by Rob J. Hayes
They didn't understand. I couldn't let them face the Iron Legion with me. I couldn't let him hurt them.
I could chase them away. There was humour in my horror's voice, made more apparent by the fact that my shadow did not so much as twitch.
"Fine. We three then." And maybe along the way I could convince them to turn back.
Or kill their mounts and leave them behind.
It was fitting, in a way. The three of us had escaped the Pit together, had been together ever since. Despite my protests, my insistence that they remain behind, it felt right that they would accompany me to the end of my journey.
Chapter 32
Even mounted on trei birds, the journey to Picarr took ten days. It dawned on me, in that time, just how much the former Terrelan Empire had changed. New borders had been drawn up and soldiers, wearing newly coloured uniforms, sat at checkpoints along the roads. They demanded a tithe from all travellers. We paid them, not wanting to cause more trouble than we were already in. They were bandits by another name, sanctioned by the new state they now served. The unsanctioned bandits we treated rather differently. We paid them in broken limbs and sent them scurrying away with the name, the Corpse Queen, ringing in their ears.
We stopped frequently; villages, taverns, towns. I think I was delaying the inevitable confrontation, partly out of fear, and partly because I was enjoying my time with Hardt and Tamura. We laughed often and hard, raised drinks to those lost but not forgotten, listened to Tamura's tales of times long gone. It put a slightly different perspective on things knowing that he had lived through all of the stories he told, and given his knowledge of Belmorose's teachings I will admit I started to wonder whether the old philosopher's teachings were written by Tamura himself.
In a small town by the name of Shorelan I met a woman so beautiful she took my breath away. Her name was Irilen, and she had perfect brown skin and hair as dark as my own had once been. When she smiled at me, she reminded me of Silva, something in the way her lips tugged at the corners. We never love quite like our first love. It is not for want or need, or even worth. It simply is the truth. We throw ourselves into that first love. Every inch, every drop, every nook and cranny. Every dirty secret and honest truth. Every bit of us goes into that love. We give them everything we have. And a bit of that stays with them. Whether they deserve it or not, a part of ourselves stays with every person we have ever loved. It is not that we wish to give each love after that less, only that there is less to give. Too much of ourselves left behind with the dead or lost or soured parting. We are finite creatures, and there is only so much we have to give. I left a part of myself with Irilen and moved on.
More than once in that short journey, I ended the night by drinking my sorrows away. An escape of sorts, to dull the mind and the heart. To forget. Often Hardt and Tamura would turn in before me, leaving me alone with my drinking and sour reflection. Well, not alone. You never drink alone. At worst, you drink with your demons. I always thought it such a shame Ssserakis could not get drunk with me, but my horror treated my inebriation with veiled disgust, yet watched over me all the same. Some people might think a drunken one-armed woman easy prey, but I taught a lech or two the error of their ways.
My reputation followed us, or perhaps streaked ahead, so we found both it and a cold reception waiting at most stops along the way. In some places, I was treated with open hostility, and in others hushed whispers and pointed glares. Disaster apparently followed in my wake, or I suppose it would be more accurate to say that any bad luck after I visited was attributed to me. The name of the Corpse Queen became synonymous with ill omens and tragedy. At the village of Chorn, I heard the beginnings of a children's rhyme.
Night shall fall and the dead will rise.
The Corpse Queen comes. The Corpse Queen comes.
Hide under your bed and hold your breath.
The Corpse Queen comes. The Corpse Queen comes.
Pray to the moons, pray for the sun.
The Corpse Queen Comes. The Corpse Queen comes.
The rhyme is, predictably, called The Corpse Queen Comes. It has grown both in popularity and size over the years. A warning to naughty children to listen to their elders. Do as you're told, or the Corpse Queen will come for you.
Ssserakis spoke to me often yet held itself inside. No dark cloak or black wings, only the light from the sun and moons moved my shadow. My horror was conserving its strength, pulling power from the fear my presence caused in every settlement we visited. It knew a conflict was coming and knew our chance of victory was scant. Still, Ssserakis would fight with everything it had, everything it could give me, in order to see the Iron Legion dead. We had both been wronged by Loran Orran. Ssserakis had been dragged from its own world, kidnapped and enslaved for a time. Even once released, my horror had matched power with the Iron Legion, and had barely escaped. I felt its wounded pride in that. A lord of Sevoari, a being as ancient as its world, enslaved and studied, then beaten and sent scurrying away into the darkness. It did not like to admit it, but I could feel my horror's fear over the coming conflict. Ssserakis had barely escaped with its life the last time it had matched power against the Iron Legion. I could also feel its hope, that things would be different this time, that I would make the difference. At my strongest, I might have believed it too, but there was no doubt I was diminished. Sources, I had, and the will to use them, but my body did not move like I needed it to. It went beyond my missing arm, though that was still something I struggled with at times. The Emperor had given me new scars, poorly healed, injuries that niggled and made certain movements agony. My body was a broken thing, struggling to remember how it once worked, and lacking the muscle and power it once had. Age had not brought me low, rather, the torturer's knife had.
When Picarr finally appeared on the horizon, the ruins of my former home again brought pangs of melancholy. The time Josef and I had spent up on Braggart's Tower, watching the city live out its day beneath us. Trading a show of magic, little more than tricks for Sourcerers of our power, for sweet rolls or coffee. We didn't need to, of course, the academy provided us with as much food as we wanted, but it felt good to trade our skills for something tangible. The time I showed off to all the apprentice blacksmiths by stoking the fire far hotter than all of them working together on the bellows could have. How was I to know the forge fires needed to be kept at manageable temperatures? The blacksmith chased me out with a hammer raised above his head, all to the whistling approval of his apprentices. A deep melancholy for things lost, better times gone by. People I once knew, now nothing but bones and fading memories, their faces already long forgotten by the world.
What is there in the past you long for really? Easy days? You would be bored with ease. People long dead? You of all people know that death is a cycle which can be interrupted given the correct application of power. Anonymity? Fool others or yourself, Eskara, but I know the truth. You bask in your reputation. The fear and awe of your name give you a greater power than any Source. It's good to rule.
We drew up to the ruins, close enough I could see the ghosts milling about, indistinct blurs floating around, doomed to repeat their final days in isolation until not even the memories of them remained. I could have spent time unravelling all those ghosts, but there were so many of them. An entire city, thousands upon thousands upon thousands. They floated toward me as I came close to the city limits, drawn by the fear Ssserakis held inside.
We dismounted and tied our birds to a nearby tree. Hardt and Tamura would need theirs again soon. We sat by a stream and ate a final meal, dried meats and stale bread, washing it down with fresh water warmed through by the afternoon sun. Silence reigned over us, even Tamura, and we all knew what was to come.
"The world changed the day Lokar and Lursa finally embraced," Tamura said, his voice having fallen into the storyteller's tone he used in taverns. "For years beyond counting, they had moved through the sky, watching Ovaeris. People like to say Lokar chased his mistress, but it was always the o
ther way around. Lursa, larger of the two and red as life's blood, chased while Lokar fled. They were never lovers. Lokar was prey and Lursa predator, locked in an endless chase.
"When Lursa caught her prey, the embrace was both catastrophic and wonderful. From Ovaeris, the people, garn and mur alike, looked up at the sky and saw the surface of both moons cracking as they twisted and crushed into one another. Even Lursa, with her greater bulk, could not come out of such conflict unscathed. The surface of both our moons cracked and pieces were thrown out into the space between our world and the moons. Rocks the size of cities fell to the ground and catastrophe struck. So much was the violence, that the dust flung into the sky blotted out the sun, stars, and moons. A permanent night fell upon Ovaeris."
That sounds preferable to your sun's light.
"But things cannot grow without the sun. Life here cannot exist without the light. Creatures came up from the depths, venturing into a world they seldom tread. Grey monsters with cracked skin that oozed yellow, and teeth sharpened to points. Others, little beasts with mangy fur and no eyes, crawled from cracks in the earth to inflict their savage presence on the world they had so long hidden underneath. The collision of the moons had put into motion a cataclysm that none would survive. Seas boiled and mur died in the thousands. Jungles burned, and for the first time in existence the garn ceased their endless warring to die together."
"There a point to this, old man?" Hardt asked, a grin betraying his feigned annoyance.
Tamura sighed and rolled his eyes. "The tahren have no eyes, yet they are not blind. Why?" He cupped a hand over his ear.
With light this bright, it's a surprise you aren't all blind. There was camaraderie in Ssserakis' mocking. I realised then that my horror wished to join in, to be a part of the group. It had been with me for so long, had spent almost as much time with Hardt and Tamura as I had. As much as any embodiment of fear could, Ssserakis regarded them as friends. Only they had no idea it even existed, let alone counted them as such. Well, maybe they knew but they would never admit it. I wondered then, on the loneliness that Ssserakis felt, trapped inside with only me for company. And I was not always the best of company.
Don't pity me. Camaraderie quickly replaced by indignation. I am a lord of Sevoari. Friends are a concept of Ovaeris. Your world of light and bonds.
"Who are you trying to convince?" Ssserakis had no answer for me, but I found Hardt and Tamura both watching me. "You were telling a story, Tamura."
The old Aspect grinned and slipped back into the story as though the interruption had never happened. "The end of days had come. Garn Astromancers had predicted it. The mur Hydrobinders, even with their combined might, had been powerless to stop it. Ovaeris was dying, and the creatures of the dark had risen to claim its corpse.
"But in the darkest hour of our world came a new light; one that had been freed by the same cataclysm that wrought the end of the world. Only it was not one, but two lights. Two that had ever been at odds with the other, linked in both life and hatred. Two that had been separated and imprisoned for the chaos they might cause if left unchecked. Power came to Ovaeris, the likes of which both garn and mur had never seen before, had never dreamed possible. Their power left the Astromancers and Hydrobinders in awe. And then these now powers worked together to put the world right."
The Rand and Djinn do not work together.
"I thought Sevoari was the first time the two had worked together?" My words were almost an echo of my horror's.
Tamura shook his head in that way he had. His matted grey locks tumbled against each other and he let loose a wide smile, his eyes seemed to look through me and I had the suspicion then that he saw exactly what I harboured inside. "Sevoari was a failure because they worked apart, each trying to out manoeuvre the other to create something new. Ovaeris already existed, in peril. And the only way to save it? Unity of purpose. Working together to a common goal."
Unity of purpose.
"The final augury."
Tamura grinned. "The most important one. The one the Rand and Djinn never learned, refused to learn. In saving Ovaeris they combined their powers. The Djinn scoured the dust from the air and calmed the earth and seas. The Rand took the monsters rampaging across the surface, made bold by the failing light, and changed them into creatures of thought and peace. They saved the world by changing the world. Together."
"But it didn't last. Even with that success they couldn't abide one another."
Tamura looked at me and nodded. "Consider the coin." With a flick of his wrist, a gold coin appeared in Tamura's fingers. An old Terrelan mint, some long dead emperor's name on one side, a depiction of the moons on the other. "One thing, but two sides, always opposed and never able to meet."
"What about the edge?" Hardt asked.
Tamura snorted and sent a sidelong glance at Hardt. "We are the edge."
"I'm still not seeing the point of this story, old man."
Tamura sighed and pulled his gaze from Hardt, instead directing it toward me. "All things have value, but all value is subjective. One woman's pit, is another man's kingdom." He grinned.
"What about the thing on the other side of portals?" I asked. "Aerolis was terrified of it. Of it finding him."
"Ahhh." Tamura nodded. "The maker, the eyes, the nexus, the jailer. The parent. The god of gods. The Second Cataclysm."
It is cold. Power on a level even the Rand and Djinn cannot fathom. When the embodiment of fear, a creature of shadow and ice, tells you something is cold… it is worth listening.
"The Rand and Djinn did not end up trapped in our moons by accident. They were placed there. Rowdy children unwilling to work together, separated in their rooms." Tamura stopped and giggled. "But of course, they snuck out. Slipped away. Thought themselves safe."
Tamura's mind was ever a wonder to me. He struggled to remember yesterday, could not tell me of his past, and I'm not even sure he remembered the Pit, despite spending more years down there than I had seen. Yet he had all the memories of a Rand locked away inside, accessed easily when the contours of a story took him. Or when the correct questions were asked.
"But they aren't safe?"
"Making mistakes is easy…" Tamura paused.
"Correcting them is hard," I said.
"Impossible. One cannot unspeak a word, erase a footstep. What's done is done. During the War Eternal, at its height, there was a battle. Out in the Polasian desert, many Rand and many Djinn, tired with the stalemate of their war, collided. Power like that used to save Ovaeris, and create Sevoari, clashed." Tamura clapped his hands together, staring at me over the violence of it. "They tore a hole in the world. They brought themselves to the attention of their maker. And now it knows they have escaped. It watches, through the great hole above the desert, through the small tears that Sourcerers create. It watches, always looking for its unruly children."
Or those of us who carry their mark.
"A hole in the world over the Polasian desert?" Hardt asked. "I didn't see it."
Tamura pointed south. "What do your eyes see?"
Hardt squinted for a time and then shrugged. "The horizon."
"Past that?"
I laughed. "The desert is a big place, then. But this hole in the world. This thing watches through it?"
Tamura nodded. "Watches. Waits. Picks. Enlarges. One day the hole will be big enough to let it through, and Ovaeris will burn once more. The Second Cataclysm. Inevitable."
"It won't just take them and leave us be? There's only two of them left." Hardt didn't understand, he was thinking too rationally about creatures that defied rational thought.
"Look at the bottom of your foot," Tamura said. "What do you see." Hardt let out a growl of frustration.
"It won't care, Hardt." I decided to interject some clarity before the two started arguing. "It won't even see us. People, cities they mean nothing to a creature like that. We mean nothing to it."
Hardt grumbled. "I still don't see the point of the story."
; I did. I understood it all too well. The third Augury, a unity of purpose. It made sense now. The Rand and Djinn were never meant to use their powers apart. They were linked intrinsically, to be unified. And every time they defied that purpose, disaster followed. I understood the point of the story, but not the timing.
"It's time," I said as I stood, staring into the ruins of Picarr, my eyes locked on the rubble, all that was left of the Orran Academy of Magic. Hardt stood too, yet Tamura remained seated.
He is a weakness that will get you killed.
"You can't come with me, Hardt."
He shook his head and fixed me with his dark eyes. "We've already been through this. I'm coming with you, Eska. You might think you're all powerful, but you're going to need me in there."
My turn to shake my head. "I won't. You'll only get in the way."
I saw his pride take the hit. He knew it was true yet refused to accept it. "Don't count me out just yet. I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve."
So have we.
A sad smile snuck its way out of me, and I lurched forward, wrapping my arm around Hardt and giving him one last embrace. I breathed in deep and he smelled of comfort. I do not deserve Hardt, I never have. Not the trust he places in me, nor the strength he lends me. I have never deserved him, but I will always be glad he stayed with me, no matter what came of us. When I stepped back, I tore open a portal with a wave of my hand. He looked over his shoulder, confusion plain for all to see. The portal showed a small river, a wooden bridge crossing it, and green grass on either side. We had passed the place earlier that day, no more than a couple of hours travel by trei bird. But Hardt would not have a bird, and I could only hope that slowed him long enough.
"Eska…" I interrupted Hardt with a kinetic push that sent him tumbling through the portal backwards. He tripped on his feet and collapsed, and for a moment we stared at each other through that portal, a gulf of many miles between us. I saw the hurt on his face; his pride crushed along with the pain of my betrayal. A betrayal I would make time and time again, as many times as it took, to keep Hardt safe.
