Remnants of Atonement (True paths Book 1)

by G. P McKenna

  “I am.”

  “That’s not what I saw last night,” Kira stood and went to the supply cabinet, “people were dying, and I motioned you to help, but you took off running in the opposite direction. Then you sent an Ilvarjo to do your dirty work. We don’t do that. They’re people, not service animals.”

  “I didn’t send Mercy. She-” I closed my mouth with an audible snap. It didn’t matter how Mercy ended up with her, she had every right to be mad with me. Every right. I uncrossed my arms and moved to stand by her side, “I am sorry. I want to do better. No, I will do better. You’ll see, that’s a promise.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” Kira muttered but closed the supply cabinet. She turned to look at me, squeezing the bandage before dropping it into my hand, “whatever. Everything’s fine. You’re forgiven, just don’t let it happen again,” she walked towards the flap before looking back with a scoff, “and when it does happen again, at least have the decency to patch your friends up. I don’t need the added workload.”

  With that said and done, Kira left the room, leaving me alone with the familiar fire igniting rapidly. I had been sincere in my promise, and she’d scoffed at me. She needed to trust me, trust my word. I deserved that much. I pulled the bandage around Pogue’s knee tighter than perhaps was necessary, and he hissed, “Kilco?”

  “Pin it yourself,” I said and stormed towards the flap. The main room was still a hive of activity but had quieted somewhat as a finally dressed family sobbed over the charred remains of a corpse. Two vaguely familiar voices were speaking out front, and I marched outside.

  “What are you doing out here?” I demanded.

  Kira took a long drag of her cigarette and pointed towards Ilya before exhaling puffs of smoke, “I was just informing this one that the last time I saw him that he wasn’t looking so healthy. In fact, I’m pretty certain he was dead.”

  “The Warlock revived me,” Ilya said.

  “So I’ve heard,” Kira took another drag, “but I was hoping it was a bad dream.” How rude. I’d risked life and limb to bring Ilya back from the dead, and all she could do was mock. My own mother.

  Unbelievable.

  Ilya winced slightly at her words, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t feed the hag,” I told him while glaring at Kira. She muttered something under her breath but didn’t say anything more as I looked around, “where’s Melly gone?”

  Kira sighed and dropped her cigarette, stomping its heat out with her foot, “I instructed her to remain at the field hospital. Felt wrong, her on a battlefront.”

  “This isn’t the battlefront,” Ilya said.

  “Certainly, felt like it last night,” Kira said as she picked the butt up from the ground, “do you know what I hate most about war?” Ilya shook his head and Kira motioned for us to follow. She led us back inside, but we didn’t go far before she leaned down and picked up a blood-stained sheet. The boy beneath couldn’t have been much older than me, but he laid cold and lifeless on the floor after being eviscerated, but his exposed bowels, burned black like sausages, were nowhere near as horrific as the look of eternal fear in his glassy eyes, “I hate the loss of innocence. The look on a child’s face when I tell them their parent is never coming home again. The howls of a bereaved mother who lost all her sons in a single night. That moment of silence when somebody realizes there’s no coming back from an injury. It never gets easier. It’s always enough to make me wish that I’d been the one who perished.”

  “But you didn’t perish,” Ilya said.

  “No, I didn’t,” Kira dropped the sheet and turned to him, “did it hurt?”

  Ilya looked down at the bloodied sheet and nodded softly, “A little bit, but then it felt like floating down a warm river, and then nothing at all until everything was back to normal.”

  “Normal?” Kira scoffed, “the Shield said that the first thing you did was neuter a man.”

  “He struck Her Highness.”

  “A cardinal sin.”

  “Simply unforgivable,” Ilya said. He looked at the sheet for a moment longer before covering his masked mouth with his arm. His red eyes looked directly into mine as he coughed before turning back to Kira, “I’ve actually come on official business. The Warlock is your patient?”

  Kira rolled her eyes while groaning, “unfortunately.”

  “Is he badly injured?”

  “He has two broken ribs and a mild concussion,” Kira stated, “all things considered, he’s far from amongst the worst injured today.”

  “So he can speak?”

  Kira tipped her head to the side, glaring at Ilya like he’d just spoiled the ending of the latest issue of general infirmary, “kid, I assure you there’s nothing wrong with that man’s mouth. Give him a couple days rest and he’ll be back on his feet to break the laws of the natural world just for you once more.”

  Ilya’s brows furrowed and he coughed into his elbow once more before pulling on his gloved fingers to crack them. He looked back to Kira, “why do I get the impression that you would’ve preferred that I’d remained dead?”

  Kira placed a hand to her forehead and gave Ilya a sour smile, “Listen, you’re a good kid. I don’t dislike you, so this isn’t personal, but bringing you back like that wasn’t right.”

  Oh, not this again. I glared down at the covered corpse, “let me guess: unless it can be done on a larger scale?’

  Kira gave me a squished face smile, and I could practically see the rude finger gesture in her mind that she never could give me in real life. Shaking her head, she looked down at the body, “well since you brought up ethics, Kilco,” she turned to Ilya, “as I said, I don’t dislike you, but that doesn’t make you more worthy of life than those I despise. The enemy soldiers who died last night? Most were around your age. They had no more choice in fighting this war than you did, yet they’re being buried in an unmarked mass grave in the forest. No witnesses, no prayers to your Deities. Nothing. The Princess and Shield spend every waking hour preaching about the Deities laws but are willing to break them to save your life. Why? What makes you so special when every one of these people lost their lives fighting the same fight you did? If we turn a blind eye to save one person, when does everybody else get their turn?”

  Everybody else got their turn when they had somebody willing to sacrifice everything to save them. That’s when. Ilya stared at the floor, and I could only imagine what his face looked like beneath the mask. I spun on Kira and huffed, “why are you putting this on him? He didn’t do anything. We did. The Warlock probably would revive others had the act of bringing back one not almost rendered him unconscious.” I knew that I was giving Pierous too much credit, but I was too far gone to care. Ilya was alive, and that was all that mattered. That was everything. If other people had loved ones who cared as much as I did, they would do the same. Both Kira and Ilya stared at me for a moment before Kira broke the eye contact with a snort.

  “So much for Pierous ‘the-all-powerful-immortal’, huh?” she drawled.

  “Agreed,” Ilya glanced at me, “I do have to speak with him though. My mother has several questions that require answering before he can be discharged.”

  “Ilana’s back, is she?” Kira asked gruffly before rifling for her cigarette case, “knock yourself out. Better you than me, really.”

  “Why?” I asked, “was he rude?”

  “Worse,” she turned towards the entrance, “he flirted with me.”

  A true cardinal sin.

  I looked to Ilya as Kira left. All the blood that had stained his uniform earlier mysteriously vanquished, yet unchanged. Safe. But safe did not mean alright. Ilya allowed me to visually examine him without a word, the passiveness in his eyes unchanging as I looked back to his face, and only then did he talk, “where’s the Warlock’s room?” I pointed towards the passageway, unable to take my eyes off the neck of his mask. Why did he remain so covered up? I couldn’t see thorax moving, the pulsing of his arteries to assure me that he was actual
ly alive and not some hallucination. Ilya began to walk towards the passage, and I fell into step beside him, only for his arm to jet out in front, “Kilco, you can’t come.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because I’m working,” he replied.

  Working? He’d been working that morning as well, and I’d been forced to watch everything. Whatever Pierous had to say couldn’t have been worse than that, “that’s fine,” I said pleasantly, and turned around, “I was about to tell Pogue about what happened after he left last night. Like how you wet yourself.”

  “But I didn’t,” Ilya said.

  “Are you positive?” I stepped forward, “it’s all a bit fuzzy, isn’t it?”

  Three, two, one…

  “Kilco, wait,” biting my lip, I turned back to Ilya and waited. He crossed his arms and exhaled heavily, “you can come, just don’t say anything to Pierous. Or Pogue. Please.”

  Bullseye.

  Pierous wasn’t alone. After all the commotion of the night before, it seemed that half the court’s mages had been deployed to keep an eye on the eccentric Warlock. Not that it was necessary, if the way Pierous was sprawled on the rickety cot like it was the height of all luxury was any indication. The mages paid us little attention as we entered the room, but Pierous’ head snapped upwards at our steps. His eyes shimmered blue in the soft light, only to dull as they caught sight of Ilya and me, “Oh great, it’s stunted and stuntier,” he groaned as he flopped back down, “bummer. I was hoping for that spunky Doctor lady again.”

  “That’s my mother you’re speaking about,” I said.

  “Honestly?” Pierous lifted his head and squinted at me before shuffling up against the headboard, “never would’ve guessed.”

  How rude. I opened my mouth to respond, but Ilya pinched my wrist and shook his head. I closed my mouth again as Ilya approached the bed to ask, “how are you feeling?”

  “Lonely,” Pierous sighed dramatically, “they couldn’t have isolated me in a more deserted place. You’d think saving your life would redeem me, but alas, not.”

  “Sorry,” Ilya said, “Ilvarjo are not popular around camp. Now, had you saved the Shield…”

  “Unfortunately, the Shield hadn’t gotten himself killed, so I had to make do with you,” Pierous said before smiling at Ilya, “but enough about me, how are you? Your little spirit buddy settling in okay?”

  “There are some…adjustments we both need to make,” Ilya said cautiously, “the shortened lifespan for one. I would’ve preferred hearing about that from you rather than from the voice of my dead ancestor inside my head. I thought that I had gone mad.”

  Pierous dropped his head with a chuckle, “in my defence, you were so determined to run off and get yourself re-killed straight away that we didn’t have the opportunity to probably speak before Attica attacked the camp.”

  “Which is precisely why I’m here,” Ilya straightened up and looked Pierous in the eye, as if trying to catch a glimpse into the Warlock’s very soul, “who is that girl to you? You obviously know one another, so don’t lie. I will know if you do.”

  “Of course you will, you’re still only fifteen,” Pierous made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a snort before sitting up with more ease than he had any right with broken ribs. He looked back at Ilya with equal intensity in his cold, dead eyes, “what gave it away that we knew one another? Was it the death threats, the screaming of each other’s name perhaps?” Ilya continued to stare at Pierous, and the geezer sighed, “yes, we know each other. Satisfied?”

  “How?” Ilya asked.

  Pierous’ eyes flashed a hollow black as he continued to stare at Ilya. The Ilvarjo didn’t flinch a muscle. Pierous chuckled and hooked his arms behind his head, eyes returning to a standard blue, “very well, if you’re so desperate to know I shall tell you, but be warned, it isn’t the most exciting of tales.”

  “Excitement is irrelevant,” Ilya said, “the girl is a threat, and we must know everything we can about her in order to neutralize her power.”

  “My, my,” Pierous tutted his tongue in an almost mocking manner, “you are far too serious for such a little person,” he sighed and patted the side of his bed, “well, if we’re going to do this you’d best both get comfortable. It’s quite the doozy.”

  Three centuries ago, I was not yet Pierous the Immortal. I wasn’t even Pierous the mortal. My name Sir Barnaby Dahl of the Kingdom of Ballan, better known now as The Republic of Bethel — “Oi, don’t think I can’t see you smirking behind that mask” — I was both a businessman and a scientist, a hybrid if you will, and as such, developed the very first prototype of a machine that could convert sand into silver— “Impressive? Undoubtedly.” — Naturally, this made me a wealthy gentleman. A very rich gentleman. I suppose you could say I had it all. I’d been married three times and had several prominent mistresses, each younger and more beautiful than the last, and through them had a grand total of eleven children.

  All of whom, in hindsight, I wish had never been born.

  Well, my third wife’s thirtieth birthday came tooting along, putting her well passed her use day date for a wealthy gentleman such as myself —“yes, calm yourself, I know.” — and so, though I was fond of her, she had to go, and off I went in search of Lady Dahl version four.

  Yet, I found myself bored, no longer satisfied by a spectacular face and a pair of nice, perky tits. When money is no object, and you’ve already seen it all, done it all, and done them all, what’s left other than to go out with a bang? And so, one night I wrote a goodbye letter and left it on my desk so that my assistant would find come morning and made my way down to my warehouse. Once there, I stuffed my pockets full of silver before flinging myself off the pier — “don’t interrupt, I’m getting to that,” — It’s not the quickest way to go, of course, but when your world is colourless and grey you don’t consider such practicalities.

  Unfortunately, the body takes time to catch up to the brain, and mine fought against the midnight waves for survival. Just as I accepted my fate, a fishy swimming right over my head, I found myself back on the sand with a concerned face looking over mine. Coughing and spluttering with grace, I asked the face how I was there. Simple, it said, with magic.

  Well, that was it. Whether through oxygen depravity or divine intervention, I cannot say, but I was instantly hooked. Teach me, I demanded. My saviour laughed merrily. Teach you, he said, magic isn’t something you learn out of the blue. It takes time and talent to master, especially at my age— “don’t ask, I won’t tell you,” — Test me, I asked, —“Okay, bribed,” — My saviour took one look in my eyes, and Deities knows what he saw there for once we began I had all the natural aptitude of a flying rooster, but he agreed on the spot. And so there I was, an apprentice to a Warlock barely out of his teens.

  Years came and passed; things changed for the better. I remarried, and not to some leggy blonde, mind you, but to a lovely barmaid who was fast approaching forty. I loved her dearly, especially after she gifted me my twelfth and final child. A daughter. It was around that time when my Teacher moved into the Dahl manor after a most unfortunate incident with a patron at his boarding house that had ended in flames.

  Naturally, my older children grew suspicious of Teach, believing him some fraudster there to con them out of their inheritance. They confronted me about it one night at Dahl family dinner, and under their intense glares and accusations, I admitted the truth. You see, Bethel today might be the magical education capital of the world, but back then it was still outlawed. Practising magic could lead to instant execution. I half expected my children to turn me in on the spot, which would’ve been understandable considering how poor a father I’d been, but they surprised me by standing by my side.

  More years passed, and I was taught how to control my energy and manipulate the elements. It was miraculous, really, that the authorities never found out. Then a day came where Teach approached me about my youngest daughter. She’s a marvel, he claimed. He des
ired to teach her too, and though she was but ten years old, I agreed, utterly ecstatic that the Dahl line was proving to be innately magical. So, there we were, father and daughter, learning the magical arts side-by-side.

  But good times never last forever.

  Three years later, almost to the day, Teach went into Bethany to gather supplies, only to be recognized by the man he’d lit on fire all those years earlier at the boarding house. He was caught, tried, and hung in a matter of hours. There was nothing I could do. My beloved daughter was distraught, having taken a real liking to Teach. She couldn’t understand why he hadn’t blasted his way from his cell, for he knew an obscene number of spells by heart. It wasn’t until several weeks later that my darling daughter and I discovered the ritual — “Yes, my dear, that very same ritual” — and decided to bring Teach back.

  We knew it was blasphemy, but together we snuck into prison plot and dug up Teach’s body. We just wanted him back. The ritual wasn’t as simple as it was yesterday, for I was still but a novice, and the language the ritual is scribbled in is long dead. I pursued that damn thing for days, and after many pulled hairs, finally believed I’d cracked it. But as promised, no amount of magic can bring back something taken by the rot. Teach’s body exploded mid ritual, and all hope of resurrection went with it. We blamed the resulting fire on a knocked candle and resolved that we would have to continue without him.

  And we did, for a while.

  Another year passed, then another, and still my beloved daughter did not grow an inch. At first, I was convinced she was using magic to stop her development, but she venomously denied it. Time kept moving and I soon began to notice that I too appeared to be static. In fact, I seemed to be growing younger. More handsome. We both hadn’t aged a day since the night of the failed resurrection, yet our energy reserves only increased. I concluded that the botched ritual had somehow halted the aging process, and didn’t mind one bit, for who doesn’t desire to live forever?