Eulogy

by D. T. Conklin

  Silence.

  Fier dropped his gaze, blinked, and wiped his eyes with a trembling, tattooed hand. He opened his mouth to speak, then clicked it shut.

  "Please," Irreor said. "Abennak won't let Farren stand, and if he could do that to Renek, he could do the same here. Teach me to stop him."

  -You've no idea what will happen if you learn gentahl.-

  I don't care.

  -You will.-

  "It begins with an image," Fier said finally, and it seemed as if he took a measure of strength from that statement. "Form the picture of a dagger in your head. Include all its properties—the leather hilt, the sharpened blade, even its weight and color. Push your gentahl into me, hear and taste my thoughts, and deposit your image within it."

  Irreor knew the feel of gentahl, the Prophet's thread had caressed his shoulders and murmured in his mind his whole life. If he and the Prophet were the same man, then it was actually his gentahl, and thus his to command.

  If.

  "You know what to look for?" Fier asked.

  "Yes," Irreor said, and he snatched the thread. It pulsed within him like a heartbeat, strangely alive, yet it also writhed as if to flee his touch. He tightened his grip.

  -You don't understand the danger.-

  Nor did you. You foraged ahead, blind to the snake at your feet.

  -Find the snake before it finds us, or we're both lost.-

  An imagined blade stretched the length of Irreor's forearm, with two keen edges and a hilt wrapped in thin leather. It smelled of oil. Tiny fragments of metal—shavings from the sharpening wheel—clung to the blade, still warm from the fire of Bran's forge.

  He squeezed shut his eyes, maintained the image, and thrust his newfound thread of gentahl toward Fier. So bloody difficult. He wove it into Fier with the vigor of thawing sap, an agonizing process that fought him each eternal second. Then it became easier. The other man presented him a path into his mind, a shining beacon that glowed and pulsed, receiving and encouraging him.

  Irreor slammed the image into Fier's mind, and fled. An outline—defined lines, polished steel, supple leather—blinked on the floor between them....

  ...flickered....

  ...swelled....

  ...vanished....

  Irreor shrieked, dropped to the floor and curled into a ball. Faintly, he heard Fier speak.

  "Remember to shift your perception at the same moment you alter mine, or you won't succeed. It'll materialize like a half-formed dream, but whiplash back into you. Just like this. You wouldn't be able to walk for a week if you'd tried this with anyone else."

  Irreor struggled to his knees.

  "Do it again." Fier snorted as Irreor glared at him. "You chose this."

  Irreor quelled the urge to string the man from the ceiling, sighed, and again visualized the dagger. Its image exploded in his mind with sharper, more defined edges, with light and shadow cavorting upon the polished, convex steel. He plunged his gentahl into Fier, racing toward the shining beacon. Steel waited, and he flung and twisted the other's perception, re-forging his own in the same instant.

  The dagger appeared.

  Fier gripped it in trembling hands. "I've never had anyone learn it so quickly. My father claims he once taught someone who managed it the first time, but I hadn't believed it possible."

  -He doesn't remember the day I taught him. We were in the caverns of our home, dampness and heaviness all around. I was so proud, but I wish I'd known what I gave him.-

  What did you give him?

  -This power wasn't meant for us. It's too volatile.-

  Irreor tugged the blade from the other man. Its quality didn't match his Synien, but it felt real—warm, sharp, even with the shavings, as if forged by his friend—and exactly as he'd envisioned it.

  How is this possible?

  -Reality changes as we order it. We were insane when we discovered it. Perhaps that's why we were able to see it. Maybe only the insane can use it. Ah, but those thoughts are pointless now. Aren't they pointless? We think we'll create an empire.-

  "You've got the technique of an enraged ox and a newborn kitten," Fier said. "You're all power and fury, curiosity and eagerness. Refine it. Learn to use the slightest whisper to accomplish your intent."

  "What happens if I don't?"

  "The gentahl won’t take, and it’ll whiplash back so violently you'll wish you were never born."

  "Is there more?"

  "You wield an enormous amount of strength, and that was just your second attempt." He chewed his cheek, regarding Irreor with a new wariness. "If your power were refined... if you were taught? I don't know what could happen. You'd either obliterate your target's mind, or yours."

  "How?"

  Fier shrugged. "Tell me, Ark, how do we measure imagination? Is it a breeze on the face or a kiss on the brow? Or is it deeper and darker? A pyre. A knife to the arm."

  Irreor shook his head, disgusted by a now shallow victory. Sure, he'd forged a dagger from his mind, but the danger of gentahl was enormous. In addition, Abennak held enough strength to create a thousand daggers—all at once. "Get on with it."

  Fier snatched the dagger and tossed it into the corner. "Give me another."

  This is a sick joke.

  -I'll never laugh at their tears, never giggle at their sorrow. I'll never take it lightly, for how can I laugh at the pain I've heaped upon them. They need it to learn and grow, but I'll never laugh as they laughed at me.-

  Irreor again gripped gentahl and flung it into Fier's mind.

  -No, no!-

  The shining beacon dissolved even as the trail vanished. He wandered an unimaginable vastness that crushed him like a cave dweller's first glimpse of the sky. Centuries swallowed him. Seconds trampled him, and he sped amongst blackness until his gentahl tangled amongst his own memories.

  -Abused child. Shattered chains. Revenge!-

  Pressure wailed, mounting, threatening to strip away his remaining sanity. Irreor couldn't find himself in that swirling darkness. A minute ticked past, then twenty. It seemed as if he searched for hours—frantic, hopeless.

  What is this? What!

  -They're insects for amusement. Aiieee! They beat us with thick sticks, jagged stones, cruel nails and wicked chains. Did our mother love us? She cut us all the same. And you, our foolish idea, you opened the door.-

  The thread coiled Irreor like a constrictor. Tightened. Then, as fast as it had clenched him, it vanished. Blackness receded to reveal a village, though no sign of either the Prophet or Fier remained. Whiteness, such that Irreor shielded his eyes and turned his head, blazed from the paint of those houses.

  Green fields grew to one side of the village. Low mountain peaks rose to the other.

  Bushes and flowers thrived in the gardens before each home—energetic green, deep red, vibrant blue, delicate yellow—each petal perfectly maintained. A path of fine gravel filled the space between the dwellings and businesses.

  Irreor placed his foot upon it.

  Sky and ground lurched with a suddenness that tore the white paint from the house's boards, trampled the flowers and bushes, and bored wide, shallow holes into the gravel.

  Again, he stepped.

  Something shrieked, ricocheting from heaven to soil until haggard structures, filthy streets and half-devoured plants remained. Bent, ancient men and women, with grayed hair and lined features, hobbled through the decay.

  None spoke.

  They kept their gazes to the ground and ignored Irreor.

  What is this?

  -Our history.-

  Irreor crept through the poverty. He attempted to snatch the logic, an explanation for his presence in this place, but it fled him with the aching soreness of a diseased tooth. His life was as the son of a Kilnsman. His history was his father and swords and laughter, not this place.

  Not this.

  Wind gusted toward an enormous stone dwelling that dominated the skyline, even as an invisible hand—perhaps the Prophet, perhaps an attempt by Fier�
�gripped his shoulder and pleaded with him to turn away. But he wouldn't. Couldn't. He squared his shoulders and marched to it.

  He tossed open the door.

  The stench of shit and piss gagged him, and he heaved and nearly vomited on the floorboards. Great, blackened streaks bled from ceiling to floor, and exhausted torches hung from brass holders. Rats scuttled across discarded papers and rummaged amongst heaps of trash. One peeked from within a narrow hole in the corner stones, twitched its whiskers, and vanished.

  Voices drifted from the hallway, one deep and harsh, and the other softer, with an element of strained helplessness. Again the invisible hand gripped Irreor, but he shook it off, gripped the Synien's hilt—at least his weapon had followed him to this place—and shuffled through the trash to track the voices.

  A corner neared, and he ducked behind it at the sight of an average-built man with piggish eyes. He sat at one end of a short wooden table, and a plump woman worked at the other, plucking feathers from a chicken.

  -Do you remember her face?-

  "Grinn," she said, "the baker abandoned his shop yesterday. He said he'd move his business to the Inner Empire, to a place that could provide his family clothing and a sense of peace."

  Grinn snorted, but he kept his attention on the table.

  She flipped over the chicken carcass. "We could follow him. There's not many people left here now. Not anymore. No one would blame us."

  Her husband kneaded his temples with raw, overworked hands. "No."

  "But, we could—"

  "King's cock, Syrene, I said no!"

  She returned her gaze to the table and hacked at the chicken with a dulled knife. After many moments of sawing and sighing, flesh separated from bone, and she tossed it into a pot of boiling water and meager vegetables.

  It cooked as she peered through the window.

  Grinn growled beneath his breath, rocked back and forth and gripped his forearms. "Whole town has gone to shit for no reason I can find. It's his fault. He brought this. Contract lost. Mine closed."

  She shuddered and fixed her stare on a distant hill.

  Chicken boiled and whitened. Vegetables softened. Syrene grabbed two wooden bowls from a low cupboard and slopped thin broth into them. She placed one before Grinn and retreated to the table's opposite end, where she ate with slow, mechanical precision, as if to ward off the evening's next events.

  Grinn slurped his soup.

  Irreor bristled. The man's cruelty filled the room as though it were an invisible beast. Squalor, helplessness, rage, confusion, fear—the emotions of the husband and wife converged upon Irreor, and he fought to stifle a surge of terror that seared his blood.

  They waited for something horrible, malignant.

  -It was always terrifying, waiting in that hole. We could hear their chairs scrape against the floor. Each night, they made dinner the same. Each night we waited. And we dreaded, oh how we dreaded, the sound of his voice.-

  Grinn again kneaded his forehead, staring into the empty soup bowl and muttering to himself. "It's his fault. He brought this. Contract lost. Mine closed. The whole town thrived before."

  The sun sank below the horizon.

  Grinn spoke in a harsh tone. "Bring him up."

  Syrene stumbled to the center of the kitchen. She knelt, grasped an iron ring, and heaved open a narrow trapdoor. "Come up now, Kelnak," she called down softly. "It's time."

  The stench of human waste blasted Irreor. What have they done? Did they trap him as they intend to trap me? No. He's trapped me... but why should he trap himself? Nothing makes sense.

  Syrene wrung her hands and urged a terrified whisper into the hole. "Come on up, Kelnak. You know it's worse if you make him wait."

  A whimper emerged, followed by ragged sandy hair and a skeletal body. A child's brown eyes glared from beneath a mask of muck. Thin hands clenched and stretched. Thick, dried mud caked Kelnak's body. It flaked from his limbs as he straightened, shattering as it struck the floor.

  In one hand he held a small doll, in the other a leather-bound book.

  Not mud. Shit. They've forced him to wallow in his own piss and shit. But he's so young, hardly more than a child. Why would they do that to him?

  -Why did they do it to us? Could've been so different! Hardly more than a child. Void take us, it hurts and hurts and hurts. Aiieee!-

  "Fetch the knife, Syrene."

  "But, we could just take him and—"

  "Do it!"

  She shuffled to a drawer and extracted a razor-sharp blade.

  "Cut him. Cut him from shoulder to navel." Grinn tugged his own grimy hair. "It's his fault. He brought this. Contract lost. Mine closed."

  The knife trembled in her fingers. Her gaze was manacled to a point far in the distance. The boy whimpered again as she advanced, but she drew a firm line across her mouth.

  Irreor strove to halt the insanity—nothing deserved this—but a gossamer curtain barred him from the room. He shouted, screamed and beat his hands against the intangible barrier, but it repelled him.

  -Couldn't stop it. Oh, how we tried, but they were too strong. So we'd flee to our hole and cry. We'd imagine something better for ourselves, but that night something changed. We fought back.-

  And Irreor, he shouted and screamed and punched.

  The boy’s doll and book thumped against the floor. He bled.

  Syrene sobbed, but she tugged the knife over the boy's chest to open a shallow gash. It bled down his distended stomach and filthy leggings.

  "Cut him deeper." Grinn slammed his fist against the table. "It's his fault. He brought this. Contract lost. Mine closed. Cut him deeper!"

  She did.

  The boy shrieked.

  "Deeper!"

  Kelnak clenched shut his eyes and mumbled between desperate pleas and screams. "A palace. Aiieee! A palace of ivory. Marble. Irreor Ark to save and save and save me! Beautiful. Aiieee!"

  -And we imagined it. We discovered our power there.-

  Grinn shoved Syrene aside and snatched the knife from her hand. "You useless bloody whore. I said cut deeper. The baker is gone, left for a better village, a better life. It's his fault. His and yours—you never should've bore him. You should've struck him from your body, bled him to the ground like an unwanted parasite. Bloody whore."

  She cowered near the table, eyes squinted shut and hands pressed to ears.

  Grinn lashed the blade down to part Kelnak's flesh. Crimson gore drenched the boards like a waterfall. The wood's grain, already stained a dull red, absorbed it. Kelnak collapsed. He clawed the floor, slithered in his own blood, screaming as Grinn knelt and flayed strips from his back.

  "His fault. His fault. His fault."

  The night skipped forward, a relentless, merciless curtain of hate and torture.

  They couldn't hear Irreor's horrified protest, nor witness his frantic assault against the barrier. The voice in his mind ceased its struggle. It lapsed into a strange silence that tickled his fingers and forged the faint image of a gentle embrace, as if... as if it aspired to protect him from what was to occur next.

  The boy's chest heaved with broken breaths and sobs.

  -We couldn't do that to our people, to our empire, so we gave them Abennak. They wouldn't know true happiness without it. We needed to feel it.-

  Grinn delivered a savage kick to Kelnak's stomach, tossed the knife to the floor, and threw himself into the chair. He hung his head low and kneaded his temples. "It's his fault. Twenty years of prosperity, all lost because of him. King's cock, I can't believe I spawned such a wretch."

  The knife. Get the knife!

  The boy's hand twitched. His eye cracked open.

  Grinn surged from his chair and smashed it against the wall. He stomped to the window, clasped the molding, and touched his head to the glass. "All because of him. I should kill him. It's all because of him."

  Kelnak curled his fingers around the hilt. He stood, and Irreor rejoiced from beyond the barrier. The young man wobbled and lurched t
oward his torturer but, after three steps, he hesitated.

  Irreor leapt to his feet and shouted, "He's evil, vile. Do it! Kill him! Or run and don't stop. Don't just stand there!"

  -Sometimes, we wish we hadn't done it. Sometimes, we wonder what would've been different. Would they have grown to love us? Would they have snuggled us in the night or touched our hair?-

  Do it!

  Syrene whipped her head from side to side as she mouthed, "He's your father. Don't!"

  Kelnak ducked low. He gripped the small blade tight, reared up, and plunged it into his father's neck. The man half gurgled, half screamed before dropping to his stomach. Kelnak heaved his father over and watched the man's life ooze from a jagged hole.

  You've broken free. Now run!

  -If only we would've fled.-

  The boy didn't flee. He pressed the knife's tip to his father's navel.

  Irreor's rejoiced grin bled from his features just as Grinn bled upon the wood. With a savage, unending scream, Kelnak lifted the blade and plunged it deep into Grinn's gut. He dug amongst his father's entrails as a dog in the soil, slopped them to the floor with a rage that forced bile up Irreor's throat.

  The unseen hand—the one that had pleaded he never enter this home, that had sought to protect him against the sights he'd witnessed—it gripped him tighter.

  Time lurched to a perverse halt as the boy turned from father to mother.

  Void take me, no!

  Irreor fled his insanity, but it pursued him like a shadow in the mid-afternoon sun. He burst from the home and sprinted through deserted streets as his will shrank and his heart withered.

  Kelnak's memories stalked him.

  -And so we hacked away her fingers.-

  Something murmured a suggestion, and Irreor careened toward a faint bubble of light.

  -And so we ravaged her throat and scattered her limbs.-

  The bubble expanded until he could nearly touch it.

  -And so we hated ourselves. But in a way, we were also pleased—we'd broken them. Oh, how we wanted to feel it wrap us in warmth, in laughter. Now, our foolish general, do you understand what we've released? We were never meant to remember this day.-

  Irreor flung himself through the bubble, and the vision dissolved as salt in water. He dropped to his knees; the floor acted as a chisel that drilled from leg to skull.