Orick shared nothing more during their trip to ground level, and was the first to step off the elevator platform when it touched down. The air here was better—there were rifts everywhere, forgotten ways that had healed right, but could still be split by an able hand. He approached the first one he saw, rupturing it momentarily with a swipe. It disappointed, and he abandoned it without another thought.
“What are you seeking?” Poe asked.
Orick was tempted to ignore him, but knew the stupid questions would keep coming until he got them out of his life.
“Rousow said you’d been jumpin’ worlds via rifts that connect ’em,” he replied. “I know where Maraius lives on TseTsu: it’s called the Isle of the Howling Moor, and somewhere around here—nope, not that one—there’s a way in.”
“The Isle of…?” Chari echoed in quiet disbelief.
“You possess the powers of a god,” Poe challenged Orick. “Why not just will us there?”
“Don’t work that way, fucktard.”
“You really aren’t trying to win any friends here, are you?” Zaja asked.
“I’m a god. Don’t need any friends,” Orick growled. “Can’t open ways to new worlds—only will myself to places where powerful conflicts are beginning or have broken out.”
“Pretty quiet around here. How’d you come back?”
“That’s my business,” he said simply. He stopped before one of the scars in the air. He’d found what he was looking for, and glanced back. “I can’t make new ways, but I can see the ones others opened, the ones that closed like they were supposed to.”
Orick thrust his hands forward and applied all his will, and a rift to TseTsu opened before him. He could sense the urgency it once held, that which had driven then-goddess Airia Rousow to find her way to Thoris.
“Now get the fuck outta here,” he ordered, stepping aside.
Orick did not spare eye contact for any of them as they walked through the rift and vanished. The Trynan soldier, the only local of the bunch, approached it with some trepidation, but with Flynn’s urging, she stepped through.
Flynn was the last, and he stopped long enough to glance at Orick. “Roxanne Santiaga is alive.” And then he vanished from Thoris forever.
“The fuck was that?!” he sputtered with impotent fury as the rift closed. He had half a mind to force open it again, drag Flynn back, and demand answers.
Orick tried to shake the idea off and walked away, but something in Flynn’s tone convinced him it was more than just a cold joke. Yet he’d felt it when Roxanne had died—the longstanding void the absence of her power had left.
Before he could explore any thoughts of investigation, a new sense of awareness fired within him. For a moment, he thought it was a fellow god, but the sensation wasn’t right. Whoever it was, they were beneath his level. But Orick knew they were of the Reahv’li, and that was enough reason to panic, to consider running before he remembered what Flynn had told him. In all probability, they had been keeping an eye on him for some time. They also had too many reasons not to kill him for Orick to truly be afraid.
They were on his home turf and there were a thousand war zones he could disappear to. Emboldened, he walked alone toward the vast, creaking doors leading outside.
“Better see what the assholes want…”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Living in the Past
The twin moons in the night sky drifted like familiar, watchful eyes; Chari knew in an instant they’d come to TseTsu, and hoping for anything less would be childlike.But still, she had hoped.
They had landed on bedrock, surrounded by a curtain of vines so thick they could see nothing beyond. Chari pulled a bunch aside and forced her way through. She was looking south, and recognized Cordom in the distance. It was there she’d learned as a young maiden to hide her true self within a priestess’s frock. It served to confirm their location: the Isle of the Howling Moor, miles from the city’s northern port.
“Orick has not led us astray,” she confirmed upon returning. “We’ve arrived.”
“This journey’s end,” Poe murmured contemplatively.
“Einré Maraius is here,” Flynn said. “At least … someone of her magnitude is.”
“Flynn…?” Chari asked reluctantly. “Many months before, when we first met, did you not … sense her, then?”
He shook his head. “My senses are improving all the time. Before we met, Death herself stood before me and I did not know her. Now, I feel so much more.”
“So she coulda been here all along?” Jean asked. “Seems fuckin’ roundabout if ya ask me.”
“We weren’t part of all this when we came here the first time,” Flynn said. “We were just trying to find a place where the world would let us be.”
Chari noticed Zaja, who was walking about the bedrock as if looking for something. “Have you lost something?”
“No, just … listening,” Zaja replied faintly. She turned to Chari, clearly a little agitated. “Why is it called the Isle of the Howling Moor? I don’t hear any howling, and I don’t see any moors, for that matter, either.”
Chari reached out and tugged at one of the numerous vines walling off their surroundings. “It’s an old name, from when this island had a role in TseTsuan history. It’s said a great many things happened here. Important things, that shaped my world.” She released the vine, and turned back to Zaja. “I suspect it was also less overgrown then.”
“Can you lead us to her?”
Poe’s question snapped their attention back to the others. He was addressing Flynn, who nodded without reservation. “I can. But there’s no path—”
“Point the way,” Poe replied. He glanced at Shea as he drew one of his swords. “We shall create one.”
Flynn pointed, and Poe and Shea began hacking a path.
“We’ll find no ease in traversing this place,” Chari warned. “Crusaders have sought to take this island, only to be led out as quickly as they enter.”
“Led out?” Zella asked.
“The Isle’s growths are said to be subtle and cunning, blossoming quickly until the intruders are confused beyond hope. Those who try to cut their way through are lost forever to the bramble.”
“Those holier-than-thou fucks don’t got a livin’ compass,” Jean said, patting Flynn roughly on the shoulder. “No chance of goin’ in circles with you, yeah Flynn?”
While Jean set off after the others, Flynn glanced at Chari. “If there’s anything to take from that story, it’s that there’s an intelligence protecting this island. I think it’s time we meet her.”
Flynn’s confidence did little to help Chari’s unease. After the behavior of previous gods they’d met, she expected little better from Einré Maraius. Given her position as Mystik of Growth, it was impossible to deny the likelihood of her involvement. But this did not give way to trust, for she noticed quickly that nothing that had been cut away remained so, and new sprouts formed underfoot the moment she lifted her feet.
As they crossed the hilly breadth of the island, they did so in silence, punctuated only by the grunts of Poe and Shea as they hacked away at the foliage. Flynn had done nothing to correct their course, and for a moment Chari thought they’d simply managed to stay in the right direction before she realized, with new horror, that they were being guided.
Then the foliage opened up, the earth sloped down, and they could see the Isle’s northern vista. The overgrowth continued to run rampant, but there was also the silhouette of something dark and looming.
“Looks better than Yetinau’s shitty mountain,” Jean said.
The silhouette was that of a castle, millennia old. It had been nearly devoured by the island, with bunches of vines strung between the lesser towers, bridging them together. To its rear, a single spire rose above the others, unrecognizable to all but the most studious eyes.
It seemed unlikely t
hat anything of note was contained within. The growth was so rampant that it had flooded out the windows.
* * *
By the time they reached the castle, it was nearly sunrise. Einré Maraius stood at the gates, waiting for them.
She showed no pleasure in meeting them, and conveyed only irritation at having waited for so long. Like Chari, her hair was of a violet hue, and she wore a crest of thorny vines like a boa to complement it. Einré appeared ten years Chari’s senior, and was in truth many times more than that. She looked across the group, and Flynn felt her gaze pierce him before she looked past and settled on Poe.
“You’ve come late,” she said.
“Late by what standard?” Chari inquired. “From our arrival on this island, or by one that reaches centuries back?”
Einré’s features softened as she smiled in surrender. “When you’ve waited as long as I have, such differences feel indistinguishable.” She grasped her velvet dress and curtsied. “I am Einré Maraius, youngest of the sister-goddesses.”
“Youngest?” Zella almost choked. “Who is the eldest?”
“Our sister, Amlia, was born first, though we have all reigned equally,” she replied. Einré looked intently at Chari when she added, “I see you are well aware of our showboating middle sister, Hapané.”
“Private fuckin’ island runnin’ over with vines, and she’s the showboater?” Jean asked under her breath.
Poe took his place between his companions and Einré and knelt before her. He trembled in this submission; it was not so easy to supplicate to a goddess as it once had been for him.
“Milady … I am Poe, former Guardian to Heaven’s gates. Airia Rousow herself has chosen me, and so I have come to claim her mantle as my own. To succeed her, in godhood.”
Einré declined any immediate comment, and looked down on him as he looked up at her. Flynn felt a calm inside, and knew before she spoke that despite what reservations she had, Einré had no intention of rejecting Poe.
“I see you … and I find you wanting,” she said.
Poe couldn’t help but rise in offense. “Wanting?”
“Airia chose him!” Zaja protested. “We went through a lot to get Poe here—”
“I did not claim to decline him,” Einré snapped. “Though I have the means…” She examined Poe thoroughly in a moment’s glance. “I haven’t the right.” Einré shook her head, looking ready to weep. “His soul is a killing field … that such desperate times would drive us to this…”
She was unable to finish her thought.
“Then you shall not deny me?” Poe asked.
“You may enter,” she nodded. “You are all welcome, except…” That piercing gaze returned to Flynn, and Einré’s hostility with it. “…you.”
“Wait, why?” Zaja asked.
“Lookin’ to pick a fight, lady?” Jean followed.
“What purpose is served in denying Flynn but no other among us?” Chari added.
Flynn stepped to the fore. He wanted to look Einré in the eyes and understand why she held such contempt for him. “Tell me.”
She looked down in a haughty manner. “I will not have a lowly beast defiling my sacred space.”
“Beast, you call us?” Shea snapped, offended. “Not the only one looks this way, have you know.”
Einré shook her head in refusal. “I said nothing of his appearance.” Her disgust for Flynn was unmistakable. “What vile deeds had you performed to succumb to such savagery?”
Her condemnation injured Flynn, but through it he found a glimmer of hope: though he had never expected to return to normal, a piece of him craved it all the same. Understanding how he had been remade might evidence a means of return, and with uncertain motive, he lifted his head and asked, “How?”
“I have seen your Earth,” she said. “Astounding, for how little grows there. But I have seen it, just the same. It is mired in aimlessness, unending days of doubt, and apathy. And I have seen the cruelty this gives way to, the things men must do to survive.” She shook her head, nonetheless, in disappointment. “I would not even imagine the atrocities you partook in.”
There were so many. Was there some specific sin of his that incited this change? Something that even a murderer like Poe was innocent in comparison to? Flynn felt like he was only being shown the edges of the puzzle.
“What sort of crime could change a person to something less than human?” he asked.
“I have one question first: answer it, and I shall satisfy yours in return,” she said. Flynn nodded his acceptance. “How did you meet your change? What was the catalyst? Was it a place of intense ethereal energy or some forgotten artifact of cosmic import? Or was it—”
“Neither,” Flynn interrupted. He knew what she was getting at, and he remembered it all. The crooked deal, another wayward soul set to lose freedom and hope in a single stroke. Flynn had followed an impulse, led by little more than curiosity. He could not see the way between worlds when he touched it, but it reached inside him and rearranged him in maddening agony.
Einré nodded in satisfaction. “And so you formed a connection,” she concluded.
“A connection?”
She studied Flynn with invasive confidence. “What went through your mind when you betrayed another’s confidence? When you shared their greatest secrets with their bitterest enemies? When you committed an act that cost them everything they held dear?”
Flynn didn’t like being read. “Nothing.”
“Nothing,” she asked with faux disbelief. “You held people’s lives in your hands and it was nothing to you?”
He shook his head. “It was just another day.”
“He was a douchebag,” Jean groaned impatiently. “Yer point?”
Einré was momentarily bewildered. “Dou…?” She shook it off. “Instances of cruelty demean us, but they do not erode us. But perpetual cruelty breeds callousness with it, and the more that spreads, the worse the world is for all. How cruel and callous must we become until there is nothing of our spirit left but shadow?”
“Shadow?” Poe asked, haunted.
“A dark shadow, the very antithesis of being,” she replied. She returned to Flynn, and seemed to enjoy looking down on him. “You were empty, nothing decent or humane in you. You had hollowed yourself out, and whatever was left of you was memories. Then you touched the rift and became connected … to everything.”
A pain spread through Flynn. It was difficult to look Einré—or anyone—in the eye.
“Only those who have eroded themselves completely suffer such a fate,” she said. Then, to Flynn’s surprise, she turned inquisitive. “Yet … those who fall so deep come out more monstrous, more … deranged. What is different with you? What changed?”
There had been hope for Flynn as a child, before he’d been drawn into his father’s petty schemes and witnessed his mother’s manipulative guile. His ability to understand people came with great empathy, for what better way to manipulate them?
“At the pivotal moment, I felt … sorry,” he replied. “For my victims.”
Zella could not resist suggesting the alternative. “For yourself.”
And Flynn could not deny her. “I felt sorry.”
Poe stepped forward, looking at Flynn for a moment, then back to Einré. “I was a monster in my own right. Why have I not been similarly twisted?”
Flynn already knew the answer. “You were not completely gone. We were able to save you. … No earthly force would have helped me. I had to save myself.”
“And so you have it,” Einré followed. “Let us enter, Guardian. The rest of you may stay or follow, but the tainted one remains outside.”
When Einré moved to enter, Poe faltered, torn between loyalties.
“Fuck you, lady!” Jean said with a laugh. “Think we came this far just to break up the band now?”
&
nbsp; “It honestly makes no difference to me,” she replied. “I’ve a long-awaited duty to perform. I would finally see it done.”
“Excuse me?” Einré looked with some surprise at Zaja, who stepped to the front almost sheepishly. “Just one question, Miss … Einré? Goddess? Ma’am?” Her nervousness increased with every address. “Since Flynn’s already been changed, what more harm can he do?”
Einré studied Flynn for a moment, and shook her head uncomfortably. “That I do not know is what truly scares me.”
Flynn wanted to tell Einré that her fears were groundless, that he was a changed man. Yet he already knew what would come next.
“I shall take my leave of you all for a time,” Poe said to his allies. “At my return, I shall be more than any mere man.”
“You’re so comfortable, abandoning us so quickly?” Flynn asked. He felt guilty, for exploiting Poe’s self-doubt.
“We’ll go with you as far as we can,” Zaja offered. “Do we have to part here, even if it’s just for a while?”
Poe looked at Einré, who had clearly run out of patience.
“They have endured much at my side,” he said plainly.
“Guardian—” she began to protest.
“Even if I didn’t need them, I would not wish to be without them.”
She stepped away from him, and looked at Flynn one more time. With resignation, she warned him, “If I so much as suspect one step out of line, I will end you.”
Flynn nodded. She feared what he might do in her inner sanctum. It was not a baseless fear.
* * *
Einré’s castle was like a fractured garden, its stone walls webbed with vines that ran in and out through the brickwork. At first glance, it seemed they were steadily destroying this age-old structure, but on closer inspection, Jean realized that pieces of the castle were no longer connected to the core structure, and were held in place entirely by the vines encaging them.
“I’ve seen this place before,” Flynn told her quietly.
“How the fuck did ya manage that?”
Killers, Traitors, & Runaways Page 35
