The Beautiful Dead

by Banner, Daryl

  “Malory,” I suddenly whisper.

  The woman whose Waking Dream set her afire, set her house and her neighbors and nearly her city afire. The woman who, in a rage, tore off her own face and fled the city like a fireball. Knowing now what fire looks of, I cannot imagine the terror of a sight she must’ve been in her frantic fleeing … The most beautiful, and terrifying sight anyone had ever seen …

  Why am I thinking of Helena suddenly, in such a time as this? Why do my final moments with Helena return to mind right now? Is there something …

  “Malory,” I repeat, staring deeper into the picture and staring and staring and staring. “Mad Malory …”

  “We have to keep moving,” Jasmine whispers, urging me. “Come on.”

  Megan’s taken her hand, going forward. Jasmine steps over debris, quietly avoiding the creaky floorboards, but I’m still standing here entranced by the picture. Trapped in a thought. Held hostage by something that’s trying to occur to me. Something that seems so … so …

  “Mad,” I whisper.

  It was Helena’s last words to me: “The Deathless King,” she said. “The Deathless King is m…”

  Malory … Mad Malory.

  Something tells me I knew that already.

  C H A P T E R – E I G H T E E N

  F I N A L B A T T L E

  This is not the Trenton I knew.

  Empty streets. Nothing in sight. I worry for a moment that we’re too late, that all the people of this city were extinguished. I curl up my fingers into tight and tighter fists, glaring on, unable to form kind thoughts. Every one I have is imagining the Deathless King and all her minions ended in some horrible way. My fear is, it wasn’t them who was ended horribly.

  “Do you hear that?” breathes Megan, terrified.

  Far away, deeper in the city I hear masses of people cheering—or screaming, I can’t tell—and it’s difficult not to picture a coliseum of bloodthirsty spectators watching something barbaric. My worst nightmares couldn’t help imagine what, exactly, we’re overhearing.

  “Winter!”

  The voice is so loud, my bones are nearly shaken out from under my skin. In a shadow between buildings, I spot the shape of little rebellious Ann, neck swallowed up in her signature scarf. I want to cry out how happy I am that the Deathless haven’t turned her to dust, how relieved I am to see her, how—

  “In here, fools!” she whispers. “Out of the street!”

  But it’ll have to wait. Quickly, we leap into the alley and are ushered hastily through left turn and right, down backstreets and around corners—so much so, I can’t tell which direction we’re headed. She takes us down a pair of cellar doors and into a stone passageway that leads on for an eternity. The air feels thick down here, and there is no light. I can feel Megan clinging to my hand, unable to see at all. So I figure, maybe a little speaking will help her through these pitch-black tunnels. “Ann, tell me. What’s the plan, and where are we headed?”

  “Which question you want answered first?” We swing around a corner and head up a flight of stairs. I slow down, cognizant of the blind Human that follows. “We are headed for the Town Square where King scary-face is, obviously.”

  We stop suddenly at a trapdoor in the ceiling, which Ann ascends a blunt stepping ladder to unlatch. Pushing through, she lends a hand to help us up. Dust overtakes us, inspiring a cough from Megan below.

  When we emerge from the trapdoor, I realize exactly where in Trenton we are: the infamous tavern. The dusty remnants of corpses and Undead still season the floor … The place was never touched by a soul after its incident. Never cleaned, the tragedy that betook this place never covered up. It might as well have happened just yesterday. Once the others have come up, the trapdoor is dropped shut and Ann moves quickly to the front door, carefully peeking through the boarded-up window with the cunning of some ninja.

  I turn back, thinking of John, hoping the pain in my eyes is well-masked. “This is where I first met John,” I say to Megan, but she just nods wordlessly.

  If something happens to either of them, I’ll never for all the rest of time forgive myself.

  “The plan,” Ann says, still staring out the window, “is to get ready for a big, ugly fight. Jasmine’s brought you back in one piece, and the Judge is awaiting our next move. We have many armed, the only thing stopping us is the short guy with the eye the King brought along.”

  “The Warlock,” I mutter. There’s simply no way to say that without sounding dramatic.

  “That’s what he is?” Ann sighs. “Whatever. That guy’s gonna be first to get a big welcoming sharp something through his thumper. No one can get close enough to him. We can’t even get an arrow through him, nothing. Anyway, the Heads have the Square surrounded, so—”

  “The Heads?” Megan interrupts.

  “My best friends. We pull off our heads and play illegal soccer in alleyways. Well, we used to.” She huffs, tightens the scarf around her neck. “Anyway, we’re going to overthrow his Majesty the scary-face, and hopefully sack some Deathless. All of them, in fact. Hey, you have weapons,” she says with her eyes on our blades, as if seeing them for the first time. “Steel-brand, I assume. Anyway, on the surrounding rooftops of the Square, my friends have grated steel dust and splinters and—well, just think of it like a Deathless nightmare from the sky. When the time’s right,” she adds, grinning with more joy than she should be, perhaps, “all of that steely, rusty, metally terror will rain upon them. I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces. Except King scary, of course, since he doesn’t have one. Did you know the King doesn’t have a face?”

  “Yes,” I admit quietly. But the troubling thought isn’t that the King has no face … It’s that I now know what her face looked like before she clawed it off.

  “We will cover the Square,” she says. “You are the one the King’s looking for, so … You’ll be the ultimate distraction while we’re getting ready to strike, of course. And your little friend Grimbucket is up there too. You need to get close enough to nab the death-whisperer, okay? Once he’s done in—”

  “Then hell has our permission to break loose,” I finish, clutching my sword tighter.

  “What’s that?” asks Ann, and I lift the small box Megan had given me, which I’d had bound to my belt. I open it up, showing her the small, shimmery shards inside. “Again,” she mutters, “what’s that?”

  “Megan,” I say, indicating and introducing the little Human with us, “found them in the woods surrounding her camp soon after the Deathless attacked. When you touch them, they turn greenish. It sounds silly, but they kinda look like—”

  “The little death-whisperer’s funny eye.” Ann smiles like she’s stifling a laugh. “You’re telling me you have a box of Warlock eyeballs?”

  “I don’t know what they are. But in case they hold any value …”

  “Good thinking.” She puts a hand on the lid of the box, shuts it herself. “I can’t look at those any longer. It’s like he’s watching me, times three.”

  “What do I say to the King?” I ask, finding myself growing scared, my imaginary heart beginning to race. “How can I trust that when I turn myself in, I’ll … I’ll …”

  “You’re not turning yourself in,” Ann corrects me. “You’re turning them in. Gotta be strong and prepared to do whatever it takes. Even if it means … you know.”

  Yes, I know. Putting a steel blade through Grimsky. I’d already allowed the discomforting thought to pass through my mind. So sweet of me, to repay his mercy and kindness he showed me with eternal damnation.

  “Are you ready?” she asks, hand on the door handle.

  I glance behind me, studying the faces of Megan and Jasmine, my loyal companions. Their fear is mirrored in mine, and that kills me. I wish I could be braver. I wish I could be strong for them, but I can’t. I’m weak, afraid, and ready to die for good.

  And John’s not here. That kills me worst of all.

  “Chin up,” I tell Jasmine, quieting my own qua
lms. “We died once before, didn’t we? What’s left to lose?”

  “Nothing at all,” she replies, and it’s frustrating that I can’t tell if she’s sincere.

  Just before turning the handle, Ann says, “Just in case I don’t make it, I want you to know … I’d already planned what I would name my first Raise. Not to be all mushy and stuff, but um … Her name would be Summer.”

  I try to smile, but can’t even manage that much.

  “And if your Raise is male?” Jasmine teases.

  Ann shrugs. “Still name him Summer, I guess.”

  “With such odds against us, better name it Fall,” I mutter, my eyes going dark, “because all considered, that’s exactly what our kind will be doing today. Falling. To eternal ash.”

  “That’s the spirit,” says Ann sarcastically. “Any other motivational pep talks you’d like to give before we—”

  And then I’ve had enough. I push in front of Ann, throwing open the tavern door with no regard to caution. I march down the empty street until soon it is not empty, but crowded with the gathered citizens of Trenton, all of them watching something as it unfolds on a grand stage in the middle of the Town Square. All of them choked by their own gasps and fear, watching as another innocent soul is brought up to the platform to die in front of everyone. To die, because I hadn’t until now the courage or stupidity to come forth. I’m ready for this, whatever this is. The end of my existence. The end of all of ours.

  I’ve been ready since I undied.

  “Quieter, dear,” Jasmine whispers to Megan. “I can hear your heartbeat like throws of thunder.”

  As if she could possibly quiet the unapologetic throb of life within her.

  I push through the crowd until I’m finally able to witness the spectacle. At the far edge of the stage is the Lock. He’s clearly ready to end someone else’s existence, his green eye visible even from here. There is a tall black shadow: The Deathless King. A poor man is in her clutch, gripped at the neck like a chicken. I recognize him … a kind man who’d wave at me every day. No one special, no one whose name I even know, but just the sight of his fear-stricken face is enough to inspire a death wish in me.

  The. Only. One. Left. To. Blame. Is. You.

  I unsheathe my sword.

  “Another hour, it’s been,” the King-Queen announces, her voice like a bell ringing through the crowd. “Or so we must estimate, as you Pretenders don’t believe in time. Any last words, Pretender?”

  “I have a last word!” I shout out.

  The crowd seems to explode away from me at the sound of my voice. My, I’ve a set of lungs. To my great satisfaction, the King spots me in the crowd, her slimy pink eyes visible even all the way from where I stand in the pool of frightened Trentonites.

  I’m ready to die, that’s what I keep saying to myself. I’m ready to die … I’m ready to die … I’m ready to die …

  Despite Megan’s exasperated whimper and Jasmine’s quiet protests, I make my reckless way forward. Everyone parts, allowing me a perfect path to the dreaded stage, as if welcoming me to it.

  I worry, approaching the steps of the platform, that I’ll trip and fall, unable to put one simple foot before the other. Of course, I’m not so lucky today and ascend them perfectly. The moment I’m on the stage, standing before all of Trenton, I’m struck by another presence on the stage I hadn’t until now noticed: a sightless Grimsky.

  The Deathless King seems positively tickled by my reaction to seeing Grimsky this way, removed of eyes, helpless and standing there like a plank.

  “So you’ve come forth,” she declares, “and so this kind and innocent soul is spared. Go,” she barks to the young man she’d had in her grasp, and as though dodging invisible bullets, he ducks his head and leaps off the stage, vanishing into the crowd and who knows where.

  The spot where he stood, grey dust and bone linger … Remains of the innocent people I did not in time save.

  “Drop the blade,” the Deathless King kindly orders.

  I squeeze it tighter. I won’t show the people of Trenton a weak soul. I’m going to be defiant, strong, and rude, because I’m lovely like that.

  “If you think your life is soon to end, it isn’t,” she says, her words coming from that unsettling vacuum in her skull where a face ought to be. “You don’t belong here. You never did.”

  “Why? Because you think I’m your ‘missing progeny’ or whatever?”

  Then I hear Grimsky’s raspy voice: “Winter …”

  I turn my head, but keep my eyes on the King. Grim, even without eyes, I feel him trying to find me, turning in my direction. I can almost feel the Grimsky I knew reaching for me from out of that shell of a body, without hands, in just that one sad word … My name.

  “Winter, please,” he says, his voice nothing more than a choking groan. “Please, come back with us. Don’t let her … Don’t let her destroy this place, or you, or—”

  I can’t listen to this. I can’t let it break my resolve. “You tried this once,” I tell him firmly. “It didn’t work the first time, it won’t work the second.”

  “Winter, don’t,” he pleads. “You don’t even know—”

  “Maybe I’ll never know my life. Maybe I’ll go to a second grave without ever waking up. But the lives of Helena … Benjamin … John’s parents … My new friend’s brother, Megan’s brother … Of Jasmine’s daughter, of the countless whose existences, whether first or last, were taken by these ugly death-parading fanatics … I can’t let their lives go in vain. This has to end, Grim.”

  Queen of the Deathless issues one sad chuckle, her body jerking in the effort, clearly amused by my pain. “Darling,” she says, “they never had lives to begin with. All of them are a perversion of nature. Even all of us. Even your Human’s little brother … They don’t deserve their lives.”

  “Don’t talk about them!” I snap, my temper getting the best of me. “You have no right to talk about them!”

  “Now, now. Don’t misunderstand me, child …”

  She takes one step forward, I take one back, gripping my blade tighter and lifting it. I’m not afraid to hack her to pieces, to risk my existence in front of that short man’s green eye, to turn into dust doing so.

  The. Only. One. Left …

  She pleads, “Winter, my darling.” She implores, “The world is dead. It’s time to embrace that truth. It died long, long ago.” She insists to me, “The Humans killed it. We all deserve to die. Take my hand.”

  She extends a hand, her lips moving. “Join me,” she nearly sings, “and rule this wasteland at my side.”

  Whatever. “Why the hell would I do that?”

  Here I am, going on asking her questions, delaying the end when really I should just cut off her head.

  “Because I never said I love you, darling.”

  These words, coming from a faceless face.

  “Because I ruined you,” she goes on. “Because I didn’t listen. Because I gave you everything you wanted and nothing you needed, dear, but I can change all that now!”

  This poor, sad remnant of a mother. She sees me as her daughter, my hair reminding her of a little girl she lost when she was alive, obviously … But I am not her daughter, and it may take putting my sword through her for her to realize that.

  “Because,” she concludes, “you are the key to it all, dear … The only Deathless who can wield a steel blade!”

  “I am no Deathless!” I cry back, gripping my sword and shaking all over with violent anger.

  Something to her side draws my attention. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it now, but a tall birdcage rests next to her. A birdcage filled with heads.

  Need I ask, what in the hell is that?

  And then I feel something else entirely. Like needles to my skin, a cold wave of nausea, I feel a force trying to influence me, trying to grip me from within. The way a bad lunch tries to eject itself from your system. But I’m well aware I haven’t had a crumb of food in a few centuries, so I cannot explain
why I’m suddenly fighting off two extremely alluring urges: one to heave, and one to sleep. I squint groggily ahead and notice the shorty focusing on me, his green eye shining like a headlight.

  Hey!—That damn Lock is trying to put me out!

  “Stop doing that!” I shout, slurring like a lush.

  Belatedly, the amazing thing occurs to me: Why isn’t his power working?

  “Whatever you wish to call yourself,” the King insists, “Deathless or not, Winter or otherwise, you cannot change who you are.”

  Still slurred, I say, “Speak for yourself … Malory.”

  A hush befalls the entire Square. I hadn’t meant for the name to pack the punch that it did. First, the people of the Square seem confused … struck by the mention of that little name. Piece by piece, whisper by whisper, I hear the resolve forming, even in their hushes. They see it too. The obvious thing that’s before all of them, standing there in plain sight … The Deathless legend written on the King’s very face.

  Or lack thereof.

  “Yeah, Malory,” I repeat, confidence rushing through me like electricity. “The one who clawed off her own face. You heard me right. Malory. I know who you are.”

  The King, even without a face, I can tell I hit her at home, her neck straightening and teeth grinding. If that isn’t confirmation of her identity, I don’t know what is.

  “The heads,” Grimsky mumbles, quivering all over. “In the cage. Winter …”

  Confused, I look back at the birdcage the King carries in her right hand. Men’s heads, women’s heads, even children’s … and all of them are awake. Aware. All of them silently stare at me with imploring, desperate eyes. What is Grim trying to point my attention to?

  And then to my astonishment, I spot the pair of eyes he was hoping I’d see: Helena’s.

  “Let them go!” I cry, losing my composure at once. “Let them go!—All of them!” I raise my blade for a clean score to the King’s head—So help me, I will cut her down.