by Kara Timmins
It came together.
“You’re the Omnacom.”
“And you’re slow. You’re so much more disappointing than I thought. I got so excited,” the Omnacom said with a whimper. “You were something new. Even if you ruined everything, at least you were something new.”
“I couldn’t let the Vaylars take the land.”
“You couldn’t let them. The land was theirs to take! I said so! I saw it!”
The Omnacom’s spindly fingers reached out again. Eloy would have done or said anything to stop them from touching him again.
“I’ll show you,” Eloy said.
The Omnacom stopped moving forward. “Show me.”
“I have to get it from my bag. I’m going to reach for it now.”
“If you reach for your sword, you’ll regret it.”
“I believe you.” Eloy reached for his bag and rummaged around until he found the still-perfect berry from the forest of Valia. “Here.”
The Omnacom’s black eyes narrowed as he assessed it.
“The Vaylar fighter ate it,” Eloy said.
The Omnacom plucked the berry and put it his grotesquely oversized mouth. He chewed it a few times before spiting it out. “Tastes like the lizard woman’s magic. Nothing to me. You beat him with tricks and help. Nothing more.”
“That’s all I’ve ever had.”
“Those things aren’t anything to me.”
“And they’re everything to me.”
The Omnacom smiled, the corner of its mouth bunched up the pale skin under its eyes. “You don’t have any help now, and you’re too tired to be clever. Oh, clever Eloy with all your help. Even you can see you’re nothing now.”
“I’ve always known I was more because of my friends. But I also know I can stand on my own.”
“Can you?” the Omnacom said teasingly. “You don’t seem so strong now. Especially when your Malatic got so sick, and your Neasa had to leave with him, and then your Timyr got so angry.”
“That was you,” Eloy realized. The heat in his cheeks now radiated from shame. He should have known sooner.
“The changes weren’t all me.” The Omnacom put its hands to its chest, the smile still big on its face. “They had those things in them already. Timyr was harder. Those things were deeper. But I got it out, didn’t I? I may have taken over a little bit. I couldn’t work on it forever, could I? I had to get here, to this conversation. Which is more disappointing than the effort it took.”
“And Malatic?” Eloy didn’t want to ask, and he regretted the question as soon as he did.
“Not long for this forest, I’m afraid. But still around, if it pleases you. Oh! It’s like a race, you and him. How fun for you!” The Omnacom looked to the side, as if thinking. “I think you’ll beat him. Going out with a win, Eloy, that’s the way. Good for you.”
“Maybe.” Eloy looked at the sword.
“No, you’re right. You’re going to lose to me. All in perspective, I guess. I like that you see things like that.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what the stone is?” Eloy asked.
The Omnacom looked down at it. “Seems clear enough. It’s the little light. It’s going to help me get into the big light. Whatever is in there, in the big rock, has to be enough to take back to the temple and reclaim my standing. That and your head. Easy.”
The Omnacom wasn’t crouching or relaxed anymore. Eloy recognized the tension seeping into the space between them. He knew it from when he was a kid, the first time he saw the wild cats crawl up on the older males.
Eloy was a lunge away from the handle of his sword. His weapon was slightly behind him, and he would have to bend back awkwardly to reach it. Eloy had already seen that the Omnacom was fast. Depending on what it wanted to do, it could be over before Eloy even had his hands on his weapon. The Omnacom had set the battle up long before Eloy knew who or how he was fighting.
He was so tired. He’d never felt so played with before, like a cat and a lizard. The anger boiled in him like a covered pot. He had to grab that rage. He thought about what the Omnacom had done to Malatic and Neasa. He thought about Timyr. He thought about all the people who had died fighting the Vaylars. He thought about Goodwin. He stopped feeling the fatigue or the heat of the fire.
He rolled backward on the rock, grabbing the sword as he went. The Omnacom was quick, but not fast enough to slash its fingers across the soft part of Eloy’s exposed stomach. But Eloy wasn’t fast enough to avoid the slap of the attack against his knees and calves. The hit stung, like a lashing from barbed whips. His legs went over his head and his feet landed with a thud on the ground behind him. He was in the dark now, but it didn’t matter. The threat was in front of him. There wasn’t anything left to fear in the night.
Eloy held his sword out in front of him. He’d defeated the Omnacom before. He would do it again. For a creature of so much power and access to information, the Omnacom clouded its own sight with arrogance. That was something Eloy could use. He let his thoughts go dark, sure to deprive the Omnacom of any advantage while hoping his fighting instincts would be enough to get him through this and see morning.
The Omnacom crouched down, its sickening grin bunching up its face again. And then it lunged. Eloy settled into his squared-off stance, ready for the fight that was closing in, fast. The Omnacom was a blur of white, but somehow the rage-filled black eyes and incongruent smile stayed steady in Eloy’s vision. Eloy gripped the handle of the sword and brought it around, timing it so that the swing would cut right through the Omnacom’s middle.
There was nothing. The night was empty again. Eloy knew the Omnacom had just been there. The experience wasn’t the same as when the raiders had clawed out of the ground. The Omnacom wasn’t an illusion.
Eloy spun around, looking. He almost thought he was alone again, but he wasn’t. He knew it with absolute certainty. He jumped back over the rock, one foot hitting and pushing himself forward back into the firelight. The movement brought the stinging in his knees to the forefront of his awareness. The wound was likely bleeding, but he wasn’t going to take the chance to look down.
Then he couldn’t see anything at all. The light of the campfire disappeared, leaving him in total darkness. He blinked hard, once, twice. But nothing came back. His eyes didn’t adjust. He was experiencing a blackness he had never known, had never known possible. He was blind.
One of the Omnacom’s hands with its spindly fingers wrapped around Eloy’s throat, the other around his wrist. The sickening numb sense flowed up his arm. Hearing the sword drop to the forest floor was the worst thing he had ever heard.
“Oh, little Eloy. Don’t look so surprised. This was always the way things were going to go.” The Omnacom’s fingers tightened around his throat, and the feeling of death bloomed there too. “I hate it when people don’t believe me.”
The Omnacom’s voice lost its sharp edges, becoming muffled. Eloy felt so tired. He realized the depth of his fatigue wasn’t unfamiliar. In fact, it almost felt like home. He realized how depleted he had been, for so long. The allure of sleep was so enticing, like water to a dry mouth. There was nothing around him now but the promise of rest and the sweet smell of fallen leaves and snow. He had seen people go in worse ways. It could have ended for him at the Bowl, dangling from the blackened beams, the pain of it stuck on his face until he didn’t have a face to show.
This was better. Softer. He felt the Omnacom’s second hand come up and intertwine with the other around Eloy’s neck. The pain shot through his arm, the blood flowing there again, but that too seemed distant. The pressure on his neck tightened. White blossoms of light burst through around his vision, but it wasn’t illuminating. The sight was the same kind of light he saw when he pressed on his closed eyelids. Then even that started to fade.
“So easy,” the Omnacom whispered. “So easy.”
Eloy felt
the Omnacom lower him to the ground. The gesture was almost kind.
Then there was pain, mind-ripping pain coming from his neck and darting in both directions, all the way down to his feet and to the top of his head. The hands weren’t around his throat any longer. Eloy heard screaming somewhere, but he could only think of the pain. He arched his back, seizing against his body, trying to bring life back to the places the Omnacom had drained it away. He didn’t sense himself doing it, but somehow he was on his hands and knees. The feel of the ground brought one thought into his mind. The thought wasn’t even a word, just an image: the sword.
The light flickered now. Whatever power the Omnacom had over the light, or Eloy’s perception of the light, was weakening somehow. In the flickering, he saw it. Everything in Eloy burned, his wrist second to the excruciating pain in his neck. He had to get the sword in his hand and stand up. His awareness cut out again. He came back to himself standing with his sword raised.
The Omnacom thrashed around, whipping its fingers at its own face. Strips of red cut across the white surface of its skin. The layered screeching, hissing, and howling overpowered Eloy’s senses. And the sounds weren’t only coming from the Omnacom. Eloy focused past the pain and delirium. He saw in the flashing light what was making the noises. The source was a ball of darting brown fur: Vivene. She bit and clawed at the Omnacom, her little sharp teeth leaving bloody half-circles in her wake. The Omnacom couldn’t grab hold of her, she was too fast.
Eloy knew he couldn’t let the fight go on. All the Omnacom had to do was grab hold of her little body and it would be over. Eloy spun around, the sword level to his waist, and stepped forward as the blade came full circle. And everything came together in that moment: the Omnacom grabbed hold of Vivene, her little mouth in a teeth-bared snarl, which moved into a little squeal of a cry. Eloy felt the thud of the blade hitting the side of the Omnacom, followed by the grating reverberation of bone against metal, and then a mortal cry.
All three fell to the ground.
The whole world turned a blinding white. Eloy howled at the shock and buried his face in the crook of his arm. His eyes ached, as if someone had poked burning splinters into their core. He could have sat still forever, his face covered and safe, but he knew he had to check on Vivene.
He started by taking his arm away but keeping his eyes closed. Even the backlit red was shocking after being in darkness for so long, but the discomfort was bearable. He opened his right eye a slit, sipping in the brightness a little bit at a time. Then he opened both eyes a crack, and through his squint he could see two white dissected forms on the ground. Finally, his eyes were ready for the light of day.
The fire was still burning, useless. Of course Eloy had been too hot: he’d been sitting in front of a fire under the full sun of midday. Another one of the Omnacom’s tricks.
There wouldn’t be any more illusions. Eloy stared down at the body of the Omnacom. Red blood and gore pooled between the two pieces at the Omnacom’s center, like a river through a canyon. The Omnacom’s eyes were open, staring without seeing up at the dancing cut-out lights of the forest canopy, the specs of starlight in the orbs of black reflecting back up.
The Omnacom had been able to see so much, could change what others saw, but he ignored the little possibilities. He hadn’t accounted for Vivene.
Eloy crawled over to her little crumpled form. She was so small, tucked into herself like a little fluffy ball. Eloy picked her up and cradled her in his hands.
“Vivene?” He whispered next to her little head. It came out in a monstrous croak and brought a shot of pain.
It would take a while to heal the damage the Omnacom had done.
“Thank you,” he said, barely more than a whisper.
A tear made a path down to the tip of his nose and dropped onto her back, where it rolled off onto his palm.
Eloy got to his feet and rolled his shirt to drape across his body like a sling to tuck her in and held her close to his chest. He packed up the rest of his things, refastened the necklace around his neck, and kicked out the fire.
The Omnacom’s games were over, and Eloy needed to find Timyr.
56
It didn’t take Eloy nearly as long as he thought it would to scale the hill. He wondered how long the Omnacom had twisted his mind, thinking he was walking down when he wasn’t. Or maybe he’d been walking up when he thought he was making his way down. Imagining himself wandering around in the daylight with a torch was an odd and uncomfortable thought. The Omnacom could have made Eloy do whatever it wanted, but it had decided to play games. Eloy ran a hand over the little lump in the makeshift sling across his chest.
Eloy came upon the thick bush at early evening, the same as he remembered it. He hoped the rest of the hill was the same as he remembered it too, and he hoped Timyr was still at the top. The branches pulled and snagged just as they had on his way down, but they were nothing compared to the pain rolling through his body from the fight, especially the wounds on his knees and calves, which he did his best to ignore. Once on the other side, he saw the end of the hill.
His breath burned in his lungs as he reached the top, and his insides felt too tired to bring in enough air. He wouldn’t be able to go much farther. His fatigue was becoming his most defining feature; he was starting to forget what it felt like to want anything other than rest.
He didn’t see Timyr.
Eloy had hoped that Timyr would be at the edge of the hill, waiting for him to come back. He walked to the place he had last seen Timyr, where he’d been left unconscious. The foliage was still flattened and pushed into the ground from the fight, and there was the outline of where Timyr had been, but he wasn’t there now.
Eloy bent over, put his hands on his knees, and hung his head. Timyr was probably on his way back to his house. Maybe he would find Neasa and Malatic. Maybe this was for the best. Eloy was just about to let all of his strength go and drop down to the ground when he heard a rustling somewhere ahead of him.
He stood up and went straight for it. There was the possibility that the sound was an animal, maybe a predator, maybe something hungry, but Eloy didn’t care anymore. He moved aside branches, vines, and bushes for twenty or so strides until he came upon the origin of the sound: Timyr sat up against a tree, his knees brought up to his chest, his arms crossed over his bent legs, and his head buried in the tangle of his arms.
“Timyr?” Eloy croaked.
Timyr lifted his head, and there was a moment when Eloy worried he’d made a mistake, and that the damage the Omnacom had done was permanent. Timyr looked so devoid of emotion, so hardened. But the look only lasted a moment before it shifted to surprise, and then to relief, and finally sadness. The gradient of emotions was one that Eloy was sure Timyr had been moving through since being freed from the Omnacom’s hold.
Timyr stood. “Eloy, I didn’t mean any of those things. I didn’t mean to do any of those things.” He closed the distance between them.
“I know,” Eloy said. “It was the Omnacom.”
“The what?”
“It’s . . . something not from here. But you knew that.”
“I don’t feel it anymore.”
Eloy hung his head and nodded.
“You beat it?”
Eloy started to nod again but shrugged instead. He looked at Timyr and saw that his attention was now on the sling over Eloy’s chest.
“She saved my life,” Eloy said.
“Can I see her?” Timyr asked.
Eloy took a deep breath and reached into the sling and picked up Vivene’s soft little tucked body. He didn’t want to look at Timyr as he handed her over, but when he chanced a glance, he didn’t see what he thought he would. There wasn’t any sorrow as Timyr lifted her up to his cheek.
“Viv, it’s time to get up now. I have food. Your favorite,” Timyr whispered.
Her black orb eyes snapped open
, her little mouth yawned, still smudged in blood, and she let out a little chirp.
Eloy sat down hard on the ground, his legs crossed underneath him. “I thought she was dead,” he said, his face buried in his hands.
“She’s tricky,” Timyr said. “I told you.”
Eloy looked up. “She saved my life.”
Timyr fed a few lumps of food to Vivene—who, though very much alive, wasn’t moving around him as quickly as she usually did—and sat down next to Eloy.
“She’s hurt,” Timyr said. “Around here.” Timyr pointed to his upper chest. “But it should heal. There’s plenty I want to know about what happened, and there’s plenty I have to say about what happened here, but you need to rest. You’re barely here. We can talk later. I’ve done my fair share of sleeping, eh?” Timyr nudged Eloy.
Eloy gave a weak but sincere laugh. It was the last thing he remembered that day.
57
Eloy woke up to full night. Timyr was sitting in front of the fire, Vivene curled up between his neck and his shoulder. Under normal circumstances, she would be off exploring the evening. It would be quite a few more nights before she could resume her old habits, but Eloy was glad she was alive.
“I was sure I would sleep through the night,” Eloy said, his voice still sore. He gulped and winced at the pain.
“You did. It’s nighttime again. Come here, I found a stream not far from here with some fish in it.”
Timyr put a few prepared fish over the fire as Eloy carefully made his way over. His knees and lower legs were wrapped in long, shiny leaves like bandages. A smell like eucalyptus, from whatever Timyr had used to treat the wound, cut through the aroma of the fire. The heady fumes of cooking fish were so inviting and beautiful they almost brought tears to Eloy’s eyes.
The two sat in silence as they watched the fish skin char and curl over the licking flame. Eloy was still trying to bring his consciousness in alignment with being awake, but he also didn’t know where to start. Timyr saved him from having to.