Lyssia

by David Hoffman

Lyssia

  By

  David Hoffman

  cydoniansignal.com

  Cover By

  Katherine Olson

  djracodex.comicgenesis.com

  She had come to me newly dead with cuts across her stomach. She never told me what killed had her. She had only accepted my contract that bound her to me, for a time.

  For years, I watched Lyssia through her eyes, minds linked together as master and acolyte. She had skill with the blade and a master's perception, both of which shaped her into an assassin with few peers. She killed with delicate expedience, without hate or anger, but in the way a stoic reaper would remove people from the living world.

  As she killed kings and priests to the lowly slumlord, her infamy brought her closer to my side as my personal bodyguard. But as time went on, I could feel her yearn for something else, something she remembered from before her death. At the moment when she became hesitant with her dagger, I finally let her go pursue that which made her pause. But even as she left my presence, I watched her and waited, always just a thought away.

  She was dressed as a trader from the Many Isles, draped in robes of gold and red that covered every part of her body, protecting her from the sun. Even so, she could still feel the sun’s rays destabilizing the enchantments around her body. The sensation through our link was familiar to me. I knew she would be fine as her mummy wrappings were enchanted with my most powerful magic.

  She walked for days through the sands, over roads cracked and broken, their clay perpetually baked dry. Hunger and fatigue didn’t stop her, nor did the cold nights filled with cries of coyotes.

  I watched her walk for time unknown until a morning sun rose above the dunes, making a patch of light shimmer in the distance. Out of the wavering mirage of heated Earth came the sight of a glistening lake, surrounded by palm trees and clay buildings as brown as the Earth around them. Tapestries of purple and red hung between them, shading the streets below as the citizens of Eton Oasis went about their usual morning.

  The town that had been her home in the living world made her stop and stare. In that moment, painful nostalgia gripped me as much as it did her. It hasn’t changed at all, she thought through the mind link.

  “You shouldn’t stop here. Go forward,” I said.

  Nobody took a second glance at her as she entered the town. The robes of the merchant were common enough here, allowing her to hide in plain sight, as she usually did.

  She had been resurrected so soon enough after her death that she could walk like a normal person, and my enchantments had been applied so quickly that the stench of decay had not been allowed to foster. As long as she stayed covered and showed no skin, she would raise no suspicion.

  She tried not to stare at the townsfolk she passed, but each familiar face made her pause for a moment. She had seen those men working once, though trying to pinpoint exactly where and when was like remembering the spare fragments of a long faded dream. The women who weaved outside their homes had once talked to her, but Lyssia couldn’t conjure their names. She stopped at the fountain in the middle of the town where children splashed each other in the ever-warming sun. She knew she had once stood there at that same spot and saw the same sight, though with different children. All the while, the familiar scents of spices and yarn hung in the air.

  She snapped her out of her daze when she heard the shifting of footsteps behind her. The pace was soft, but with purpose. The stride was that of a man, though a young man without a heavy, thudding gait. They slowed when he got near, almost as if he was too shy to get any closer. She waited for him to speak as she reached into her robes and touched the belt of daggers across her chest.

  “Um, excuse me, sir, or um, ma’am? Do you need some help? A guide, maybe?”

  Lyssia lowered her guard and stared at the fountain, watching one of the little boys reach down and send a great handful of water towards a little girl. She squealed and shouted back at him with a smile across her face. She’s about Arini’s age… Lyssia thought.

  “Um…” the young man said.

  “Yes, you could help me. I’m looking for Johan Sewe. Does he still live… Is he still here?”

  “Yeah, I could take you there, if you want.”

  “No thank you, just point me in the right direction.”

  “Sure,” the young man said.

  But Lyssia was already walking. All she needed to know was if Johan still lived in the village. Not even in death could she forget where he lived.

  The houses around her were just as they always had been, ever since they were built up from the shores of the oasis. She glanced at the family glyphs carved into each door she passed and remembered the faces of friends from the recesses of her mind, but none of their names. So little had changed here that she wondered what it would be like to see their house again.

  I had never felt her worry this much, not when she had snuck past paladins and hunters of the undead. The battles she had fought and almost lost didn’t grip her with the same anxiety that now slowed her pace. I asked her what was wrong, but she only responded with, I’m afraid.

  When she turned the final corner and saw her old house, she finally stopped. The painted trim along the base of the house was the same shade of turquoise that she remembered. The vines hanging down from the rooftop garden were cut just as they were supposed to, just as she had wanted them. All her assassin’s training faded for a moment as her attention neglected the world around her and focused on every little detail of the house that hadn’t changed since the day she died.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  I don’t know, she said through the link. I… I guess… I’m glad that it’s the same. I am, really. It’s nice just to see it’s still there. I didn’t want the house to fall apart. I didn’t want… I’m glad they’ve continued on.

  “So what will you do now?”

  She ducked into the doorway of one of the neighboring houses as she heard footsteps coming down the street. Her excitement grew when she recognized the rapid footsteps of children and the speech of a little girl.

  “And Phileep said that I’d get to go outside with him when we finish my paintings,” she said.

  “Well that’s nice of him,” a man said.

  Lyssia gripped the doorway. She hadn’t heard his voice in so long.

  “And next time we’ll go to the dock and throw in sticks.”

  “That’s always fun,” Johan said.

  My girls…

  Johan was returning home with his two girls in tow. Little Arini was walking now, talking, almost as tall as Johan’s waist.

  Lyssia could only imagine those first steps and those first words. She thought of the things she had wanted to teach the little girl as she grew up, like the tales of her family’s past, just as she had with Jenna.

  And Jenna… she was almost a young woman now, soon to begin her changes.

  Lyssia’s hands, the tools of a precise assassin, trembled in a way that I had never seen before. Oh Gods… I’ve missed so much. This isn’t right. This isn’t fair.

  Lyssia's sorrow was so strong in my mind. No undead I had communed with had ever felt such regret. Most never got to see the families they left behind, and as I felt Lyssia’s pain at that moment, I didn’t know if that was a blessing or not.

  I swore then that if I ever found the ones who killed her, that making them a mindless thrall would be far too merciful for such pitiful worms.

  At least they’re happy, Lyssia thought. I just want... She sighed. I’m sorry.

  “It’s fine.”

  It’d be wrong of me to show myself in this form, wouldn’t it?

  “It would.”

  I’d give anything to just talk to them again, anything… but I shouldn’t. I know that. They have their lives now. T
hey’re happy on their own.

  The door of their house opened as her family approached. Out walked a woman, arms wide to receive the babbling Arini. Jenna was next to give the woman a hug before taking her little sister inside. Johan stayed to kiss her, holding her for a moment before they followed the children.

  Lyssia held onto the wall to keep herself from falling. I get it. I finally get why you don’t go back to see them, she said.

  Most undead who volunteered for the unlife had taken the path I had chosen and abandoned the living world, thinking nothing more of the life and the people left behind. Sometimes, souls raised from the dead without their consent had hundreds of years separating their life from the unlife, and thus had no more stake in the rest of the world, but plenty of contempt for it. In Lyssia’s case, I understood why she went back. She had been raised mere days after dying, and never had the chance to separate herself from the memories of home and family.

  After a time, she pushed off the wall and stood again. Part of me hoped it would happen like this. It’s not fair to the girls to not have a mother, and not fair to Johan to be without a wife, but I… I never prepared myself for being replaced. I know it’s foolish to feel this way, but it hurts, a lot.

  “I’m sure they won’t forget you,” I said.

  I hope so. Dammit, I really really hope so. I know Johan won’t. Maybe Jenna. Though, my little Arini… She’ll probably just, forget… Dammit, why did this have to happen to me?”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that such