“Think about what you’re doing.” But Marlow was shoved aside before he could further protest his old friend’s presence.
“I’m sorry, but we still have some unfinished business.” Nerilis spoke down to Sulim, whose eyes were as wide as the wound in her side. “I should’ve taken it back in that jungle. I should’ve made sure you were dead.”
Sonall drew his weapon to strike Nerilis down. In vain, of course, for Nerilis knocked the weapon out of Sonall’s hands. With the cries of both women in the air and Marlow jumping out of the way, Sonall was also struck down with one surge of energy splattering his blood across the wall and sprawling his body on the ground next to Sulim’s.
“Stop this!” Marlow pleaded. “What do you gain from all of this?”
Nerilis hovered over Sonall body. “It’s for the Void, Ramaron. No one will miss this sorry planet of barbarians, anyway.”
He turned to show his old comrade his collection of Relics, including the bangle he stole from Sulim before wounding her. Cairn pulled out Sulim’s firearm from its holster.
“No,” Sulim heaved, hand grasping Cairn’s. “It’s useless. He’ll kill you too.”
“He’ll kill us all.”
“No.” The ring scratched against Cairn’s skin. “I don’t want you to die like this.”
“I’ll die how I’ll die. I’m just sorry we couldn’t fulfill our dream.”
With another protest on Sulim’s blue lips, Cairn aimed the gun and fired at Nerilis’s back. He easily leaped out of the way, the ammunition slamming into Marlow’s shoulder instead.
He fell with a curse. Although Cairn wore her hair down in black locks and moved in flowing silk robes, she was still the powerful killing and subterfuge machine she had been in her younger years. She was once lauded as the deadliest assassin in the Second Tribe’s arsenal after she killed the former chief with her bare hands. Even in those hectic moments, Cairn showed she was still capable of fighting against a sorcerer intent on destroying the only home she’d ever claimed.
Nerilis was hesitant to strike her back, his teeth mashing together with every shot Cairn fired and he deflected. Sulim cried out as Cairn was struck down, her body flopping to the ground next to the altar. She whimpered once more as Nerilis sauntered toward her.
“There it is,” the older sorcerer said, his tongue spreading across his lips. “The Third Piece.”
His boot slammed upon Sulim’s hand, bones cracking and screams abounding. When he removed his foot, the crumpled hand sprawled like scattered flower stems, the blue ring their shimmering petal.
“I’ll be taking this, thank you.” Nerilis pried the ring off Sulim’s broken hand.
“Cairn…” Sulim’s voice strained in her throat.
Nerilis paused next to Marlow, the dark-haired julah incapable of standing on his own. “You can’t stop it, Ramaron. Not now, not ever. Just stay here and die with the rest of these savages.” He left.
The first earthquake occurred.
“Sulim…” Sonall’s voice was weak. “You still alive?”
“Yeah…”
Sonall forced himself up, his grunts of pain shaking his body and pummeling Sulim’s ears. His right arm was useless. He was paralyzed down his right side. “This is bad. I’m right handed.”
Still turned away from her partner, Sulim extended her non-broken hand across the sweaty tiles and reached for the mangle of black hair too far away. “Cairn…! Please…”
If his face were not fallen already, it was now, and Sonall was sicker than ever before as he gazed at the crumpled form of their deposed chief. “Hey, Cairn! Get up! We’ve still gotta get out of here and you’re the best pilot!”
Cairn’s body twitched into meaningless life. She rolled over with a mighty gasp cutting through the air like a blade from her hand. Although there was no blood pooling around her, there was still something horribly wrong in her ribs, her kidneys…
She knew she was dying. At least they could not see the blood spilling inside her organs.
“You can’t escape now.” Marlow was somber, repentant. “It’s too late. This planet will die shortly.”
“And what of us?” Sonall retorted. “Do we all die a coward’s death here?”
“You have fought valiantly. Although your mission has failed, you have proven most worthy against him already.”
They quarreled, for Marlow was passive and Sonall was not one to give up, not since the slaughter of his parents and the suicide of his sister. Those events had shaped him into the merciless monster he had become, the second-in-command, the most capable and feared male mercenary of Second Tribe. Too bad his right side was now defunct, and the julah too far away to strike with his left hand.
Nonetheless, they quarreled.
“Do something, anything,” he pleaded. “There must be something you can do! You are this supposed great sorcerer! Would you let him get away and destroy more lives, more planets? Would you let him bring such unbalance to the universe? This time he murders barbarians on the encroach of Federation society, but next time he will go after Terra III!”
Marlow quickly grew impatient. “Don’t you understand? This is beyond politics and spirituality! Your soul is in danger! Your soul is a weapon…”
Sulim’s eyes glazed over in the haze of death. It took the next shake of an earthquake to bring her back to life, and when her head rolled over, she saw Cairn struggling to pull herself toward her, hair a ratted mess and skin paling as her blood rushed to her wounded organs.
Let them die a mercenary’s death then, the only death they were trained to accept. Let them sleep for eternity and not care what a mad man did.
I will die. You will die. She will die.
Sulim’s hand linked with Cairn’s, and they smiled their last smiles before Sulim felt her life seep from her in a terror of pain now somehow bearable with a warm hand touching her again. Sonall fell to her side and begged forgiveness for his pushiness toward her during their brief lives, for coming on too strong, for not respecting her wisdom and abilities as he always should have. He told her he loved her.
She was nearly gone and could not reply. Even if she could, she did not know what she would say to him. Her last breaths were for the woman who shifted herself against her and held her with the ferocity of a mother protecting her child from the cloak of death.
“There is one way,” Marlow said. The shelves of the library toppled. “There is one way.”
He explained to Sonall and Sulim the concept of the Process, of how he had the power to send their souls into rebirth so they could face Nerilis Dunsman again. That was their goal. All they had to do as they died was wish it – wish to destroy Nerilis’s scheme, no matter how many tries it took. Sonall asked Sulim what she thought of it, and Sulim declined. She wanted to die.
“No, Sulim,” Cairn whispered to her. “This is your chance to live a proper life. For both of you. Sonall, whose parents I killed and was brought to us against his will as nothing more than a body. For you, Sulim, who was an unloved slave until I stole you. I command you both, as your final mission.”
Sonall agreed, and then Sulim – both trained to their marrow to obey whatever she said. Both born and raised as children worlds away, but turned into adults at the hands of a sword and the threat of death.
Marlow worked quickly, conjuring the spell necessary to send two souls into the Process. Albeit weak, Sonall and Sulim felt a prick inside their hearts as their names were invoked and their souls stirred at the news of rebirth. Just wish it, he told them over and over. Your last thoughts must be of the Process and what your goal is. You can only leave the Process if you achieve that goal.
Sulim was the first to die. Her body racked one last breath in Cairn’s arms and fell limp, her face as blue as Sonall’s eyes as he gazed upon her in anguish. Moments later, he also collapsed to his death, although there was no one to hold him.
Alone, Cairn wept for them under the careful eye of Marlow, who gauged how much longer he had to esc
ape before Cerilyn ceased to exist. Before he could vanish, however, he heard a desperate voice behind him.
“Wait!” Cairn extended one arm to him. “Take me, too! Please!”
“I’m sorry. I have no use for you.”
“Please!” Cairn’s voice continued to echo even after Marlow disappeared, plunging her into becoming the last person alive on a planet doomed to death. She held Sulim’s body to her own and wailed, her hope lost and her heart clinging to one last answer.
She summoned him, that beast who sank them all into that cursed fate. She looked into his clear, maddening eyes and invoked the last ounce of power she had.
“You,” she snarled at Nerilis Dunsman. “Do you think I have no idea who I am? Whose body this is? Is this my punishment for leaving you, Nerilis? Do you think I do not know who I am to you?”
“If all you do is ramble, then I shall take my leave.”
Cairn saw the ring in his hands. “You dare to befoul my token. A token full of such love that you could never comprehend. You befoul it as you have befouled my body! I will die because of you. This body that you hold to such a high standard will cease to exist, forever.”
“I do not like it any more than you, my dear, but it is an unhappy circumstance.”
“No! I curse you, Nerilis Dunsman!” The finger did not waver, but the reddening madness in Cairn’s countenance did. “I curse you to always see this face! To always slay this body! Over and over until you repent for your sins at my feet! And you will obey me, for I have the face of your lover and the blood of your loins!”
Nerilis did not flinch. “There is only one way for that to happen.”
“Then let it be so,” Cairn said, her hand in Sulim’s hair and her eyes on the ring, “and may I feel that love again.”
FIFTY-ONE
Sunset spread across the torn sky, a greeting of blue sweeping with gold and fuchsia. Danielle awoke, her body aching, muscles worn and tired. But her muscles had nothing on her bleeding throat. Even breathing felt like knives stabbing her trachea. Her voice had carried itself across the Earth without regard for its own limits and now, perhaps, she was mute.
Mute and lost. The world she inhabited was unfamiliar, yet welcoming. Cool, blistered grass the color of spring held her body and rolled down the hill. The air, the same air she had breathed since the dawning of her soul as a butterfly, was crisp and fresh and unmarred by the scorn of modernity or even the evil threatening the earth. Danielle wondered, for the briefest moment, if by some stroke of cosmic will she was reborn on another world and still managed to retain the last of her memories as Danielle Cromwell.
“Welcome back.”
Ramaron Marlow sat on a rock jutting from the hillside and smoking from a long pipe he held between his teeth. Not even two feet away from his side, Charlie rolled in the grass and snorted at a bee.
“You’re still here, huh?”
“I promised to see you through, didn’t I? Besides,” he shifted to the other side of his buttocks, the pipe chattering between his teeth, “I couldn’t very well leave your bodies to freeze in Siberia.” He chuckled. “Should’ve guessed that’s where we were…”
“What happened?” Danielle ignored the pain in her muscles, her bones, the very shell encasing her fragile soul. The last thing she recalled was damning herself to spiritual torture in a last-ditch effort to empower the Relics with a love for Earth.
He peered at her with the callous eyes of an old man ready to quit telling stories. “You happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
Marlow hoisted his pipe into the air and let the smoke curl around him. “Me neither! The last thing I saw was you putting that ring on. Next thing I know, the entire universe buckled to your cries to let Earth stay where it was. I dare say the Third Piece listened to you.”
Danielle fell back into the grass and stared at the white ringlets sailing in the sky. Hills dipped and undulated across the landscape, touched only by a single blackbird hunting for dinner and the breeze chortling like a child. “Where are we?”
“Ireland.”
“…Ireland.”
“Do you have a problem with Ireland?”
“No.” Danielle said. “But why would you bring us here?”
Charlie bounded after a brown butterfly. “Believe it or not, a majority of Europe remains unscathed. Well, except Scandinavia. And Switzerland. And parts of Italy. But they’ll manage.” Marlow took a puff from his pipe. “I like Ireland. Perhaps one of the most beautiful places on Earth. This place seemed quiet enough for you both.”
“Where’s Devon? What happened to him?”
Marlow jerked his head toward the other side of the hill, where a man stood, hands shielding his face from the setting sun. Danielle’s voice carried on the wind and he turned, their eyes meeting. “Danielle,” he uttered into the headwind, his voice lost but his lips as clear as ever. “You’re up.”
He climbed the hill, Charlie sprinting for him and getting caught underfoot. Danielle refrained from saying anything to him. There was something different about his demeanor, a slight alteration from the young man Danielle met before. He had asked her in a busy street if she were a lesbian. He had helped himself into her home, eager to share his belief in a man named Ramaron Marlow. He had looked confident, center stage singing his songs while a throng of drunken softball players scrambled for his favor. He had been on top of her as they clumsily made love, both traumatic and orgasmic. And he had held her hand while the world ended and her soul tore in two.
“Are you all right?” He knelt next to her. “You took that pretty hard.”
Danielle floundered for words. “How long have you been up?”
He shrugged. “Twenty minutes? A half hour? I dunno. My cell phone is busted.”
“And how long were we out?” Danielle now addressed the old man sitting on a rock.
Another shrug. “Perhaps an hour or so.”
“Earth.” Danielle remembered – the rest of the earth had not been as serene as Ireland when she last breathed. “What’s happened?”
“You should have seen it,” Devon said. “He showed me what’s happening all over the world. Can you guess?”
“No. Hence, asking.”
“It’s all over! Everybody going on their day-to-day business while mumbling about earthquakes and avalanches and volcanoes… do you remember how the news was? It suddenly stopped. I could’ve sworn I saw a billion people die right before the end, but I guess everything went back to normal when the Third Piece went haywire. It’s like a time warp or something.”
Marlow guffawed. “Were it so simple, honestly. I can barely fathom it myself. The Earth went from dismantling into nonexistence while every soul on it ascended to the Void, and then… this? I don’t know what happened in your soul,” he said to Danielle, “but something managed to pull Earth back together and call back those souls.”
“And apparently backpedaled so hard that even Lois Lane is alive now,” Devon added.
That earned a shake of Marlow’s head. “No. People died. Many people.” He pulled his pipe out of his mouth and patted his dog on the rump. Charlie sneezed before leaping away again. “I’m not sure what the final count is. Perhaps I’ll be able to get some answers from the Temple of the Void, which I plan to visit shortly. But my liberal estimate would be about ten million souls were Voided.”
“Ten million?” Danielle lost whatever color may have come back to her complexion. “Ten million people are dead?”
“Yes,” Marlow responded with a whisper. He did not look her in the eye as he contemplated the sunset on the Irish horizon. “Unfortunately, those souls we saw die cannot come back. They’re gone. Forever.”
Devon jerked up in disbelief. “What do you mean forever?” The assumption had been that those unfortunate souls had simply returned to the Void. Why wouldn’t they come back in different bodies, eventually?
“It’s like the Shadows,” Marlow explained. “They do not have the strength to ret
urn to the Void, so they disappear.”
Danielle clutched her head between her hands. “Ten million souls… gone. I can’t believe it.”
“There is a price for everything. Even in saving a planet.” Marlow finally looked in Danielle’s direction. “Even if Earth had crumbled like every planet before it, those souls still would be lost to the universe. Returning to the Void only gives you a chance at starting over.”
“But you said there are only a finite amount of souls in the universe…” Devon said.
“Yes. And now ten million of them are gone.”
They sat in silence. Renewed horror dawned upon Devon’s already lined visage. Danielle sighed the last of her fears from her body. There was no point in obsessing over the loss of those souls when so many more had been saved.
“Is it at least over for Earth? Will we be left alone now?”
One last trail of smoke blew from Marlow’s lips as he regarded his mercenaries with a mixture of pride and sympathy. “For the terror that pervaded the universe under Nerilis’s constant threat… yes, it is over, I believe. He will not be targeting another planet like that again, and I have great thanks for both of you for that. But as for your trial, and your souls?” He shook his head. “Only half.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have fulfilled your mission. Gallantly, I might add. Your souls are free from that promise, which means you can break free from the Process and live out the rest of your natural lives without fear of rebirth. However, as of now, only one of you can achieve that blessing.”
Devon frowned for the first time since seeing Danielle awake. “Me.”
“Yes,” Marlow affirmed. “You have regressed, and you have fulfilled your mission. At some point in the next couple of days, you will be released from the Process. You don’t realize it, but you have lived your entire life carrying its weight around in your heart.”
“What about me?” Danielle asked.
Marlow shook his head. “I don’t know. Your mission is completed, but you have not regressed. Until you have released what it is you are hiding under the weight of the Process, you will never be free from it.”
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