Beyond Oblivion

by Daryl Banner

  When she lets go of Dag’s face with her other hand, she does so after deliberately pulling upon him first, making the boy spin about in a dizzying pirouette and fall to the floor with a yelp.

  That second hand fuses onto the same arm where her first hand is bonded, but upon its backside instead, near the shoulder blade. He feels the bossy pull of another’s will upon his musculature, and the ugly girl Gin is now affixed to him through her hands.

  She smirks a nasty one. “You had this a long time coming,” the bitch reminds him. “And you deserve what you’re about to get.”

  Tide takes one breath. “And so do you.”

  Gin’s eyes falter, confused.

  The next instant, Tide steps one foot onto Dag’s chest heavily, making the boy grunt and cry out beneath him. And in that same instant, Tide lets out a scream as he lifts his arm and summons every stray bit of wind his Legacy can touch.

  It takes one second before the door behind Tide is blasted open, along with two windows, and the side door, and at once Gin is flung upwards by the wind, made airborne, and screaming too.

  Every pot and plate fly off the counter and soar across the room, shattering the windows behind her, and pulling twice as much wind through the room.

  Gin screams and screams in Tide’s face.

  And he screams back.

  The curtains fly out of the windows, too, billowing and flapping for half a second, then gone. Every stray scrap of colorful fabric and unfinished shirt or other project of Dag’s sails right away, forgotten.

  A chair flies past them and cracks against the opposite wall, all its pieces joining the storm and flying out the shattered windows.

  And Gin is still in the air, her feet up and dangling sideways as the wind screams past her face, so powerful it doesn’t once let her touch the ground again, her whole body rippling like a scarf that’s somehow gotten itself wrapped around Tide’s arm.

  But the force is not enough to rip her hands off of him.

  Tide feels every bit of the agony, too. Like a saw digging deeply into the flesh of his shoulder. Like his arm is chained to a thousand men who are running away at full power.

  Like bread at dinner being pulled apart, with Mira’s pretty eyes, and a polite offer of, “Want a big hunk of bread or a small one?”

  The door behind Tide pulls off its hinges and flies straight over his head, nearly buzzing off all his hair, and slams face-first into Gin with a sickening crunch.

  And then Gin is torn off of Tide’s body at long last.

  Along with one huge, bloody chunk of his shoulder.

  When the scream of wind dies, it’s replaced at once by Tide’s. He barely even notices what happened as he drops to the floor right on top of Dag, screaming into the boy’s face as he clutches his arm—or a cavity where his arm and shoulder once were.

  What’s left of it?? Do I have an arm?? Is it still there??

  He can’t tell. His blood pours over the body of Dag in spurts synchronized to his urgent heartbeats. Dag keeps blinking over and over, crying out words Tide can’t understand. Not that Tide would be able to hear them anyway through his own shrieking. Why’s there so much fucking blood?? Do I still have an arm?? Where’s—??

  Tide’s eyes rock back suddenly.

  All the blood flees his face in full.

  Splayed out atop the body of his gasping, half-crushed boy, he feels his stomach turn one last time with the threat of letting loose his evening’s meal all over Dag’s face. But before he gets the chance to know the next thing at all, darkness steals him.

  0327 Mercy

  I am blood and bone and poison in the shape of …

  Mercy, at this point, is kicking back in a chair, drowsy after her ninth glass of hard red wine, which is some of the strongest stuff she has ever tasted. It might have something to do with her immunity to poison—as is a side effect of her Legacy—but usually alcohol has little to no effect on her. This wine, however, has made a total spin of her head, and she’s nearly as giggly as Desura herself.

  Enough so to carry on half a conversation. “If you are so in love with this shit in your house,” Mercy goes on, the remaining half of her glass dangling between a few loose fingers, “why do you leave it all sitting around and dis … and disorganized? Like, make a fucking display case or … or something.”

  Desura giggles and cackles at that. “I’d need to hire one or two creative woodworkers for that, yes, and a glassworker, too! I would need seventeen of them in my upstairs gallery, yes, I would, I would! What a delight! Has anyone seen my daugh—”

  “No, for fuck’s sake,” snaps Mercy, then leans forward in her chair almost too much, causing it to lean. “Do you have a husband? Did you? Did he die? Did you watch him die? Have you wreaked vengeance on the one responsible for killing him?”

  “Oooh, what a sad story, I must say. But with a happy ending, as my daughter is a Daughter of Sanctum, now! Well, one of them. My other daughter still hasn’t come home from her great journey, ooh, her great and great and great journey …”

  “How long has she been gone on this journey?”

  “Nineteen years.”

  Mercy scoffs. “Lady, your daughter is probably dead. She is dead or she is married off to some possessive man in the eleventh who runs dark back-alley businesses, because nineteen years??” She finds herself laughing. “Oh, you sad, sad woman.”

  The more she drinks, the more her thoughts turn instantly into words before she can filter any of them.

  Strangely, Desura is the most difficult person to hurt, offend, or frighten. She only laughs with Mercy. “Ooh, perhaps! Dead, hah! Ah, ooh, death is quite funny. My husband is dead, too! Maybe they are dancing along together in the stars!”

  “They can join my dead lover, then. He will show them a certain black star of mercy named after me.”

  Pion and Leeth, bored and sitting among their gadgets, stare at their respective screens waiting for a sign of anyone to show up in the Crystal Court. It’s been nearly a whole day, maybe longer. The sun has come up, and has just gone down again. Two meals have been made and shared by Scot, who has slowly taken it upon himself to clean a spot in the kitchen to do some cooking.

  The remnants of their latest meal sit on the short living room table before them, their plates emptied with grease and crumbs still decorating them.

  “You have pretty lipstick upon your lips!” sings Desura, then she cackles. “Oh, but you would look prettier with my purple about your eyes, yes, oh, I have so many colors, so many colors, oh, ho, ho, have you seen my daughter?”

  “My lipstick is my Legacy,” announces Mercy after another sip of her hard red wine. “I can make my lips green. I’m a Morph. And no, purple isn’t my color. Black is. I used to wear black about my eyes, until …”

  The ash she’d taken from Dran’s apartment ran out months ago. She remembers that night when she scraped the last of it from that tiny container and spread it over and under her eyes. For that night, as she peered at her reflection in a puddle by the side of the road after a recent rain, she felt like it would be the last time she’d ever be close to her lover Dran. Staring into that puddle, almost unable to make out her own face, it was like she was staring into his. Dran, my love, my forever love, my everything.

  Mercy thrusts the fingers of her free hand between her legs suddenly, then moans as she squeezes her legs together. Aye, that’s the spot, my lover, that’s the spot …

  “Ooh, black is a color, yes, any designer will say, it isn’t a lack of color, but rather a color itself. Black is beauty and richness and full of dreams, it is, ooh, ho, ho, it is!”

  Mercy can’t seem to stop rubbing herself between her legs suddenly. She bites her lip and leans back in her chair, her breathing changed. Dran, oh, Dran, oh, Dran …

  “Who is this?” comes a voice.

  It’s a peculiarly twisty, high-pitched voice that does not belong to Desura, or Pion, or Leeth, or Scot.

  Mercy opens her eyes upon the broadcast of the
Crystal Court.

  A man is there.

  He looks half a reptile, half a human. All his skin is silver scales, except for his face, which is a circle of pale, smooth flesh. His irises are vertical slits that, at first appearance, makes Mercy recoil from the screen in fear.

  Mercy drops her glass, which crashes to the floor, forgotten, and then she is sitting up straight and putting her face toward the lens, remembering herself. “I am Mercy. I demand to speak to the Queen of Atlas, Erana Sparrow.”

  “Ooh, ho, ho, ho, that’s the same as my daughter’s name!” sings Desura from behind.

  The man isn’t altogether lovely to look at, but his voice is oddly pleasant when he replies. “Where are you broadcasting from, might I ask? I had assumed all the Lower City producers to be defunct.”

  “I am broadcasting from an undisclosed location,” she decides to say, “and I have as my hostage the Queen of Atlas’s mother herself, the one by the name of Desura Sparrow.”

  The man frowns. “And what do you hope to do with the Queen once you have her attention, my dear girl?”

  Mercy bristles. “That business is between Erana and myself.”

  Desura sings from behind her, “I get to speak to my daughter! Oh, I’ve procured a lovely emerald necklace I’d like her to have!”

  The man sighs heavily, then shakes his head. “I’m terribly sorry, my girl, but the Queen is indisposed. She is safely up in Cloud Keep and, I’m quite afraid, she will not be coming out to entertain you.”

  Mercy is out of her chair in a rage. “I demand to see her!!” she screams, not even aware for a moment that the only part of her the camera lens now picks up is her waist, since she’d stood up. “I will speak to the Queen at once! Need you proof of my hostage??”

  Mercy points her whole hand at the woman and snaps her fingers. Pion and Leeth, perhaps having forgotten their signal from a whole day or two ago, scramble to fix the cameras, and then with a tap of a button, the broadcast now shows Desura’s face, which is red in the cheeks with drunken merriment. “Ooh, my face!” sings the woman, her wet eyes flashing wide as she observes herself on the big screen. “Hello, there!”

  “I’m sorry,” recites the man, as if from a script, “but I, nor the Queen, will entertain your demands, no matter if—”

  Mercy comes behind Desura, pulls out her knife, and brings it to the woman’s throat at once. “I SWEAR TO THE SISTERS, TO ALL THE RESTING KINGS AND QUEENS OF ATLAS’S PAST, I WILL SLIT HER FUCKING THROAT IF YOU DON’T BRING ME TO THE QUEEN AT ONCE! I FUCKING SWEAR IT!”

  Desura giggles and laughs, like this is part of the entertainment.

  The folds of her fatty neck dance and bounce about the blade of Mercy’s knife as she laughs.

  Pion and Leeth gape at Mercy, horrified, frozen in place.

  The polite-voiced, rigid man on the screen with the silver scales, however, is unmoved by the performance. “I’m quite sorry for your and Desura’s circumstance, but the Queen will not be seeing her. I must now advise that you cease your illegal broadcasting operations at once, or I shall be forced to send the Sky Guard upon you.”

  Mercy is breathing heavily, her head spinning from the wine, the knife pressed so firmly to Desura’s giggling, merry throat that one jerk of her arm will end the woman’s life.

  “Sweet girl called Mercy,” says the man, “might I pray you allow me to exercise my own mercy upon you in this matter, and forgive and forget your unfortunate transgressions, if you so obey and cease this folly. Good day.”

  “NO!” screams Mercy, shaking, her wine-stained teeth clattering together. “NO! I DEMAND TO SEE THE QUEEN! I DEMAND IT!”

  But the man has already walked away, and all Mercy sees on the screen is the same thing they’ve stared at for over a day now: the shining, glimmering, purple-blue-and-white backside of the Crystal Court in all its glory and nothingness.

  All Mercy hears is her own pulse in her ears, now and then punctuated by another crazed giggle or outright laugh from Desura, who is just having the time of her life, oblivious to everything.

  Mercy lets go the woman, then slumps away, dejected, angry, drunk, and lost. Scot calls out her name once, but she ignores it, then finds herself in the kitchen standing in front of a precarious tower of dirty pots and large copper decorative serving dishes. She stares at that tower and wonders what it will take for it to tip.

  “Mercy …” comes Scot’s voice. “I’m sorry. Maybe this wasn’t a good plan to begin with. Perhaps we should take a different tack …?”

  She doesn’t respond. Her head spins too much for words.

  It is inevitable that a shaky tower of things will tip. It is inevitable. It just takes that one thing … that one thing …

  Why can’t I find that one fucking thing …?

  “This is not what we agreed to,” states Leeth’s dignified tone as he comes to the entranceway of the kitchen. “We were expecting all this time to reunite the Queen with her slum-bound mother Desura. We were not expecting to … to threaten poor Desura’s life to make demands of the … of our Queen!”

  “I-I’m sorry,” says Scot, moving out of Mercy’s sight and dealing with the Lifted Lord. “Truly. There is a much … a much deeper story here, I assure you. If you stay, you’ll find—”

  “We are most definitely not staying,” announces Leeth with due dignity. “Lord Pion has gathered up all our equipment, disconnected from the City, and we are most certainly leaving. I would wish you both the best, but now as I know your mal intent, I wish you nothing but to return to the dark wells of slumborn filth from whence you both came.” With that, the stomping footsteps of two Lifted Lords make their way through the house, through the front door, and out of Mercy’s life forever.

  Scot comes back into view, but only to lean against the counter with a dejected sigh and say nothing. A tiny whimper of a laugh comes from the living room where Desura likely still sits in her chair with a glass of wine, giggling at nothing and muttering to herself.

  “They didn’t even have the courtesy,” notes Mercy, in a voice so flat and devoid of energy, she might as well be delivering the words at a funeral, “of shutting the door.”

  Scot pushes away from the counter and crosses through the front archway to the foyer. When he reaches the door, his footsteps stop abruptly. “Uh, M-Mercy …”

  She lifts her head.

  At once, pouring into the house come countless Guardian in full gear and with neons and swords drawn. “FREEZE! HANDS UP!” each of them shout. “DOWN ONTO THE FLOOR! GET ON THE FLOOR! ALL OF YOU! DOWN, DOWN, DOWN!” They rush inside in such a number, ten are in the foyer, ten are in the dining room behind Mercy, and ten have situated themselves all over the kitchen, all their guns pointed at her, all of their faces covered by their big black helmets, by their bulky orange-and-black suits, by their boots and gloves and thick gear.

  Mercy doesn’t have the fight left in her anymore. She sees all of the faces, all of the armor, and at once, a tear reaches her eye. Slowly at first, Mercy lifts her hands in surrender. This is it, she decides. She drops to her knees, hands still up. This is as best as I could do, Dran. This is as far as I go. She feels her chest heavy with the tears she wants to, at long last, cry. Tears she’s withheld for so long. Tears she would cry for her fiancé’s brother, for her fiancé, for every person whose life she took along her thick and winding journey toward her absolute, perfect revenge. It would’ve been so easy, so easy …

  Perhaps now, she’ll finally unite with Dran. She’ll be sentenced, executed, and met at long last with her love. Perhaps I ought to bring my fingers between my legs one final time, just in case …

  “STATE YOUR NAME!” shouts the Guardian nearest her.

  Mercy doesn’t respond. She only stares ahead, dead-eyed, ready for the end. She could make a quick end of it all if she so chose by simply attacking one of the Guardian and allowing them to kill her in one merciful instant.

  How brilliant a way to end, by a stroke of someone else’s mercy.
r />   “I SAID STATE YOUR NAME!”

  She turns her lazy, drowsy head toward the shouting Guardian. She studies all his bulky black-and-yellow armor, wondering how much it would slow him down as he tried to chase after her.

  Wait. Black and yellow? Wasn’t it orange a second ago?

  “STATE YOUR NAME!”

  She looks up at the scene around her. The Guardian in all of their positions. Each of them looking just like the others next to them, their bulky black-and-yellow armor, like copies of each other.

  Lazy copies.

  Something isn’t right.

  “STATE YOUR NAME!”

  Instead, Mercy rises to her feet. “What’s going on here?” Mercy asks, a rhetorical question to no one in particular. Yes, I’m drunk, and yes, my head still spins, but I know when a thing is amiss, and there is certainly fucking something amiss. “Who is doing this?”

  “BACK ON YOUR KNEES! STATE YOUR NAME, WOMAN!”

  “Please!” calls out Scot, who is lying on the floor of the foyer, quivering like a baby, terrified, his face drained of color. “D-Do what they say, Mercy! Do what they say! It’s over, Mercy! It’s over!”

  How did they arrive so quickly? Even drunk, Mercy is able to push through the broken logic and make questions in her head.

  “STATE YOUR—”

  “My name is none of your fucking business,” she announces, but not to the Guardian. She speaks as if addressing all of them, or something else entirely. “How about you tell me what your name is, wherever you are?” She moves past the Guardian, almost as if she isn’t seeing them, moving toward the foyer. None of the Guardian move out of her way, and yet none of them seem to be in her way. Psychist work, she knows at once, somehow, impossibly. “Come out and play, if you’re so big and bold,” she calls out.

  The next time Mercy blinks, all of the Guardian are gone.

  Scot lifts his head off the floor, astonished, then slowly (and very cautiously) rises to his feet, as if he’s afraid the floor beneath him might drop away at a moment’s notice. “W-What happened …?” he breathes, his voice shaking.