Eulogy

by D. T. Conklin

  "And Kiln?" Abennak asked.

  "They march."

  "We must attack now," Kleni told the king. "Before they manage to arrange more defenses. It's foolish to wait for the Kilnsmen to reinforce Farren! I know the city like a rat knows its hole. I'll find the cracks—"

  "No!" Abennak skittered his nails over the armrest. "You'll do or do nothing like that. The city must and must wait. It simmers like a pot of stew. Chickens and cows and pigs. We mustn't taste it until it's finished."

  The second scout cleared his throat. "Your Majesty—"

  The axe claimed its second victim.

  "Can you smell it?" Abennak touched Kleni's cheek, drawing his finger down as a lover in the night. He leaned close to her ear, but his whisper carried throughout the pavilion. "You're not my wife. Never make that mistake, or I'll pluck your eyeballs from your skull."

  Villeen allowed herself to smirk.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Kipra forced herself to take one step, then another, a plodding stumble that had long ago bruised her feet and brought tears to her eyes. Her captor followed and, before her, Renek stood atop a cliff. Two sparrows ducked and dove through the air, taunting one another with a morsel of worm or insect, and they vanished over the cliff's rim. Thin, un-railed steps wound to the top of the jagged wall.

  Wisk shoved her to the base of the steps. "Climb!"

  This had continued for the past three days—a sharp word, a shove, the man driving her as a herder drove a beast. He never took his eyes from her, and a wispy smirk always twisted his face.

  Kipra cursed herself as she climbed.

  She couldn't stop him. Not bound. Not injured. Her fingers, or lack of them, throbbed. Two days ago, she'd found a tattered cloth on the road. After washing it in a stream, she'd wrapped it around her knuckles. Pain followed her, just like her captor. Neither allowed her to forget.

  How had Ark dealt with the pain of losing a finger?

  She climbed.

  Bran's memory hung in her mind like a slumbering giant, one too terrifying to touch. If she prodded him, even just a little, he'd awaken and steal away what little of her strength remained. She kept the blacksmith's face in the far corner of her mind, letting him sleep.

  At the top of the stairs, the city sprawled before them. Smoke hung like a fine mist, carrying the odor of seared wood and crisped flesh. In the center of the buildings and roads and alleys, a thick plume lifted to touch the clouds.

  It was too much like Farren.

  They moved through the streets. Shutters, mounted on squealing hinges, slapped against their frames in a hollow symphony. Dust skittered across cobblestones. At a crossroads, an orange cat bared its teeth before darting into a mound of trash.

  This city was empty.

  Silence greeted her as she moved onward. Blood thumped in her ears, and the sound of her own breath filled the alleys. Wind blew, bringing an odor of emptiness like a recently vacated home—stale, lifeless, deserted. But this place hadn't been deserted.

  Corpses littered the cobblestones.

  Still they walked, Wisk shoving her until they reached the far edge of the city. Dust puffed at her feet as she halted. A lazy hill stretched to the east, with Abennak's army camped at its base.

  Wisk stopped with her. "He's in the heart of it."

  "Why does he want me?" Kipra asked, not expecting an answer.

  "I never asked." He snorted and touched the back of his shoulder as if remembering. "It's not my job to ask questions, but to do as I'm told. You've felt like that?"

  "No, I've never—"

  "Then you're luckier than you know."

  She glanced to her bound wrists, to the space where her fingers should've been.

  "Move," he snapped, and shoved her toward the encampment.

  Eyes of Parched Men followed her as she stumbled amongst the tents and latrines and fires. They grinned and laughed and pointed. She scowled, straightened her back, and strode past them like a queen amongst her subjects. These people—these things—couldn't cause her any more harm.

  She'd lost Ark to insanity.

  Lost Bran to the void.

  Lost her fingers to... to....

  Perhaps it was anger at the Parched Ones, or the loss that hammered her chest, but she clenched her remaining fist. Knife in his guts. Screams in the air. The flames of malice are fed with hate.

  An ornate pavilion stood at the center of the camp. Banners and streamers, fluttering and dancing in the wind, stretched from its center post down to the ground. The guards drew back the flaps, and she and Wisk entered a pit.

  The stench of copper and bile nearly overpowered her, and she struggled not to gag. Her eyes watered. A dais stood at the far end of the tent, and Abennak—one eye twitching wide then squeezing closed, face split into a warped grin—sat upon a throne. A tattooed woman sat at his side and gazed at Kipra with something akin to pity.

  Wisk nudged Kipra onward, to... to....

  Kleni stood at the base of that dais.

  Void take me.

  Kipra launched a kick at her sister's chest. But the ground, doused with some type of ooze, slid beneath her. Her sister dodged to the side, and Kipra landed on her back. Sparks and spots danced before her. As they cleared, her sister knelt atop her, one knee pressed between her breasts, the other grinding her bound hands against the dirt and slime.

  "Sister," Kleni whispered, "I've waited for this moment. I wanted to see the fear in your eyes. I wanted you to understand what you've done."

  Kipra spat in her sister's eye.

  Kleni wiped the saliva from her face. "There's never been an ounce of fear in you. But that can be fixed. Like a sac of spiders, fear can be bred. You'll feel it. You'll taste it. It will scuttle across your skin, into your eyes and mouth. It will nibble on you as—"

  Kipra smashed her knee into the other woman's ribs, but her sister simply winced and growled, "We owned the city. We almost had it safe, too. You and that piece of shit ruined it. You killed Kylen, and you sent me to a little hovel!"

  A fist struck Kipra's face. Sparks and spots danced once more, but she again rammed her knee into her sister's ribs. Kleni struck again. Dizziness. Kipra matched the strike, warm blood trailing from her nose.

  Abennak's voice rang through the room like a hammer on an anvil. "Enough and enough!"

  Kleni reared back to strike yet again, but something whispered at the edges of Kipra's mind. It plunged into her, twisted, and fled. Slowly, her dizziness faded. Spots and sparks vanished.

  How?What the bloody—

  The Mad King stood over her, gripping Kleni's neck. He hurled her behind him and, with a flourish befitting a king, offered Kipra his hand. "I've waited and waited for you, my pet. Do you know what or what you are? Who or who you are?"

  Kipra coughed, unable to speak. Her face ached. Her throat burned. Her hand pounded in agony.

  "I suppose you don't or don't." Abennak peered back to Kleni, who had struggled to her knees. "Sisters shouldn't fight. They should hold one another when darkness is deepest and deepest. Can you feel it? Can you see it? Darkness is at its deepest."

  He's insane—more insane than Ark. And we're expected to stop him?

  With a startling gentleness, he lifted Kipra to her feet and leaned close to whisper, "I know what you are. He showed me. You're a beacon to follow. And I will follow you. Once this is done, I'll follow you to the end of my days."

  He released her and swung back to face Kleni.

  "Our stew is complete. Ready yourselves to sip and slurp, for it won't be here long. No. It's like a sunset, but morning will shine and shine again. Prepare our horses, but make sure mine has a purple brain. We leave in the morning."

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  'All of us will hope you arrive in time.'

  Those words haunted Irreor. The smell of Farren filled his nostrils—the tang of a half-rotted apple, of a pot of boiled grass, the faint reek of heaped garbage. It smelled of home.

  Yet this place had
changed.

  "They're gone," Yaron Kenn whispered.

  Home felt empty, as if someone had torn away what it was, as if they'd reached within its chest and attempted to extract its heart. There it sat, clenched within an unknown fist, pumping blood to the streets and homes and alleys.

  Bran was dead.

  Are you still there?

  -Yes.-

  Irreor ached to dig his nails into his arms, to again peel the scabs away. But he couldn't. Too many people watched, judging and waiting and anticipating. They needed him.

  I don't want to be alone.

  -We're never alone.-

  Pernik leaned against the shack's walls, his face a mask of sorrow. Graelina stared at her fingers, still too numb to speak. The blacksmith's corpse lay upon the cot. Thankfully, the blood had been washed from his chest and face. His eyes were closed, his face strangely tranquil.

  "When?" Irreor asked.

  "The same dawn you vanished," Pernik said. "We'd thought you were lost as well. We found Bran at the base of the oak, but we couldn't say how he got there. Tracks didn't make sense."

  "Kipra?"

  "Gone." The old officer hesitated. "Some of our soldiers say a man pulled a woman through the gates as the sun rose. Black-haired, fierce enough to raise the hackles on a dead dog. She didn't struggle, but they could tell she wasn't happy about it."

  Void take me. "They didn't stop him?"

  "No. For as mean as she looked, they said he looked meaner. Said he'd come straight out of the void."

  "Describe him."

  "Brace of throwing knives, face like a cat clawed it to pieces."

  Irreor's heart skipped a beat. Wisk. "Which way did they go?"

  "Northwest. Ark, we've heard reports of Abennak marching from Renek."

  -Void take us, he has her.-

  Irreor’s heart thumped and fluttered. He couldn't bring himself to stay in the shack, to look at his friend's corpse. Tears tickled the edges of his eyes as he spun and swept from the room.

  The streets were crowded, with thousands of people packed into a space designed for hundreds. He shouldered through the mass, taking little note of the city's sadness, of its sorrow, for his own pounded in his chest. It felt the same as when his father had been killed, but in a way it was worse.

  In a way it was closer.

  Bran was dead.

  Irreor stumbled up the Spire, to the uppermost room, just below the roof. He flung open the door and fell inside, then kicked the door closed. It shuddered against the frame, even as sadness shuddered in his mind.

  And there he lay.

  Time lurched past in a matter of seconds, of minutes, of hours. That eternity never ended. It sucked him into its depths, never to release him.

  And there he sobbed.

  Finally, after what could've been days, time returned. Sounds reached him from the streets below—a man and woman talking, a child shouting, a sheep braying. Feet shuffled against the cobblestones. They were faint and distant, locked behind a wall of brick and sadness.

  Irreor stared at the ceiling, a twining conglomeration of gold trim, stark whites against deep blues, and a hint of brown, all forming the image of an eagle soaring over a mountain landscape.

  Eagles can fly free.

  -Bran was no eagle, and neither are we. We've never flown free.-

  The room contained two beds of polished redwood, a nightstand with a single candle, and one window. Embroidery covered the blankets and pillows, and an expensive Alkarian rug lay over the floor.

  He ignored the beds, refused to light the candle, and barely recognized the shadows beyond the window. Bran's bloodied and agonized face flashed before him, its mouth working in an effort to cry out. Tears stained the big man's face, accusing Irreor of weakness, indifference.

  He didn't deserve it.

  -None of us deserve the things done to us, yet they're done. I took a certain amount of solace in that, when I designed my world. Bad things happen, so what does it matter if I make them? They happen regardless of my involvement.-

  Irreor surged to his feet, snatched the nightstand, and smashed it against the wall. Fragments slashed his face, but he ignored the pain. Anger felt good, like a friend who had returned after many years. But Bran wouldn't return. He lifted his face to scream at the eagle, and the bird echoed his shriek.

  "Demon-damn! You planned for something to happen, but not these things!"

  -Not this.-

  With chest aching and arms burning as if he'd plunged them into a fire, Irreor dropped onto one of the beds. Its sheets felt foreign, impossibly smooth. The pillows reeked of flowers. Yet there he lay, forcing himself to feel the smoothness, to smell the flowers.

  Eenan Ark had once said, 'Boy, there will come a time when you'll feel sorrow. It'll wrap your bones so tight you'll be afraid to breathe. But what you do with that feeling is what makes you a man. Turn it to determination. Honor the fallen.'

  But he'd lost more than Bran today. Why would Abennak order Kipra taken? What did she mean to him? The Prophet's thread slithered across Irreor's shoulders, hesitant, uncertain, or simply unwilling to speak. It had taunted him for years, offering only the slightest bit of information to weasel and coerce and guide.

  "No more," Irreor growled. "You said the answers were trapped with the boy? That you forced yourself to forget them? Well now the door's open, isn't it? I've lost one friend today, but I'll be damned to the void if I lose two."

  The Prophet sighed, a mere whisper against Irreor's neck.

  -Indeed, the door is open. The boy peers through.-

  "Then tell me why he would take her!"

  -Because you love her. It's as simple—and complex—as that. We've never felt love before. Not for a friend. Not for a father or a mother, and never for a woman. We yearned to touch it, to smell it, to taste it, so we made her with that in mind.-

  Irreor struggled to breathe past the rawness of his throat. "Then why tell me how much she'd hate me? Again and again, you told me how she'd despise me."

  Silence.

  "Answer me, you bast—"

  -I'm afraid of love. I can't understand it. When we were young.... Ah, some memories are better left buried. But we craved love even as we feared it, and both went into the fire when we forged our world.-

  This time, Irreor let the silence remain. It wrapped him in something eerily like a blanket, but more gentle, more loving. Kipra's harsh tongue, her angry eyes, had been designed for a reason. But then so was her tenderness, her wistful smile, her light touch.

  Irreor forced himself up and massaged his temples. We're pawns. We're pieces in your puzzle, and you flip us and drop us as you wish. Are you happy with the picture?

  -My people would've learned emotion. They would've grown from pain, but now it's all changed. The door is opened. The butterflies are dead and the armor is shattered. I've no idea what will happen.-

  "I'll bury my friend," Irreor whispered. "Then I'll fix your failure."

  He stood and stomped from the tower. Early twilight scarred the sky, a dash of orange on the far horizon. The people of Farren squinted as he passed. Their faces were troubled, and they skirted to the side, allowing him to pass.

  'Turn it to determination,' his father had said.

  He straightened his back as he strode through the streets. The people straightened with him. Their brows drew downward with his. His swords swung at his hips, just as the guards' and soldiers' swung at theirs. This city honored its dead with each day that passed.

  This city stood on the brink of battle.

  -And a city like that, ah, that's a thing to see.-

  Graelina was still staring at her fingers when Irreor returned. He took her hands in his. They felt clammy, marred by a night of wiping away tears. Bran's corpse lay upon the cot, and Fier, Pernik and Gar Tsi sat at the table.

  "It's time to send him to the void," Irreor said.

  Graelina sobbed as the men lifted their friend from the cot. They bore him through the streets, past
the huddled people, past the heaped garbage and empty shops. This city on the brink of battle knew loss.

  Such loss.

  The funeral pyre belched blackened smoke. Countless bodies were stacked high, smoldering in the dawn. A crowd trailed Irreor as he neared the flames, all silent and mourning, for each had already lost a brother or son or husband.

  They heaved Bran onto the pile.

  Flames licked his face, hot and bright. Orange and red and white, they devoured his clothes with an undeniable slowness, singed and curled the hair on his arms and legs. Then they chewed deeper, and Irreor turned away.

  Graelina released another sob, hugging her arms to her chest.

  "I've learned of my mother," Irreor whispered to himself. "I remember her smile, how it twinkled when she'd look down on me. Memories are all I have, and Bran is the same. A memory."

  Pernik nodded.

  "I knew a brother who stayed by my side," Irreor continued, "even when I thought to leave him behind. And now I let the flames bear him away. Let his ash settle across the island. Let him know happiness."

  Something warmed Irreor's chest—his closeness to the pyre, an ember of emotion, a memory of the blacksmith's easy laugh. He pulled the eagle figurine from his pocket. It had stayed with him these past weeks, a reminder of his friendship with Krayr.

  Now it passed to Bran.

  As children, they'd imagined themselves growing old. They’d imagined defeating the brigands, saving the island. They'd darted through the streets, grinning with an enthusiasm only children could muster. But now enthusiasm was lost, those dreams fallen.

  He tossed the figurine into the flames.

  -Is this what it feels like?-

  "Yes," Irreor whispered. "This is what it's like to lose a brother."

  Part Six

  The deaths.

  Void take me, the deaths.

  Part of me wants to hate him for what he did to Bran, and a piece of me—admittedly small—wants to hate him for what he did to Kleni, just as many of you surely want to hate him for what he did to your families. Abennak lost his wife and daughters. Villeen lost her brothers. So many of you lost sons and husbands.