“You should’ve left, Julius,” The shadow’s unnaturally smooth voice said. He aimed a knee for the man’s guts, and felt it batted away easily. “I gave you an out––a wild hunt through the mountains while I escorted Dr. Saul back to Lhord Historia. But you couldn’t take it, could you?” Julius jerked his head forward, trying for a head-butt. The man pulled away, giving him enough room to buck his hips and free his legs. He scuttled across the stone, struggling to a standing position. The man, in no visible hurry, walked towards him, flexing his hands. Finally, he placed the man’s face.
“Damien?” Julius said.
The man grinned. “One of my better characters. The hazy look was hard to keep up at times––but it had that perfect element of incompetence. Did you like him?” He took a sharp step forward, forcing Julius away from the door. “I saw your eyes wander a few times. I didn’t know you were into that––I figured by the way you took to that barmaid, you swung the other way.” He swung a fist, and Julius just barely diverted the force away from his face. He felt the stone wall coming up behind him; panic blared in his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m being too casual, aren’t I? Bad habit.”
Julius unsheathed his sword, but felt a white-hot pain in his fingers and saw of blur of movement before he could move. He heard a crunch; whether it was his sword landing on the ground or the bones in his hand, he didn’t know. Damien was upon him again, pinning him to the wall, a vice grip on his neck. He was utterly outmatched.
“Why?” He managed, through the crushing pressure in his throat.
“Money,” Damien shrugged. He pulled a dagger from the folds of his clothes and held it to Julius’ stomach. “And the thrill. But mostly money.” He felt a sharp movement, and the blade against his skin. It was nothing next to the pain in his hand, but his stomach grew uncomfortably hot. “I’m being paid a king’s ransom––rather, a prince’s ransom––for your friend.”
“Where is she?” Julius choked. Damien jerked his head to the corner of the room, and in the dark, Julius thought he could make out another human-shaped shadow.
“Don’t worry about her,” He said. “In fact, don’t worry at all. I’m not going to kill you.” He threw Julius back into the aisle, where he landed hard on his knees. “You’ve got a healthy bounty on your own head. Nothing compared to that one,” He added, gesturing to Mel once again, “but enough that I’ll spare you a long, helpless bleeding like I gave Brother Blue over there. I’ll break your legs, and then I will hit you so hard you’ll be out cold until Wall Bal’Lhord.”
Julius struggled to his feet, desperately trying to assess his next move. He couldn’t kill the man; he could hardly injure him. Talking was more Mel’s strong suit; and besides, he was so unnervingly calm. All he could hope to do was buy time.
“You knew that Calcifer wasn’t here,” He said.
Damien shook his head and stepped closer. “That was just luck. When I arrived, he was already long gone. If Gallant hadn’t kept such careful records of the past decade, I may not have been able to play the role. But he did, and I was, and now we’re here.” Julius moved back, keeping the distance even. “What can I say? I’m a lucky man. I didn’t know about Gallant’s books; I didn’t know Calcifer was gone; I didn’t know Bolton had set up a blockade for you in Pelf. But in my experience, things have a way of working out if you let them.”
Julius struggled to keep up with the man’s pace, both physically and verbally. “Who are you?”
“My name is Morgan,” He said. Then he lurched forward and grabbed Julius at his throat again. Julius struggled, stepping around the man in a semi-circle, but Morgan turned with frustrating grace and lifted him into the air with both hands, where he dangled by the neck. “That is all you need to know.” Julius pried at his neck with his good hand, but without its broken partner the effort was ineffectual. Morgan smiled, his expression a vicious mockery of nonchalance, and slammed him into the stone tile, head-first. He felt a thunderclap between his temples, the world instantly turning blurry and distant. A shriek of pain ripped through his lungs, burning his ragged throat, until a thin, almost womanly hand covered his mouth.
“Do you remember when I said I was going to break your legs?” Morgan asked, still inhumanely good-humored. “Because I’m about to do that.” Although Julius couldn’t see it, he felt the tip of Morgan’s knife against the flesh of his thumping, aching leg, approximately where the arrow had gone through. Through the blur of pain and terror, he couldn’t remember whether Morgan-as-Damien had seen the arrow wound or if he was just continuing his lucky streak. “I’m going to count to three. Ready?”
“One.” Julius felt one last rush of energy as his survival instinct refused to let go. He pushed against Morgan’s grip, which was bizarrely solid for his skinny build. He was like a bar of steel, twisted to its limit; flexible, and stronger for it.
“Two.” His eyes darted around the room; to Mel, who was still indistinct in the gloom; to the crumpled monk behind him, whose empty, distant gaze was upsettingly similar to the expressions of the monks around him; to the door, a rectangle of light, which had become almost blinding in his state of pain-fuelled adrenaline.
“Three.” The steel blade plunged into the sweaty flesh of Julius’ leg. For a second, the pain was cataclysmic; enough that Julius lost track of himself. He no longer knew whether he was screaming, although he thought it likely. If he could’ve focused, he would’ve begged; for his life, for mercy, for death––for whatever would free him the fastest. Then it was gone, although relief didn’t replace it; he felt utterly lost, like he was only a loose collection of things, not a body of flesh and blood and mind, although certainly less blood now––like he had been ripped from the context of the world, and now only existed floating, like dust, like moonbeams.
In the edge of his vision, where the light was strongest, he thought he could see the silhouette of a figure, tall and wide. It shambled forward, cloaked in layers of ratty fabrics, the utter image of emaciation. In his severe dissociation, he wondered if this was the reaper, come to collect, in spite of Morgan’s promise.
The figure closed in until he was on top of Julius––until all the light was gone. There was a sound, leather and metal clattering against stone. It his last moment of awareness, Julius felt his sword at his side. He grabbed at it savagely and thrust at Morgan with everything left in him.
He blacked out.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
There was a crack as the sword separated Morgan’s spine into halves, like a branch snapping under hurricane gales. The reaction was visible; a shiver, then the assassin’s legs went limp. He fell over, off Julius’ body, dagger relinquished from his grip.
Bolton loomed over him, grim but satisfied. Morgan’s expression was a turmoil of things; surprise, fury, humiliation, even a touch of amusement. The colossal man watched him die, watched his blood run out and mingle with that of his final mark, staining his skin, matting his long blonde hair. There was a moment of eye contact as the life ran from Morgan’s eyes; at one point, he even looked as if he were ready to say something, but his lips couldn’t form around it––a morsel of a thought, perhaps a line of poem, stuck in his throat. For a few moments, silence returned to the hall.
“I guess this is checkmate,” Bolton offered.
Morgan said nothing. He was already dead.
Bolton looked around at the havoc the man had wreaked; a dead monk against the wall; the doctor’s bodyguard, maimed and inches from death, still clinging to the handle of his blade; and the doctor herself, bound in the corner, unconscious but not visibly injured. If his loyalties to the Throne were true, he could easily turn this situation to his advantage––a botched assassination and a heroic captain, swooping in to capture the elusive doctor. The bounty, and the Prince’s favor, would be his; he would be esteemed in the Lhord’s Army, an empirical figure to lead the coming conquest. He would be under the prince’s thumb forever.
He stepped over the collapsed fi
ghters, into the dark of the room, where the moonlight couldn’t reach. He passed the monk, kneeling instead by Saul and severing her bonds with the edge of his sword. Carefully, he lifted an eyelid, watching her iris roll, dazed, until it stopped and focused on his face. It first affected grogginess, then panic began to bleed in.
He held up a finger to his lips, whispering a single phrase before returning to the moonlight, a caricature of the vagrant in his grey cloak of dusty burlap. With those hushed words, he returned to the cold of the night, hardening his resolve as he stepped back onto the stone path, into the world and onto the long road ahead for him.
“You should go home, Amelia Saul. You have a visitor.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE AFTERMATH. PARTING WAYS.
Mel looked out over the grassy plains of the Amoran heartland, knapsack thrown lazily over one shoulder, hair swept out of her face in a messy bun. There were dark clouds on the horizon; she hoped that was not an omen.
Departing from the Monastery had been a peculiarly short affair. At some point she had awoken to Netsa and the other acolytes, tending her wounds in a long room with tall windows. Julius was at her side in another bed; Gallant was nowhere to be seen. But between Netsa and Julius, the holes in the story were mostly filled; about how Gallant was killed and replaced by Morgan, who lured the pair into the Meditation Hall and attempted to abduct them, even going so far as to kill one of the higher order of monks. The part nobody was quite clear on was the end; Morgan was dead, and Mel unconscious when the acolytes finally ascertained the source of all the screaming. Netsa’s theory––the only one she would hear, in fact––was that Julius had done it all, and burned the trauma from his memory. Mel said nothing against this; she had blurry memories of her own, some of which felt like dreams––a massive hulking figure with a sick face, delivering an enigmatic prophecy. It was easier to say nothing.
Mel was up and about the next day, but Julius’ rehabilitation took longer––two weeks in all. With some help from Calcifer’s stores, he healed at an admirable pace. Although it wasn’t an easy piece of news to broach, the pair both knew he would never walk properly on his left leg again. He took to walking with a cane.
On the last day of their stay, the acolytes gave Julius a gift––a hand-carved cane from the white woods outside the Monastery, its faces depicting ocean scenes of boats and waves. Mel was sure she saw some tears in the corner of his eyes, although his exact words in response to this observation were to “take a long walk off a short dock”. Nonetheless, he immediately began using it, and it was with that cane in hand that Mel watched him, dark clouds on the horizon, striding with lopsided confidence down the well-worn trail.
“It’s about time we travelled through territory someone actually uses,” He quipped, kicking at the loose dirt path at their feet. “So much easier.”
Mel nodded. “If I had known we were headed for Warden, we could’ve gone this way in the first place. Of course, with the Lhord’s Army on our tail we wouldn’t have lasted a day, but that’s–”
“Bull,” Julius cut across. “Back in my fighting days, I could’ve taken a whole platoon by myself, with nothing but this cane and a mushroom cap on my chest!” He waggled the cane dramatically at Mel, miming a daring swordfight. She rolled her eyes and kept walking.
Nightfall came more easily in those parts of the continent. The wind was not so bitter; in fact, some nights they could sit an appreciable distance from the campfire, strip their jackets away and look up at the night sky without so much as a shiver between them. It was on such a night that they realized how close to home they were.
“Do you miss Little Rock?” Mel said, sucking on a straw of wild sweetgrass.
“I guess I do,” Julius replied, “although not as much as I thought I would. Maybe it’s because I’m so different now. Or maybe it’s because my scope is so much bigger. I didn’t know what I was missing before, but now–”
“A simple no would suffice,” She joked.
“Hush, you.” There was a moment of quiet observation. Fireflies buzzed amicably in the thickets of tall grass, a gentle hum under the crackling of the fire. Then Julius continued his thought. “We’re almost done, huh? Almost home.” Mel nodded, not knowing if he could see it but knowing he would sense it. Those words from weeks before echoed in the back of her head––about home, and her waiting visitor––but she silenced them, unwilling to let the warm moment pass by.
“Just about,” She confirmed. “I bet your family will be excited to see you.”
Julius laughed. “Yeah. The ones at home, anyway. I think you’re probably sick of me by now.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Their expedition together ended at a crossroads. Technically, none of the paths indicated ‘Cloudless’ on their signs, but Mel doubted such a sign existed; it was a place nestled away on footpaths and between groves of trees, and the villagers, in their waking days, were content to keep it that way. The road east, however, did point to ‘Little Rock’ in careful capital letters.
The pair looked at each other, wordless at how the time had snuck up on them. Mel had thought more than once about what to say when the moment finally came, but in the end she had put off the thought, over and over, refusing to feel the sadness of leaving.
Julius opened his mouth, then closed it again, giving up on words and pulling Mel into a tight hug. Mel, for once in her life, returned it with full force, memorizing this moment to revisit on her solitary walk home. They listened to the content singing of birds, and each other’s heartbeats. Then the moment passed.
“You’ll write, won’t you?” Julius said, stepping back.
“Often,” Mel assured.
“Okay.” He smiled. “In your first letter, tell me the way, and I’ll visit you. I’ll even bring my mother and father, if you want. I’m sure they’d be happy to see you.”
“Of course.” Mel returned the smile, a sensation she was only just getting reacquainted with. “Take it easy on that leg.” Julius shrugged, and they both laughed through nascent tears, heralds of their sudden loneliness.
“I’ll visit soon,” He repeated.
“Soon,” She said.
Then, she took the hardest step in the journey so far; the first one away from the Julius.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CLOUDLESS AND HER VISITOR.
Although it had been years since she had last visited Cloudless, Mel’s feet still remembered the path well. Each step, light and familiar, was a drop of nostalgia in the ocean of her restless heart. The trees were the same; the groves filtering the light to a humble green and gold hue; the winds all but standing still. Part of her wanted to pull Calcifer’s journals and codes from her pack, to begin the long work of deciphering his labyrinthine works; but a surer, kinder part knew that these things would be there when she wanted them. She would rather see home again.
Mel’s reminiscence was only made stronger by the way the clouds persisted past the horizon and drifted overhead, a seemingly endless blanket of slate gray. More than once, she assured herself that this was not a memory; that her mind wasn’t revisiting the day she had left as it had so many times since then. Her dreams were not far behind––tableaus of collapsing houses, hills of ash and licks of flame through the clinic windows. She focused on the trees, hopelessly uneasy.
From the crossroads to the cobbled stone bridge that Mel considered the mouth of the town, days passed around her, early morning sky to placid noon to deep purple dusk. The river beneath the bridge glimmered with shades of the moon. Its tinkling twists and turns robbed the town of a potentially eerie silence, hidden from the whistle of the wind and leaves. Instead, the quiet was a gentle breath, like sleep.
The plaza of the town was almost identical to Mel’s remembrance; rows of houses, with curved sills and sagging shingles, looking in on a smooth stone dais and a chipped but friendly fountain. Most of the homes were coated in thick carpets of dust and dirt; a few showed beds
and spires of moss, the scouts of nature’s inevitable reprise. Mel was forcibly reminded of a Midsummer’s Eve she had spent in the plaza as a teenager, when the houses had straighter bones and almost electric skins of paint. She remembered singing songs on the lip of the fountain with a girl she had fancied; she remembered her father’s guitar, and the echo of a drunk neighbor’s voice, singing along from the window of the pink house across the plaza; she wished she could remember the girl’s name.
She took the dirt path off the north face of the plaza, winding around the townhouses and behind their gardens, which were mostly scraps of decaying wood. The clinic was on a hill overlooking the town, only a five-minute walk from the plaza, where neighbors, still spritely in their old age, could visit with pastries and flowers at their leisure. Mel felt a pang of sorrow, but pushed on.
As she suspected, the clinic had held up better than the rest of the town. It was a newer building, with stronger supports and more hands keeping it clean and orderly. In her letter to the caretakers she had hired, Mel expressed hope that one of them might have a carpenter’s streak––but if not, they would probably be fine all the same, its short and long stature well-protected from the rain by the surrounding canopy.
She dragged her hand along the top of the doorframe, finding the cold copper key with the practice of old habit. Again, she found herself reminiscing about her childhood; long afternoons spent in the clinic with her mother, acting out the role of apprentice long before she would take the actual title. Her mother had had a knack for nursing; something about her curly brown hair and honey-sweet smile was supremely comforting.
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