The projectile came out with a deviant sucking sound. I let it fall onto the ground, along with blood that gathered on it like syrup.
Rovid was breathing hard, his black eyes bigger than I’d ever seen them. Lysa moved into position, pressing cloth against the wound.
“That hurts,” Rovid said flatly. “But not nearly as bad as that fucking thing hurt coming out. Oh, gods. Gods, gods, gods.”
Once Lysa stymied the flow of blood, she slathered on her herb paste, then sutured him up.
“All done,” she said finally. “I’ll give you some medicine to take with you. You’ll have to smash it into a paste like I did, but if you rub it on every day, it should keep the festering at bay.”
“Well, you can keep an eye on him,” I said. “It’s due time we get you out of here. I read your notes.”
Lysa brightened. “They got to you, then? Good. Listen. Serith and Nilly are still alive. Not my parents, but the reaped I’d been researching. I stowed them away inside the library.”
I clapped my hands. “I knew the good luck would start pouring in hot and fast. Always the optimist here.” I winked at my commander, whose mouth formed a frown. “All right, let’s go. And you can tell me all about how you tricked Occrum on the way out of this place.”
Strangely, no one seemed to be exceptionally pleased. I understood Rovid’s dissatisfaction. Bastard just got an arrow yanked out of his arm. But Vayle and Lysa — they should’ve been jumping for joy. We finally had a way to end this mess.
“Let’s go,” I said again. “Unless you believe there’s a reason to wait. It better be a good reason, because I’m fairly certain Mizridahl’s in the process of being sacked by dead things.”
“Astul,” Lysa said, her eyes tumbling to the ground. She folded her lips in, then out. “I can’t go with you.”
“Why not?”
Lysa brought her hands together, massaging them deeply. She looked at Vayle, who seemed to give her a reaffirming nod, as if she knew something I was not privy to.
“I’m… I mean.” She closed her eyes as she took a big breath, then opened them upon releasing it. “Astul, I’m dead. I’m part of this world now.”
My temples throbbed. I clapped my thighs and tried to make a word or two with a voice buried beneath the inundation of disbelief and… well, an emotion I do not like to court.
“You knew,” I said to Vayle. “How?”
“It was obvious,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Lysa said. “It was the only way I could outwit Occrum.”
The hits kept coming. “Back up,” I said. “You’re telling me this was all a ruse, then? The notes, the plea for help. You killed yourself in Lith? Occrum never got his hands on you?”
Her face turned up in a sideways smile. “I thought you’d be proud. There was only one way out, and I took it. Think what would have happened if he’d captured me. I’m tough, Astul — I am. But I’m not invincible. He would have broken me, and I refused to take that chance. And it wasn’t a ruse. You would never have found Serith or Nilly without coming here.”
Maybe another time I’d have half a mind to be proud. But not now. Not here. Not seeing her like this. She didn’t look any different physically, sure, but knowing the girl I was talking to would never again set foot in my realm, how are you supposed to imagine that? Be at peace with it?
“You’re certain they are safe?” Vayle asked.
“Serith and Nilly? Absolutely. It’s kind of weird, dying. You don’t… I hope I’m not breaking a weird metaphysical rule by telling you this, but you don’t go anywhere right that instant. Your eyes close, and you feel a strange calm wash over you. Then, you’re there. Over your body. And you hear a voice, feel something or someone beckoning you. But I waited. I waited until the reapers who stormed the library left, and they were there for a while. They turned up every shelf and nook they could find. But they never got their hands on Serith or Nilly. I hid them in a special place. After the reapers went away, I gravitated toward the voice.”
Rovid rubbed his patched arm nervously. “What happens if you don’t go toward the voice?”
Lysa shrugged. “Dunno. It got a lot louder and more persistent as time went on, though. Don’t think you have much of a choice.”
“What of Kale?” I asked.
The slight turn of her head and tightness of her lips told me everything I needed to know.
“He had the same madness and passion for the Rot that you used to have,” Vayle said. “It’s the way he would have wanted to go.”
I snapped my head around, ready to lay into my commander for questioning my passion for the Black Rot. But I bit down on my harsh words and said nothing. It was only a few months ago I’d deemed the Black Rot finished. So maybe she was right. At least on the right path, at any rate.
“How’d you know we’d come here?” I asked Lysa.
“Easy. You had to pass by to get to Occrum. I was watching for you from the top floor since a week ago. You surprised me by actually coming into the city. Listen. I belong to this world now. I can conjure you a phoenix here, get you back to Mizridahl within the day.”
“Can the phoenix enter the tear?” Vayle asked.
“Um. I’m not sure. I mean, it can. But I don’t know if it will survive, since it’s from Amortis.”
Vayle was probably going to say something along the lines of how that would be problematic because we had precious time and few ways to cross a barren sea in a timely manner, but I interrupted her before she could convey her concerns.
“We’re not going back to Mizridahl,” I said. “Not until I have Occrum’s head.”
Lysa put her hand on my arm. “Astul, no. Please. He wants you to do that. If you turn his reaped against him, he can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t hurt anyone on Mizridahl.”
“He’ll come up with a way,” I said. “And he can still hurt the people here. Either he dies or I do. One way or the other, it ends soon.”
“You’re not thinking clearly!” Lysa said, grabbing both my arms now, shaking me as if it would rearrange my madness into logic.
“I am thinking very clearly,” I said, nary an emotion in my eyes or in my words. The greatest pain is fast, and it’s fleeting, and it numbs you. It’s times like these, when you’re struck with life’s fiercest truths, that you find out who you truly are.
In the end, I was a vengeful man. And a liar. Because Lysa was right, but I would defend my choice any way I could. I’d see Occrum’s eyes pop as my hands tightened around his neck. And just before he’d breathed his last breath, I’d relax my grip. Let life pour back into him, before I cut it out piece by piece, inch by inch.
And I’d have ten thousand friends all too willing to help.
Say my name, I thought. That was what he told me to do. Say his name and he would appear. And so I said it. I said it loud and I said it clear.
Chapter 28
“First of all,” Vayle said, as indignant as I’d ever seen her, “that’s not natural.”
“Suspend your disbelief as to what’s natural,” I said.
“I have tried. But that… no. I won’t. He appeared the moment you said his name.”
“It’s his thing,” I said.
Vayle craned her neck, peering down the steps. “He doesn’t look natural, either.”
“You’re being far too critical.”
“Maybe. But you cannot deny he speaks strangely.”
“What’s wrong with the way he speaks?”
“I can feel it in my skull. Have you ever seen his mouth move?”
With rising eyebrows, I was ready to disregard that question entirely. But when I thought about it… hmm. “Now that you mention it, no, I haven’t. It’s not something I look at, though.”
“There’s something off about him,” Vayle said.
“Well, he’s lending us ten thousand reaped. So, unless you have good proof he’ll murder us in the night or something, I’m enlisting his help.”
Vayle chewed her
cheek thoughtfully. “I disagree with this strategy. Lysa’s approach is the better one.”
“Normally, I would be all ears. But—”
“It’s personal,” Vayle said. “I understand. But I cannot follow you. I must find Nilly and Serith.”
I leaned against the wall. “Dissent?” I said, smirking.
“I’m glad you’re not holding it against me. Even you know when you’re in the wrong, hmm?”
I pushed off the wall. “I’m not in the wrong, Vayle. Neither are you. You fight one front, I’ll fight the other. Maybe we’ll meet in the middle, what do you say?”
She grabbed the neck of my jerkin and yanked me in. “I say… see you on the other side, Shepherd.” She grinned, then threw her hand playfully into my face, pushing me away.
I walked down the steps, to the first floor. There Ripheneal was chatting up Lysa and Rovid.
Once their little discussion was over, I said, “I want the ten thousand reaped.”
“Wonderful,” Ripheneal said. “You’ll find them waiting at the cove.”
“The cove?”
“You want their help in your bid to unseat Occrum, yes?”
“Yeah, but… did I tell you that?”
Ripheneal looked at Lysa; the two of them tried to hide their growing smiles. “Consider sleeping before you depart,” he said. “A forgetful memory is a harbinger of far worse effects from sleep deprivation.”
I’d swear I hadn’t told him a thing about my plans. “There’s not a chance I can bring those ten thousand reaped here, have Lysa work her little magic and restore their souls, or thoughts, or personalities, or what have you, and then take them to Watchmen’s Bay and bypass this Serith and Nilly business, is there?”
“The moment they pass through a tear,” Ripheneal said, “their minds will again be obliterated.”
“Right. It can never be simple, can it?”
Vayle came down the steps, hands in her hair, tying her raven locks behind her head. “Lysa,” she said, “the phoenix, please.”
Lysa appeared confused. “I thought… oh. You two are—”
“Going on different paths,” Vayle said.
“I understand. I’ll meet you outside. If you spot a bird, keep your eyes on it, please.”
Rovid sat up in his chair. “Wait just a damn second. Who am I going with? ’Cause, if I have my choice…”
“You’re not a slave,” I told him. “You do have your choice.”
He jumped up. “Right. No offense, Astul, but” — he waved his hands around — “well, you understand.”
I grinned. “I understand. Be safe, Rovid.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Yeah, you too. You too.”
“And I,” Ripheneal said, “have matters to attend. I wish you victory.”
“Now that’s a surprise,” I said. “I’d think you’d be personally vested in Occrum’s death.”
“Hence my offer. But as I said, I’ve matters to attend. Goodbye, and good luck.”
As he walked out of Big-Ass Building Number One, I hollered at him to wait. But he was already gone. “Damn. I forgot to look at his mouth. Did it move when he spoke?”
Lysa looked at me queerly. “That’s kind of a weird question. Although now that you bring it up, I’m not really sure.”
“Well, anyways…”
She twiddled her fingers. “Anyways…”
My hand gravitated to the back of my neck — the universal expression for what the fuck do I say now? A sigh, a sway of the head, and then, “Why’d you have to go and die, Lysa?”
She parted her silky blond hair. Brighter than the sun, those strands. Warmer, too. “You know,” she said, “it was the only way I could stop dreaming, and start living.”
“What are you, a riddle speaker now?”
“I could have never helped people on Mizridahl the way I wanted to. There’s too much conflict. All the terrible hatred for conjurers, for one. Contemptible lords and kings wanting to use my name to regain the South for themselves, like Braddock. Here, there is none of that.”
“That you know of,” I said.
She conceded the point with tilt of her head. “Yes, you’re right. But I really, truly believe this place is different. It’s… good, you know?”
“Thought you didn’t believe in good and evil.”
“I didn’t believe in an afterlife at one point either. People… I guess I was wrong about them. They do change.” She paused. “But you won’t change your mind, will you?”
I raised a brow.
“About going after Occrum. It’s a bad idea, Astul. I really think it is. You should go with Vayle.”
I smiled and offered her a gentle tap of my knuckles on her chin. “Stay safe, will you? No mingling with reapers or getting yourself in trouble.”
She closed her eyes, then slowly opened them, resigned to the fact that her appeal to reason wouldn’t sway me. “Here. I wrote this for you. I never finished it, but… I don’t have anything else to give you. Maybe it’ll bring you luck.”
She placed a torn piece of paper in my hand. It said this.
In Vereumene, where I hated you.
In Vereumene, where I last thought about you.
“A poem?” I said.
“The start of one. I’m not very good at these things.”
I smiled, folded the paper up and stuffed it in my pocket. I turned to the door, then stopped and faced Lysa again. “By the way, I’m sorry.”
By the time she asked why, I was out of the building. And moments later my feet were in the stirrups, reins in my hands and wind in my face.
There are lot of bad feelings in life. But none worse than knowing you failed. It’s failure that callouses over the glint of your eyes, the passion in your heart. It’s failure that dismantles all the pride you’ve built up and the reputation you’ve acquired. And when you fail for that final time, and you’ve got nothing possibly left to give, that’s when you really know if you’ve got what it takes. You’re stripped to the core. Nothing to hold you back. No pride, no fear, no happiness, no sadness. As primitive and raw as you can be.
That’s a dangerous man there, and Occrum would know it.
Chapter 29
Thousands of white bones swamped the meadow in the color of snow, washing out all the yellows and blues and pinks of the pretty little wildflowers that grew underfoot.
Here they were, my lovely army of the dead. Intimidation! Fury! The unequal terror of animated cadavers.
Well, those were my expectations. Reality was rather different. Disappointing, you might say.
Instead of set jaws, black, whirling horror seething from empty eye sockets, and a disposition that would make even a knight’s stomach curdle in fear, an army of misfits greeted me.
Some heads were hanging crooked on broken necks, tilted sideways on shoulders of chipped bone. Festering green chunks of flesh dangled from joints and between fingers and in the webs of toes, which was expected, but the reaped’s tendency to put the chunks in their mouth and chew and swallow was rather… off-putting.
I walked over to them, taking a closer look. A couple heads bobbed as I approached, like parrots. Unlike parrots, the bastards said, “Braaagggh!”
And they puked up bile all over my boots.
“Thanks,” I said, smearing the slimy green fluids into the dirt. “Appreciate it.”
On the bright side, at least they weren’t trying to eviscerate me like the reaped in Lith. Which brought about an interesting question: why? Obviously when reapers mobilized the reaped in the living realm, they were able to bend their will somehow. I imagined through some sort of brainwashing. But how was it that Ripheneal had put them under my command when they’d never seen me until now? Maybe Vayle was on to something in her distrust of him. After all, a reaper with that kind of power? You’d think Occrum would feel challenged, threatened.
Oh well. He’d gifted me an army, and I sure as shit wasn’t one to decline presents.
“Do you speak?” I
asked the reaped.
Some of them did. Some gurgled and burbled like toddlers. Others didn’t have mouths with which to make sounds; their jaws were either hanging off their faces or missing altogether.
“I know of a good woman who can make you whole again,” I said. “See to it that the man who is ultimately responsible for your fate dies tonight, and I’ll bring you to her.”
Not a peep. I wondered if they understood the monsters they had become, or if they were as unaware as a cow meandering through his lovely field that was owned by a butcher.
“Do you know the man I speak of?” I asked. “His name?”
A word slithered from a disconnected voice. “Occcrummm.”
Those able to speak repeated the name, and those who couldn’t nodded along.
For a moment, my mind began putting make-believe faces to the blanched skulls of my reaped army, wondering who they were, what their stories were before they’d been perverted into this. But I snapped out of it, unwilling to torture myself. Their past life did not matter now. They were my tools. My swords. The trick Occrum never saw coming.
“Come,” I told them, stepping into the cove. And they moved like a proper army, ranks shuffling ahead, shoulders bobbing all the way back as far as the eye could see, ten thousand deep, at least.
There is, it turns out, one minor pitfall to commanding an army so large. They take a fucking lifetime to cross through tears and into another realm. Bones were still clattering into the cove and pouring into the grass of Occrum’s island thirty minutes after I’d initially arrived.
A good question to ask at this point, and one that I indeed wondered about, was why hadn’t Occrum made an appearance? The moment my mind had entered the living realm again, my thoughts would have been scribbled into his little book. And I hadn’t made a good effort to hide them, so he would have known my intentions. A preemptive attack at that point seemed like a sound strategy for him.
But his island lay as silent as the eternal curtain of fog around it. The fog finally made sense: likely some conjuration to conceal himself from the rest of the world.
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