The Burden of Memory

by Welcome Cole

  This demon was taller than the other wyrlaerd by a solid head. It was housed in golden mudsteel armor engraved with arcane runes and demonic images that swirled like smoke across the metal. And though its flesh was the same tarry material as the other wyrlaerd’s, it looked nothing like it. This demon held the fine details of a mortal face. Its mouth had full lips and teeth, the cheeks showed creases, the nose was straight and clearly defined and had nostrils. Its scalp and chin were covered in intricate tendrils of tar that fell across its shoulders and onto its chest like demonic dreadlocks. Even the fine wrinkles around the eyes looked as real as those on any mortal man.

  However, the most alarming difference between this one and the lesser demons were the eyes. Though still glowing with the same unearthly light of Fire Caeyls, they weren’t just crude stones inserted economically into the tar. These eyes were alive with detail. The delicately described iris, the living pupil, the wet sheen of the sclera all gave them the look of a mortal eye carefully veneered with gold. They resided naturally, even comfortably between fine eyelids sheltered by a powerful brow. This wasn’t just any demon. This was the only demon that mattered. This was the master of all the others.

  “This is Goelvar,” he whispered to Prave.

  “Look closely at him. Listen to his mind.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Recognition.”

  “Recognition? What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you know this man.”

  “Calling him a man’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” Beam said carefully, “Damn the creepy eyes, he’s still housed in a body of tar, after all.”

  “There’s a man at his core, Be’ahm. Listen to him. Focus on his thoughts.”

  Beam closed his eyes. He let slip his mind beyond the boundaries of his skull. He pushed his essence toward the man just as he’d been taught to do through his years in the Caeylsphere. After a moment, he found purchase in the demon’s mind.

  Damn me, it is not pretty in here.

  Probe deeper, Be’ahm. Dig past the corruption. Find the man beneath the tar.

  Dark, angry images defined the corridors of the demon’s mind, but still Beam willed himself through them. He pushed past the horrid images, past the memories of murder and mutilation, past the scenes of grotesque mutations and genocide. Soon he found the frightened, uncertain thoughts that defined the mortal man within, and as he passed through that door, he realized he’d never been more afraid in his life.

  Despite his apprehension, he understood that this lesson was critical to his success as Prave’s student. This lesson was the matrix that held all the other lessons together. To resist the lesson now would make the years he’d been imprisoned in Prave’s timescape little more than folly. And so he steadied himself against his fears. He braced himself firmly and willed his mind deeper into the creature’s essence.

  He found it much sooner than he’d expected. It was right there, the cold, frightened essence of a mortal man trapped in the ethereal confusion of demonic rage. An image formed in his mind, an image as real as a night sweat, an image filled with chaotic thoughts of rage and murder. He saw the creature cowering at the heart of this demon, saw the mortal skin burdened with glowing yellow caeyls, saw the oversized, tuberous head, saw the tentacles writing from the man’s chin, saw the elongated, lizard-like eyes probing back at him.

  This was Paex Gael’vra!

  Beam recoiled from the man’s mind. He fled back into the mortal timescape, and as he reeled back into his own mind, he stumbled backward and fell into the soft humus.

  “Goddamn you!” he yelled up at Prave, “You told me you wouldn’t do that again! Whatever happened to ‘brace yourself’, for gods’ sakes?”

  “You knew he was there, Be’ahm. You simply refused to accept the memory, as is your wont.”

  “Refused the memory,” Beam grumbled as he climbed to his feet, “I’d like to refuse your nose with a good—”

  “Look,” Prave said, gesturing toward the demons.

  Despite his anger, despite his deep and sincere reservations, Beam clenched his teeth and did as he was told.

  The second demon produced a small chest from beneath its silken yellow cloak. As it raised the lid, a flood of red light blanched the darkness from its tarry features. “This is an epic moment, my friend,” it said to Goelvar, “We’ve waited long for this.”

  Beam shuddered as the memory seized him. “This is Graezon,” he whispered to Prave, “Same as in the beginning, same as back at the Fire Caeyl pit.”

  Goelvar reached in and removed the flaming Blood Caeyl. The light fractured the night as it held the gem up to eye level.

  “Bastard’s got my Blood Caeyl!” Beam said to Prave.

  Prave didn’t respond.

  Beam looked over at him, and the sight sent him sinking. Prave looked worse than before, far worse. The decay was more than just physical now. His psychic essence was fading as surely if it were being consumed by some demon inside him. His skin was so faded, the hazy image of his skull glowed beneath his face. He looked a thousand years old. The man was literally fading away before his eyes.

  “Prave, what is this? What’s wrong with you? You look like hell.”

  “This is the beginning of the end, Be’ahm.”

  “I know! Gods above, I know that. You’ve already made that clear.”

  “Our time is together is over. I need you to listen to me. I need you to be present. I need you to remember!”

  “Prave, I told you I—”

  Beam stopped. He felt the radiation of Prave’s pain as physically as if standing before the heat of a bonfire. He heard the voice of his dark thoughts. He suffered his fear and despair as physically as if they were his own. The man spoke the truth. Their time was indeed at an end, and he wholly despaired the moment.

  He looked back at the demons, who were once again as still as scarecrows. Goelvar still held the flaming stone up at eye level. Prae had slipped them outside mortal time again.

  “I’m ready,” Beam whispered, “I hate that you’re leaving me. I hate that I have to face this alone. But I’m still ready. Damn me, I’m ready as I possibly can be.”

  “I know you are, my boy.”

  Beam looked into those once strong, joyous eyes sinking into the pits of death, and it nearly brought him to his knees. “Tell me, Prave,” he whispered, “Tell me what I need to know. I don’t know how long I can stay strong.”

  “There is something critical you need to understand,” Prave said with obvious effort, “This is not the first time for us, for Goelvar and me. We’ve walked this road together many times before.”

  “Wait, what? I’m not following you.”

  “The Birthsight comes from my line, from the God Caeyl. A select few of my descendants inherited the ability, or at least a taste of it. Those who did were born fully aware and lived unnaturally long lives.”

  “You mean Chance specifically,” Beam said as he thought it through, “At least in current times. But he’s Parhronii. You’re a Vaemyn.”

  Prave gave him a look that he felt clear through to his spine. “Why do you resist my lessons so? Help me teach you. Try for once. Try to remember, Be’ahm.”

  Beam felt a hot pulse of shame. For the thousandth time since beginning this journey, he wished he were a better man. He looked down at the dark leaves decaying at their feet to gather his strength. Ready now, he pushed his way into the memories. “Chance’s line is from a mutated arm of your descendants,” he said as he struggled through it, “That means most of your family endured the effects of the impure caeyls. They weren’t fair complexioned Faen. Only you survived.”

  Prave studied him for a moment. The skull beneath his fading skin, the webbing of blood vessels, the sinking eyes all made his hold on this world seem perilous at best.

  “My Birthsight was the first and the most wretched,” Prave whispered, “When my body eventually died, my essence transcended into the next family birth. I was raised in
that new flesh. I lived that lifetime, fully aware of who I was, of what I was, of where I’d come from and why I was born. I lived in that new flesh ten or more generations, lived until the power of the God Caeyl’s energy within me could no longer defy the physical limitations of mortal flesh. When I ultimately reached the end of that vessel’s viability, when I died the second time, I was reborn again into the next family birth to repeat the cycle. I was born and I died again and again across the generations with all my powers intact. I was reborn more times than I can count, each time fully aware and with all the collective memories of my previous existences.”

  As Beam watched the old man, he felt snippets of memories erupt in his mind. He watched those lost lives bubble to the surface of his awareness. He saw an endless parade of Prave’s parents and wives and children, all growing old long before him, all passing into old age and infirmary before him, all passing through that dark door before him. A celestial display of thousands of faces and loves poured into his mind. His eyes burned with the memories of Prave’s pain.

  “Gael’vra became Goelvar when his essence was drained into the Fire Caeyl pit,” Prave continued, “He wanted immortality, and his wish was granted, after a fashion. His soul was pulled down into the Ninth Hell. He became a demon. And though he lost all memory of his mortal existence, of his mortal lusts and loves, still his mortal energy remained intact within him. He coveted power and domination over the mortal world. He raged at the universe, though without understanding why. He was consumed by the Wyr.”

  Beam finally drew a breath. He dragged a hand over his cheek to wipe away the physical evidence of Prave’s memories. “Lovely,” he said, “Damn me if this isn’t about the most wretched story I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear.”

  Prave put a thinning hand on Beam’s shoulder. “Stay with me, my dear boy. You must remain strong. You are my last hope.”

  Beam licked a dry tongue over drier lips. “I will,” he whispered, nodding reluctantly, “I… I promise I will.”

  “Gael’vra wasn’t forgotten. He became legend. Fire Caeyl mages through the epochs knew of him. Some of these men and women, driven mad by the corrupting power of those yellow caeyls, attempted to resurrect him. They believed that, in raising him from the Wyr, they could control him. They believed that by controlling him, they could bring other lesser demons to do their bidding. Some succeeded, at least to a degree. These misguided mages caused the six Divinic Wars.”

  “That’s why you continued to be reborn,” Beam said as the dark truth materialized in his mind, “The God Caeyl didn’t inadvertently cause your regeneration at all. You designed it. Isn’t that right? You did this to yourself. You condemned yourself to this fate.”

  Prave looked at him but said nothing.

  Beam felt a moment’s despair. Prave was deteriorating too damned quickly. He was barely more than a skeleton now, just fading bones with only a suggestive aura of flesh around them. He looked as if the slightest breeze might cast him into dust.

  Heat welled up in his eyes, though he fought back against it. There was no time for grief, not now, not in this moment. There was much yet to know, and he’d wasted too much time with his stupid, stubborn resistance. And in that moment of regret and despair, he experienced a moment of divine clarity. This was his destiny. Whether he’d invited it or not, whether he wanted it or not, this was who he was. This was who he was destined to be. He could no more turn away from it than the seed can refuse to become the tree. He was remembering. He was remembering it all.

  “You invited this existence,” he said as the memories arrived, “You manufactured that fate so you could face Gael’vra every time he resurrected, isn’t that right? You planned to use the God Caeyl to destroy him, but you failed. You failed over and over again. Each time you met him in battle, you succeeded only in sending him back to the Wyr. You needed to slay him with the Caeyllth Blade, but each time he released himself before you could. You couldn’t destroy him.”

  “Ay’a.”

  “And the Blood Caeyl,” Beam said, waving toward the demons standing frozen in the night, “That specific Blood Caeyl right there. My Blood Caeyl! It has a special purpose, doesn’t it? You divined it to make him remember! You planned for him to remember this time. You wanted to make his mortal memories reawaken after this resurrection.”

  “Ay’a.”

  “You thought that would weaken him. You thought his mortal memories might somehow compromise the demonic corruption holding him. They might push him nearer to his mortal core.”

  “Yes.”

  “But it never did, did it? He never remembered who he was, that he was born of mortal flesh. Your efforts only made him angrier and more powerful.”

  Prave watched him with his translucent eyes.

  “You sentenced yourself to an eternity of misery. And for what? You failed! You’ve spent ten thousand years in hell, living your life over and over, watching those you love grow old and die around you! You—”

  “It doesn’t matter! Yes! Yes, I failed! I failed every time Gael’vra was summoned back to the mortal world. In the end, I knew that I could never succeed. We were equals, Gael’vra and me. Neither of us would ever gain an advantage. And that, my dear sweet boy, is precisely why I created you.”

  Beam raked the hair back over his head. He couldn’t draw a decent breath. The memories poured in too fast to control. Faces of his wives and children flared through his mind, faces of family and friends found and lost across the epochs. He closed his eyes and drew a steadying breath. He willed himself toward calm. He couldn’t be distracted by his fear and anger. They could never distract him again.

  “Be’ahm?”

  “I... I don’t understand. But I’m trying to. I really am trying. I just… I just don’t—”

  “Chance is not my only descendant living in your timescape. There are many others, others whose family can be traced back to my original offspring. And you believe now that you are my prodigy through your father’s line, don’t you? You remember it now.”

  Beam nodded.

  “Are you curious about the source of your mother’s lineage?”

  Beam closed his eyes and shook his head. “I am most sincerely not.”

  Prave said nothing, though Beam felt the cold heat of the man’s eyes pressing into him.

  “If I need to brace myself, you’d tell me, right?” he asked the mage, “I mean, you wouldn’t just drop me into the nightmare again, would you?”

  “Brace yourself.”

  Beam felt the earth fall away. “Damn me, just go ahead, then.”

  “Your Mother descended directly from Paex Gael’vra.”

  For a beat, Beam couldn’t make sense of the words. They turned over and over in his mind, but he couldn’t make them real. Your Mother descended from Gael’vra. It couldn’t possibly be right.

  “I birthed your Father’s line, and Paex your Mother’s. Those lines intersected with your birth.”

  “No, I don’t believe you. My Mother was perfect. You’re either lying or made some kind of mistake.”

  Prave gripped Beam’s shoulder. Though the hand was nearly spectral, his touch felt most real. “Not all seeds sprout close to the flower, Be’ahm. Despite the hideous mutations of his children, a few good people eventually rose from Gael’vra’s lineage. Your mother sprouted from his daughters. Their mutations brought about the race you now know as the Parhronii.”

  Prave’s words released another round of memories. He thought of the pain borne by those outcast mutations back in the early days of the God Caeyl, and he felt that pain as perfectly as if he’d been there among them. The uninvited grief stormed the castle gates, but he couldn’t let it in. He couldn’t be weak, not in this moment. He refused to be weak.

  “I finally understood that I had to marry his lineage into mine,” Prave said, “I only wish I’d come to understand that in the beginning. It cost the world so much time, so much pain, so many lives. Once I did understand the truth, once I determined to
pursue that path, it took me dozens of generations to bring you into this world. I have been striving for this moment since a thousand years before the last Divinic War.”

  Beam looked down at the carpet of dead leaves moldering at their feet. There was nothing to say. He knew it was true, all of it. He’d been bred like a dog or a cow, bred into a new form of life through a line of demons and gods. He wasn’t a Parhronii and he wasn’t a Vaemyn. He wasn’t even bloody mortal!

  “You were the missing element, Be’ahm. By marrying our mortal essences, mine and Gael’vra’s, I could finally create a weapon capable of freeing Gael’vra from his fate.”

  Beam looked up at Paex Gael’vra towering in silence before them. The creature was so much bigger than anything he could imagine. How could he possibly stop such a monster?

  “You have my memories,” Prave said, “You’re not an incarnation of me as all my previous attempts at creating one like you were, but you alone possess my essence. When you awaken into your own timescape, you’ll have the full sum of my memories and my knowledge, but you’ll be far, far more powerful than I ever could be. You’ll be the most powerful Caeyl Mage on all of Calina’s world. You are born of the God Caeyl, Be’ahm. The God Caeyl is your sire, not me. The power and strength of the God Caeyl course through your blood. It composes the very matrix of your flesh. It defines you. Though you were born in this mortal world, you are not of it. You are…”

  Prave’s image wavered and sputtered. For just an instant Beam couldn’t see him. Then the man emerged into focus again.

  “What the hell’s happening to you?” Beam whispered, though he was terrified for the answer, “Please tell me, Prave. I’m... I’m afraid.”

  “Your strength is consuming me.”

  “What?”

  “I only exist as a memory of the God Caeyl now. And you, dear boy, are the God Caeyl.” Prave’s image sputtered again, flaming in and out of existence.

  “Don’t you dare leave me! Not yet! You can’t leave me yet! I was wrong. I’m not ready!”

  “I’ve never been here, Be’ahm,” Prave’s fading image whispered, “I died back in that cave an epoch ago. I died sending Gael’vra back to the Wyr. The God Caeyl absorbed my essence. I live only in your blood now. In your blood and in your memories.”