozens of them, all splayed across one another without so much as the dignity of a sheet covering. Try as we might, it was impossible to manoeuvre around them all without stumbling over a charred torso or severed limb once or twice. It did little to lessen the overwhelming smell of burning that relentlessly permeated the air, and only seemed to get stronger once we exited into chaos.

  It appeared like all of Ascot had been stuffed inside the command tent’s corral. Only a shield wall of nervous-looking foot troops and whatever magical forces prevented the Armoury from catching ablaze protected them from the horrors beyond the hedges. It was sweltering hot, and impossible to move three feet without taking an elbow to the face. Ilya’s grip tightened to sweaty iron, and he shouted something that I couldn’t make out over the pained cries of the injured mixed with the deafening crashing of metal. By some miracle, I could hear my mother barking orders somewhere in the distance. A
comforting coldness rushed through my veins at the sound, enabling me to push against the panicked crowd with renewed strength.

  If inside the corral was chaos, outside was carnage. Metal clashed against metal as fires spread between the branches, illuminating the blood-stained grass in red. Emerald fought black, the uniforms the only distinguishing feature between the troops and an enemy who was too pale of skin, and swinging too thick of blades, to be the legendary female warriors of the desert monarch from which Lord Deniliquin hailed. Yet, each black-clad soldier proudly displayed upon their chest the sharp eyes of the Kaori eagle. So there was some truth in the rumours of the surrounding nations taking the Priest’s side. Even for Kingdoms, at the top sat a lonely view.

  Ilya tapped my shoulder, the material that covered his face moving, but any words he said were again lost to the pained screams of the dead and dying. I shrugged, and he leaned into my ear and shouted, “I said that you don’t have to come. Go find Doctor Kira and assist her.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” I said and turned to push against the troops blocking our path, “of course I’m coming. What if something happens to you out there? You’re not even wearing shoes,” a hand grabbed my shoulder, and I swung around, “no, listen, I’m-”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Commander Ramsey roared so clearly that several of the shield wall troops turned to stare with panic on their faces. Ramsey’s brown eyes were bloodshot and dazed as sooted blood dripping from a cut on his forehead, leaving him looking both haunted and fierce. Yet his outward exhaustion did nothing to hide the fear in his eyes as his hands tightened painfully around my forearm, “you? But Lady Ilana sent me a memo only this morning informing me that you had passed.”

  “I’m no longer dead,” Ilya shouted.

  “No longer…,” Ramsey wiped his forehead with a manic cackle, “Clearly I’ve hit my head harder than first thought. I suppose I’m in a ditch somewhere, bleeding into my skull, and this hallucination is that final thing I’ll ever see before joining the after.”