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Dusk in Kalevia

Page 20

by Emily Compton


  “It’s just a disguise,” he said, and she sank back into her rocking chair with a hand pressed to her heart.

  “So you did find him in State Security.”

  “How...?” Toivo began to ask, and then he heard the cooing in the rafters where the messengers waited out the storm

  “News travels fast.”

  “Well, I found him, all right. Or rather, he found me. How much have you heard?”

  “That you had been arrested. Not much more.”

  Toivo picked some packed snow out of his collar and shifted restlessly in place. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he had spent the past few days in the company of an Angel of Shadow. His truce with Solas was too complicated to explain, and so he merely looked around the cabin, searching for something to say, building a wall to block her out of his thoughts. Snow fell outside the frost-laced window, but without fury--powder drifted lightly down through boughs of pine, a backdrop to the scents of smoke and baking bread mingling in the air.

  He settled for changing the subject. “I was watching a film before I came here.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was a legend about this magic mill that was never empty, and this witch, and... I don’t know, it was weird. Forget it.”

  Äiti laughed. “The Sampo? You’re supposed to be Finnish in this incarnation--I’d have thought you would know that one.”

  “You reminded me of the mother of that hero. The one who died.”

  “Something’s happened to you, Agent Valonen. Why don’t you tell me what’s really on your mind?”

  Toivo’s eyes returned to the window, unable to meet her gaze. “I saw a man get shot in the head today.”

  “We’ve all seen such things,” sighed Äiti.

  “His last words were things I said.”

  She looked at him with pity and shook her head. “You can’t blame yourself. You served your purpose, nothing more.”

  “They thought they could win because I convinced them they could. I’m a liar.”

  “So is Courage.”

  Toivo’s broken nails dug into his fists. “Why?” he rasped. “Why do they do this? Why do we do this? What’s the point?”

  “The point?” Äiti’s voice began to take on a scolding tone. “The point is you have a job to do. The point is to finish what you’ve started.”

  “But they’re dead!”

  “You’re still here--that means the spirit of the rebellion hasn’t been completely broken.” Äiti smoothed the front of her apron. “You were just talking about Lemminkäinen’s mother. She never gives up, even when her son lies slain by the riverside. After trying and failing many times, she brings him back to life.”

  Toivo could see it was hopeless to argue with her; her mind was made up. He could sense the forces that had shaped her image over the years into this little old grandmother living in the woods, the fruitless cliché at the heart of Kalevian nostalgia.

  Suddenly, he was aware of his own future should he emerge as the victor--he would remain on Earth, doomed to live with blood on his hands. Even if he killed Demyan, a new challenger would undoubtedly appear to keep him trapped in the cycle of strife, one unlikely to be as prone to fraternizing with the enemy. Toivo could already feel himself drowning in the ocean of human fear, and he thought of the Sampo sinking beneath the waves.

  Toivo made his decision.

  “Thank you, Äiti,” he said, as he briskly pulled his gloves back on. “I have to go.”

  “Leaving already?” She didn’t sound surprised.

  “Something I need to finish.” Toivo forced himself to smile a final goodbye as he threw open the door to the river and fled back into the whirling gale.

  **

  The door to apartment 13-07 looked the same as all the others in the tower. There was no suggestion that within this particular unit dwelt a piece of the existential dread had that dogged mankind since the dawn of sentience--it was just an ordinary painted metal door reflecting the anemic light of the wall sconces.

  Toivo wondered briefly if he had misremembered the apartment number, but then he felt the beginning of a familiar chill in his guts. There was no doubt--past this this door was Solas, his enemy, his ally, a force of great fear and keen need. The only being on Earth able to bring Toivo’s failed adventure to its inevitable conclusion. Toivo pounded on the door with his fist, pausing after each emphatic triplet of knocks to feel the sting prickle through the bones of his hand.

  “Solas,” he called, his cheek pressed against the metal. “Solas! Answer the door, damn you.”

  It was over a minute before Demyan emerged, clad in black silk pajamas and rubbing a towel over his still-damp hair.

  “What the hell are you doing back here?” he asked, ushering Toivo into the apartment with a raised eyebrow. “Haven’t had enough craziness for one day?”

  Toivo shook his head, shivering as rivulets of melting snow trickled down the back of his neck. “This needs to end. Tonight.”

  Demyan jerked back, eyes wide. Toivo raised his empty hands.

  “Don’t worry. I’m unarmed.”

  “You joking with me, Comrade?” Demyan scowled at him.

  “No joke. I surrender.”

  Toivo shrugged himself out of his sodden overcoat, let it slide to the floor, and followed it with the jacket of the hated uniform. He pulled off his boots and socks and made his way across the room, the ends of his trousers squelching under his bare feet, before collapsing on the modular sofa without a word.

  He let his head loll back, and stared at the black expanse of the ceiling, baring his throat to the man across the room.

  “Have you been drinking?” he heard Demyan ask.

  “No.” Toivo closed his eyes and drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m tired, Solas.”

  “So am I. Been a long day.”

  “No, that’s not... I mean, I’m tired of it.”

  “Of what?”

  “This.” He wrenched the word out, and it lay there between them, spiteful and foreboding--encompassing his body, the human world, everything. “I just want it all to be over.”

  He could feel his words sinking in; there was a lengthy pause before Demyan spoke again.

  “Wait, you came here to ask me...?”

  “Maybe like last time. Quick. Bang. Right in the heart.” Toivo sat up and spread his arms with a theatrically bitter smile.

  Demyan stared at him for a time with an inscrutable look on his face, the pallor of his cheeks enhanced by the cool green light of a hand-blown lamp. He looked as though he was about to say something, or be sick, or laugh; Toivo couldn’t tell which.

  Demyan finally spoke, in a voice little more than a whisper.

  “Fuck you.”

  “What?” Toivo realized that Demyan was shaking, and for a second wondered if he had misheard him; but then he saw the glint in Demyan’s eyes, and realized that the man was quivering with rage.

  “You heard me.” Toivo could feel the anger now--sharp little darts of fury that even Demyan could not suppress. “Zophiel, you fucking coward.”

  A defensive anger swelled up in Toivo, heating rapidly. “All right, fine--I’m a coward! What do you want me to say? I’m just so finished with this...this goddamn, wretched...”

  He could hear the emotion creeping into his tone, and he was embarrassed by the knowledge that Demyan could hear it, too. “The fear, the despair... It would be one thing if I could turn it off, but I can’t. They’re always calling me, crying out fix-me-help-me-mend-me...but they can’t be fixed. They’re always going to be broken and terrible and on the verge of losing everything. Every time, every goddamn time, no matter how much hope people have, it doesn’t matter--they still end up dead in the end. And it hurts every time! It hurts--”

  Demyan lunged at him in a fluid animal motion, cutting off his rant and pinning him back against the cushions with startling force.

  This time, Toivo didn’t fight against him. Letting his body go slack, he relaxed into t
he rough pressure against his chest, resigned to his fate. He wished that Demyan would at least refrain from using his bare hands--in his recollection, an unfortunately brutal way to go--but then, he had come here requesting an exit. He couldn’t be picky.

  “Enough,” said Demyan.

  The grip on Toivo’s shoulder relaxed; the hand pressing him into the back of the sofa withdrew. Demyan stared at him, his face calm, with no hint of the haughtiness that usually animated his features. Toivo could feel Demyan’s barrier waver and fall.

  Emotions began to seep through the fingertips on Toivo’s collarbone. There was anger there, yes, but mostly disappointment, with sadness and that familiar, immeasurable hollowness. Toivo remembered the interrogation room and the glimpse he had gotten of Demyan’s true nature--everything he was running from compressed into the form of a man.

  “It’s not that I don’t have any sympathy, but...listen. I say this as a natural-born cynic: cynicism doesn’t suit you.” Demyan swatted a decorative pillow to the floor and collapsed beside Toivo. “Me? Even when I win, I lose--I ruin everything I touch. I break hearts, nations, dreams. And you’re telling me that you have it so hard?”

  Perhaps he’s just...?

  “So what if you can’t fix things?” Demyan asked. “What even counts as fixing things in this world? What are you so afraid of? What--”

  Toivo placed his hands on either side of Demyan’s face.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Shh, I want to try something.” Toivo spread his fingers through the hair above Demyan’s ears, loosening a few damp strands to fall across his cheek. “It works better when there’s contact.”

  I’m going to have to face this.

  Toivo felt himself standing once more at the edge of the precipice, the infinite darkness stretching out below him...

  And he leapt.

  The fall was startlingly swift, a mental vertigo that struck him through with panic. This was what he felt when he looked at the humans--a helpless, tragic sense of his world spiraling out of control. He would shatter at the bottom of the black-hole maw. He struggled and cried out, bracing himself for impact...but there was no bottom to hit. Nothing below him but the endless void of space.

  Then, a realization came to him--falling there was just weightlessness.

  There, in the darkness, he flew.

  He saw through Solas’ eyes, felt the weight of Solas’ body as it lived its endless permutations. The loneliness there--the constant wanderings of a pariah who’d had power and pleasure but found hope forever denied--tore at Toivo. In a desperate attempt to quell that hunger, he did as he always had, and reached for his heart in a luminous burst of power.

  These are all the beautiful things I have seen in human hearts. This is the love of a man for his wife, the dreams of a child, the burning flame of a girl’s soul as she promises herself a better tomorrow. Every person whose soul you’ve sifted through looking for despair had a memory as bright and passionate as this. Here they are--the sides of humans you’ve devoured before you were able to see them. This is why they fight and survive, despite everything against them.

  He was a shining waterfall, tumbling down the dark cliffs of Solas’ soul, scattering memories in his wake. The centuries of fear leeched at him, but Toivo found he was as infinite as the darkness around him. Toivo opened himself to it, and it spilled through him like black ink in clear waters, smoothed into harmonious dusk. It was chaos; it was peace. He was a river that would never run dry.

  Far off, he heard Demyan gasp and struggle in his grip, and he opened his eyes for a moment, bringing himself back to the physical world.

  They were terribly close, their foreheads almost touching, Demyan’s brow flushed and beaded with sweat. Demyan moaned softly, and Toivo felt the secondhand rush as Demyan exulted in his gift. The smooth arc of Demyan’s cheek stirred something strange and impulsive in Toivo--a great sympathetic ache for Demyan, a hatred of the space between them.

  All you wanted, all these years...

  Without thinking, Toivo leaned forward to bridge the gap.

  The delicate brush of skin as Toivo felt his lips meet Demyan’s startled him; he pulled back, alarmed by the audacity of what he had done. He expected anger at his transgression, but the message he found instead on Demyan’s face--a raw combination of surprise and undisguised desire--destroyed his last resistance. Toivo pressed himself to Demyan’s chest, his trembling mouth joining his shadow’s.

  It was soft at first, like the first pale rays cresting the horizon. He felt Demyan relax in his arms, his mouth opening in invitation, embraced by the luminous strands of Toivo’s power that curled around them both. Toivo ran his tongue along Demyan’s lips, tasting the lingering toothpaste chill, and then suddenly Demyan was clutching at him, devouring his mouth with such ferocity that Toivo’s mind went white, leaving only the feverish yearning of his human body.

  Toivo dug his fingers into the stiff canvas of the couch, trying to ground himself as Demyan’s mind surged through him, wild with excitement. As their bodies and minds tangled, he lost track of where he ended and Demyan began; his senses fractured, pleasure shifting kaleidoscopic in the sensation of Demyan’s mouth on his collarbone, Demyan’s fingers sliding up the nape of his neck to twine in his snow-damp hair. As he felt Demyan’s tongue tease at his frost-nipped earlobe, Toivo was vaguely aware that for the first time in his memory, his shadow felt properly warm to the touch.

  The blood rushed through Toivo’s frame, a warm tension expanding through his stomach, his thighs, between his legs. He was a coiled spring under rapturous pressure, a brilliant fuse of anticipation burning at his core. Demyan’s strong hands raced across his back, and prongs of darkness pulled at him. He could feel it clearly now as the shadows bound him, the draw of his antipole; gravity and ecstasy.

  Toivo wasn’t quite sure how they made it into the bedroom. Circling, stumbling, kissing, they tumbled to the bed with a whisper of clean sheets as their hands roamed. Every time Toivo touched Demyan, he felt the reverberation of the feeling echoed back to him, the empathetic link driving him to distraction. Around them wound the stands of their power, light and shadow entwined.

  Silk rustled beneath Toivo’s palms as he struggled to find a way under Demyan’s pajamas. A button broke from the nightshirt and went spinning away into the darkness, and he heard Demyan laugh--a thick, rough chuckle that ended in a sigh. Toivo slid his hands beneath the shirt, up Demyan’s smooth stomach, brushing across his nipples and down the ridges of his ribs. Pleasure radiated through his fingers as Demyan arched his back, pressing himself close.

  “How long,” Demyan breathed, “since you got this body?”

  Toivo had lost all sense of time, and replied only with a mumbled moan, his tongue trapped against Demyan’s throat.

  Without warning, Demyan rolled, and Toivo found himself clasped beneath him, the angel’s form heavy and solid between his legs. As Demyan’s hips moved against him, heat and pleasure--a long-forgotten sensation from another life--exploded through Toivo’s frame. It tore a groan from his throat and he arched his spine, straining against the warm body above.

  “These bodies have their limits.” Demyan’s hands dug under Toivo’s back, pulling him hard against his torso. “May as well enjoy them.”

  The incense spice of sweat filled Toivo’s nose as he buried his face in the hollow under Demyan’s arm. With a small cry of desperation, he grabbed a fistful of hair and dragged Demyan’s mouth back down onto his own.

  It all makes sense, he thought hazily, giving himself over to the pull of Demyan’s soul.

  Two parts of a whole. Light and its shadow.

  Human.

  **

  Night was falling in the desert, and the stars were coming out. Demyan tried to read them, but they were unfamiliar and had nothing to say, offering no hint of his location. They danced above, shifting position whenever he took his eyes off them, falling in a rain of meteors and blooming anew in celestial fields. The
black outline of a mountain loomed on the horizon, a magnificent moon roosting at its peak.

  He knew where he needed to go. It called to him.

  He didn’t know if he walked for minutes, or hours, or days; the journey felt endless and the mountain came no closer. As he trudged naked across the plain, he tried to remember if he had been to this country before. There was none of the sagebrush fragrance of the American Southwest, no mountainous Gobi dunes--just a plain of white salt extending almost as far as his eyes could see, and the chill of the night on his bare arms.

  Thirst tore at him mercilessly, erasing any other thoughts from his mind. His tongue felt swollen and a fire burned in his parched throat, but he refused to avert his eyes from the pale beacon of the moon. He dragged himself forward, until at last he fell, despairing, to his knees.

  As Demyan looked skyward, the moon seemed to detach itself from the indigo twilight and began to descend. As it fell, it changed, lengthening into a glowing figure, the suggestion of a human form cut from its cool light. Long white hair tumbled over its slender shoulders, scattering a trail of sparks into the night.

  The androgynous being reached out and touched his cheek. Demyan leaned into the warm caress as it ran over his face and across his mouth, and then marveled as water flowed, glinting, into the cupped palm. Demyan pressed his lips to the luminous hand and drank deeply. It was pure and sweet like nothing he had ever tasted; he felt his strength rushing back to him. Droplets spilled and flooded the plain, turning the ground into an enormous mirror reflecting the inconstant stars.

  As Demyan stood, the water lapping at his shins, he realized that the blue light behind the mountain was growing brighter with each passing moment. He had been mistaken--it was not night, but the twilight before dawn. With a cry he leapt and caught Zophiel up in his arms, and together they fell with a splash down into the stars, his black crow wings a shadow cast by rays of light.

  Demyan woke in the night to feel the curve of a warm back pressing against him. His body still born aloft by the waves of the dream, he simply watched the white sheet rise and fall with Toivo’s breathing, possessed by a strange sense of contentment. He slid an arm over the man and drew him against his chest, the substantiality of Toivo’s form betrayed by the soft undercurrent of power that radiated from him even as he slept.

 

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