by Tobias Wade
“What’s going on? Can you hear me?” She’s kneeling beside him, feeling the damp chill of his brow.
The black clouds are beginning to dissipate. Compassionate, blue, human eyes flicker open, and a slow smile begins spreading across his face.
“Hello, Jessica.”
“Hi, Dad .”
He lunges toward her and she reflexively jerks back, but his embrace is warm, and his arms are home. She allows herself to be encompassed in his presence, the security of his body an impenetrable wall against all the evil of the world. All that is still human within her is fire, and when he lets go the world seems softer than it was a moment before.
“You won’t have to wait long,” he says, moving toward the well.
“It’s okay. I’ve learned how to wait,” she says.
“I’ll bring the others back. We’ll find the book in the well, and you can close the portal. It’s all over now.”
Her smile is fragile, but she nods. “Bring the book first. It might take me awhile to learn its secrets, and I don’t know how much longer I have.”
Ender’s rapid movements are the model of efficiency. He dives headfirst into the eternal well, slipping through its infinite waters so smoothly that no ripple or trace remains. Jessica’s smile never quite leaves her face, almost as if it was carved in place. Even when Ender surfaces shortly after, lugging the book with him, her expression doesn’t change.
“Give me an hour,” he splutters, heaving the book onto the stone shelf. “If I’m not back with the others—”
“I’ll wait for you,” she promises.
“Only as long as you can. If The Beast is growing too fast, then you have to close the portal before it’s too late.”
“Promise me one thing,” Jessica says as Ender hauls himself up to sit on the stone shelf. “I want you to tell Dantes and the others that they’re safe now. That I’m sorry for everything they went through because of me, but they need to know that I did everything I could to keep them safe.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Ender replies, holding her once more. “We’re all victims here, but it’s almost over now.”
“One more thing,” she says, her voice muffled as her face is pressed against his shoulder. “Tell the others that all living things fear death, and the more powerful they are, the more they fear losing what they have. Tell them that no one is more afraid than The Beast.”
Ender pulls back and furrows his brow in confusion.
“It’s very important that you remember. Now go.” She ushers him back into the water, and he’s gone, diving once more for that spectral shore.
Only now does the facade of her smile fade. She opens the book and begins to read, conscious of the other voice in her mind reading alongside her.
The tower is empty like a cadaver which has been scraped clean. Touching the stone walls, it’s apparent that they are composed of living flesh, just as the statue had been. The oppressive smell isn’t the only thing reminding Dantes of a corpse either.
“Ribs,” he says, voicing the unnamed thought in everyone’s mind. They stare upward at the vaulting architecture, slowly coming to terms with the fact that they’re standing inside what was once a body. Scattered networks of blood vessels still cling to the walls, and something is suspended high above them which might be the shriveled remains of a rotting organ.
“It looks like the repo man already got most of it,” Jordan agreed. “Look over there. Is that moving?”
A fat blue vein dangling about twenty feet from the floor pulses slightly. Then again, more violently. One end suddenly detaches from the wall and swings through the air. The men scramble to get out of the way, but it never reaches the ground. It’s dissolving into a dark cloud in the air, more darkness spilling from its severed interior to spray a swiftly dissipating cloud.
“Where’s it going?” Jacques muses. He stares upward, rubbing a hand distractedly over his rough face.
Jordan and Dantes exchange an uneasy glance. To earth, of course, but neither say it out loud.
“We have to hurry,” Dantes says instead. “If Krisha brought the book here and then The Beast found him, there’s a good chance it may be here. Let’s split up and search.”
They’re still searching several hours later when a familiar voice slices through the dead, dry air.
“Is that Jacques walking around in his underwear I see? That’s funny—I didn’t see any women in this hellhole.”
“Captain Maston!” Jacques exclaims, standing from where he knelt inspecting the foundation of the tower. “Jordan, Dantes, it’s the Captain! He’s human again!”
Dantes and Jordan immediately exit the tower.
“Old legs, belly and all the rest,” Ender laughs, jogging down the final hillock on the approach toward the tower. His energetic stride seems impervious to the heavy atmosphere of the place. “I owe you boys a celebration, don’t I?”
“Hold on,” Dantes cautions, “how do we know the demon isn’t still in there?”
Ender slows his stride as he considers this. Then he points to the crumpled heap of the vessel bearing his face beside the tower. “You mean that thing? He won’t be bothering us anymore. Although it’s strange, now that he’s gone it feels sort of… lonely in here. There will be plenty of time to tell you everything on the way back though.”
“We can’t until we find the book,” Jordan says. “Did you see Krisha on the other side—”
“I got the book. There’s no time to waste, come along. Jessica is waiting for us, and she’s running on borrowed time.”
“She’s alive then!” Dantes says, his defenses finally breaking down. He hastens toward Ender but slows again at the worried expression on the captain’s face.
“She’s alive all right. Hurry now, I’ll explain on the way.”
“It’s good to see you again, sir,” Dantes says. “I didn’t think…”
“You never did,” Ender says, already bounding back up the hill.
“… no one is more afraid than The Beast? What’s that supposed to mean?” Dantes asks.
The gazebo is within sight, and with home so close, nothing seemed too terrible to address.
Ender shrugs. “Just something to give us hope, maybe. Sometimes that’s all any leader can do.”
“If I had my bet, I’d say The Beast has been dead for ages,” Jordan says. “We found a corpse that had been rotting for god knows how long. I’m thinking the demons used to be enslaved by the bugger, but then it died, and they started escaping to our world.”
“Maybe,” Ender says. “The spirit in the seed I swallowed—I don’t think it was all bad. I think it was just happy to be out of this hellhole. It was angry, and scared, but there were plenty of times where it let me get my way instead of forcing me to do something I wouldn’t have wanted. Marque though…”
“It wasn’t your fault, Captain,” Jordan insists.
“I’m sorry too…” Dantes says. “Your wife, sir. She had Jessica and I didn’t know what else to do…”
Ender stiffens, but he nods. “Thank you for going back for Jessica. She wouldn’t have had a chance without you.” Dantes blushes slightly, but its perceptible to Ender’s keen eyes. “She’d be lucky to find a man half so brave to shield her from the evils of this world—of any world.”
“If ya’ll getting married at the end of this, I’d better be the best man,” Jordan says. “The stories I could tell at your wedding.”
Dantes laughs, and the others join in.
“Just imagine the priest’s face!” Jacques howls.
As surely as the first sunbeams erode the darkest night, the weariness and tension dissipates from the soldiers. They start to run as they close the final distance to the portal. Their enthusiastic exclamations have turned to song by the time their bloodied feet land on the cool tiles—the victory of an old battle hymn on their lips.
“The minstrel boy went off to war in the ranks of death you’ll find him.
His father�
��s sword he has girded on and his wild harp swung behind him.”
The song dies first on Ender’s lips. The others step inside directly behind him. The song cuts short all around. No words are necessary to acknowledge the empty well. The plain stone basin, shallow, and dry. Ender steps inside, turning back to look at the others. His mouth opens, then closes.
The air has never felt heavier than this moment. The expanse of wasteland surrounding them has never felt more endless. Even the distant reverberations of moaning demonic multitudes could vaguely be felt through the ground, although perhaps that empty hum is what despair itself feels like.
Dantes takes a deep breath and continues to sing, his strong voice enduring against the unending night fate has suspended them within.
“Lad of song said the warrior bard, though all the world betray thee…
One sword at least they right shall guard one faithful harp shall praise thee…”
“Remember that I kept you safe,” Jessica whispers as the last darkness from the well boils into the air. “When The Beast within me has fully grown and all the world weeps, remember that I have spared you.” She thinks that she can hear the wisp of a song echo through the hollow basin which remains, but perhaps that’s just the sound a heart makes as it breaks.
“Master,” hisses a feeble sound from the darkness.
“That’s enough lying around,” Jessica says. “Come Henry. The world is waiting for us.”
The hulking form pulls itself quite easily to its feet, its shattered legs healed. It lumbers after Jessica as she makes her way through the lava tubes back toward the surface. She’s somewhat aware that it keeps trying to speak to her, but she doesn’t reply. All she can hear is the haunting echo of song that boiled away with the last of her humanity. She doesn’t say a word until she climbs out of that dark hole and is staring up at the sky once more.
“The clouds have gone,” she says, her voice seeming flat and lifeless within her own ears. “It’s fitting that there should be a full moon on the night I came alive.”
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