by C L Walker
The tattoos squirmed on my skin, getting ready to force me to try to run. It wouldn’t work, though. He would chase me down and he would finish what he’d started, only I wouldn’t be in control and able to counter his skills. He’d destroy me with ease, and there would be nothing I could do about it.
He was bound. It was all I could think, as though that thought was the last thing left in my battered head.
He was bound.
He slammed me into the ground, again and again, until the force of it had dug a bloody hole in the hard earth and he couldn’t get the leverage he wanted. He picked me up and, while grinning in my face like the mad man he was, he buried his fist in my gut and started dragging out what he found there.
I had been disemboweled before, but this time I barely felt it. He’d broken something in my brain or severed my spine and the pain wasn’t making it back. I watched, helpless, as he tore out my intestines, cackling as he did it.
He was bound, and that meant he had a master and a vessel. It was the only way the old cleric knew how to do what he’d done. Bannon had forced the old man to replicate what he’d done with me, and the old man had done just that.
He was bound and he could only have one master, which meant I knew what I had to do. I was broken and I was probably about to die, but I knew what I had to do.
Would I be reborn in the heaven I’d left James in? Would the curse work across the afterlives? If it did, would I make it back to the mountaintop before Bannon worked out what I had?
I couldn’t risk it, and I had no time left. I would be dead soon and he would be free to protect the cleric and hide his vessel. He would be free to do whatever he wanted.
I reconfigured the shield, tasking the tattoos with finding a way for me to escape. I willed the tattoos to focus on the task, forcing them to stop healing me. I could die and it wouldn’t matter, as long as I got away from Bannon.
They fought me, as Bannon reached up into my ribcage and I felt his hand tear a chunk out of my lung. The tattoos weren’t strategic and they didn’t understand what I wanted. They wanted to strike. They always wanted to strike.
I forced them to do as I wanted, and they finally complied.
The shield, now mostly destroyed anyway, came away from me in a blast that was mostly directly at Bannon. It knocked him back and gave me a moment of freedom.
I ran, trailing my guts and bleeding out, barely able to stay upright with my muscles severed. I ran, putting all the remaining power into it, putting all my own strength into, putting my soul into it. I ran, but I wasn’t going to make it.
Bannon was faster and he was stronger. He wasn’t about to die. I would make it to the foothills, maybe, but that was all.
I focused on my target and saw a miracle. The cleric, standing in the opening at the base of the mountain. He was wounded, as though he’d fallen most of the way down. His skin was torn and he was bleeding heavily. But he was there, and all I needed to do was reach him.
Bannon’s hand landed on my shoulder and I shook him off. He did it again and this time his grip was stronger, his fingers digging in until they broke the skin and he was holding the bone.
In desperation I sent another lance of magical energy, this one too weak to even annoy Bannon. I sent it at the cleric.
Bannon’s tattoos reacted, wrenching him away from me to protect his master. He stumbled, trying to keep control, but that wasn’t how the curse worked. That wasn’t something he could decide.
He ran ahead of me, reaching for the cleric even though he had no chance of stopping what was coming.
The lance hit the old man and it was like he’d been blown away by a hurricane. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the mountainside. He screamed, and Bannon fell to his knees with the pain of his master.
I kept running, stumbling, tripping. I hit the ground and managed to turn it into a roll, finding my feet and lurching onward.
Bannon stayed where he was on his knees, staring at the cleric lying motionless on the side of the mountain. I passed him and heard what he was saying, over and over.
“Why?”
He didn’t understand, hadn’t had the realization I had. He was cursed, bound to some object and commanded by whoever summoned him. The cleric had only been my master for moments, because he’d immediately given me away. I’d carried my vessel – the locket – and delivered it to my real master.
He hadn’t done the same for Bannon. Bannon hadn’t given him the chance to. And now the cleric was dead and Bannon had to deal with the aftermath.
I’d had masters die and I knew what he was going through. The tattoos would be fighting him, trying to get him to move and check on the cleric, but his heart would be pounding and his muscles would be jerking. He’d be in pain, unable to move, barely able to think.
I reached the cleric and fell on his body. He was covered in the blood of Ohm and the tattoos fed, flaring to life and beginning the healing process.
Now it was my turn to scream in pain as my body was rebuilt. Every nerve, ever muscle, every bone was crying out, and I lost track of the world while the healing continued.
When it was done and I could focus again, I stood and surveyed the situation. Bannon was running away, heading for the horizon. There were no gates that way and I had no idea where he was going, but he was doing it quickly. He disappeared from sight in moments.
The cleric was dead. My first master, and the man I’d hated more than any other my entire life. He lay at my feet and I felt nothing but pity for him. I hadn’t remembered the night he cursed me, not properly. I’d filled in the blank spots in my sorrow-wracked memory, choosing to make him the villain. The man I’d met when I brought Roman to see him hadn’t been a villain. Whatever the truth of that night, I felt no joy seeing his broken body.
I crouched and searched his robes. Bannon now had no master, but all I needed to do was find the vessel. It had to be on the mountain somewhere or he wouldn’t have been reborn there. He’d never have thought to carry it himself, had clearly not known it even existed.
I found nothing, only a lock of blonde hair and some old books in secret pockets within his robe. I picked him up and carried him up the mountain, putting him gently on the ground at the edge of the blood.
Bannon’s dog tags were hanging from the rock the cleric had spent his long life sitting on. I picked them up and knew I had found what I was looking for.
I stood in the blood of Ohm and used that power to amplify my voice. I called to Bannon, shaking the world with the power of it.
He crawled up the mountain an hour later. He was fighting his tattoos, desperately scrabbling to turn around and not have to face me.
“What have you done?” he cried. His fingers were bloody nubs, torn away by his desperation. “What’s happening to me?”
“I inherited your vessel,” I said, dangling his tags in the air.
He gave up the fighting and collapsed at my feet. We were near the bloody top of the mountain but not near enough for him to reach the liquid power. I’d buried the cleric, putting the rock he’d been sitting on above his grave. It was the only thing I could do for him.
“Tell me what’s happening,” Bannon whispered. He looked at his hands and the mess he’d made of them as though he hadn’t noticed as he was dragged back. “I have a vessel?”
“You are bound,” I said. “Same as me.”
“That’s not possible. I’m not—”
“Bannon,” I said, speaking over him. “Return.”
His body disintegrated as it had when I killed him, turning first to sand and then to something even finer, and then finally fading away as dust in the still air.
I’d never known what happened when I was returned. It was almost beautiful. I wondered what he saw before he slid into the darkness; I saw my wife, wherever she was in the world. Did he have someone he loved, or had that been a special gift from the cleric, just for me?
I pocketed the dog tags and turned to check on the mountaintop. It w
as quiet and empty, a lonely place for an old crime. I wouldn’t be coming back. I’d decided I was done with the place, and with the painful memories of it.
I had the tattoos speed me up, and I ran to the gate.
Epilogue
Buddy was waiting for me when I stepped through the gate. He looked lost, as though he’d just awoken and didn’t know where he was yet. I suspected I was going to see a lot of that soon.
“You beat him,” he said at last, when we’d been walking for a few minutes. I led him to the next gate, trusting that without Bannon’s influence he would return to normal.
“I did.”
“Where is he?”
I held up the dog tags. They caught the wan light and flashed for a moment.
“I don’t understand,” the hollow man said.
I explained it to him as we crossed the hells. We did it slowly, not racing through as I usually did. I was tired, and I wasn’t looking forward to the conversations that were waiting for me in the HND or in Fairbridge. People had betrayed me but I had destroyed so much in retaliation.
I had hurt Bec. I didn’t think she’d appreciate knowing that I considered killing her.
The vampires wouldn’t trust me anymore and I would be surprised if Nikolette didn’t attack me on sight. I wondered how much they would remember, though judging by Buddy it would be most of it. Still, I doubted they’d be overjoyed in my presence.
Buddy told me the settlement in the HND had been Bannon’s idea. He’d rounded up the lost souls, the angels, and the demons, teaching himself to control them and finally turning them into a mock community for me to lead. Only the prime demon had remained out of his control, and Bannon had left as soon as the fifty-foot monster arrived.
Everything I’d done, up until I took Roman to see the cleric, had been scripted. I’d followed the same path Bannon took, seeing the same people and eventually searching for the same thing. He’d played me and he’d done it well.
“I’m so sorry,” Buddy said as we crossed from the hells and into the first heaven. “So, so sorry.”
He kept saying it every few minutes; I stopped telling him to cut it out when I realized it made him feel better.
I led Buddy to the heaven on the island, and to my master. Partly, I wanted to make sure he was fine, but I also wanted to see if I could disprove the prediction of an angel.
The angel in question met us on the beach.
“This is the part where I tell you that your clothes are going to scare the children,” the angel said. I looked down and realized I was still covered in Ohm’s ancient blood. I’d have to burn the clothes, and possibly my skin.
“I’ve come for James,” I said.
I was unusually pleased with myself: I’d proven both James and the angel wrong. The angel said Bec and Buddy would pick up James, and James had said I would die. And yet I was standing on the beach, alive and ready to leave with my master.
“The woman and the hollow man have already collected him.”
I heard the words but they didn’t make any sense. It took me a moment to comprehend what he’d said.
“Bec and…who was with her?” I’d expected Buddy, but there were hundreds of hollow men.
“Rebecca Fletcher and the one called Peter,” the angel said. When he said the hollow man’s name he sneered, as though it tasted bad on his tongue.
“When?” I said.
“Hours ago,” the angel replied. “If you want to catch them you should run.”
I knew he would be safe, that Bec would never hurt him. But I didn’t know about Peter and I didn’t know why they’d fetch him. Or even how they’d found him.
“Why?” I said. “Have you seen what happens next?”
“I cannot see beyond the edges of this heaven.”
“You’d say that whether it was true or not,” I said. I turned to Buddy. “I have to go.”
“Little James will be fine with them,” he said. “They are your friends and allies.”
“Still. I have to go.”
I ran without waiting for him to reply. I stepped through the gate and sped up, going faster and faster until the heavens were a blur.
I arrived at the HND to find it empty. The demon sat beside the gate, no longer crushing people who came through. He’d been badly hurt, slashed and torn until the ground ran black with his blood. He was breathing, though, which meant he’d live. I had to find James.
I ran into the town and searched the buildings, starting with the hall and the small shack he’d lived in until Bec took him away. I finished with the last of the hovels and stood in the center of town, out of breath and confused.
Everyone was gone. There were signs of the fighting I’d seen and plenty of ethereal blood decorated the walls, but everyone had left in a hurry.
I had to find James. I ran again, ignoring the demon and leaving the HND, then dashing across the heaven of the fish-people statues. I stepped out of the gate on earth to find what I was looking for waiting for me under the midday sun.
“Agmundr,” Bec said. Her arms were in slings and she looked at me with more emotion than I’d ever seen on her face. She was terrified of me.
“Agmundr,” Peter said. He was too tanned for a hollow man, and he looked at home in the bright sunlight.
“Hello,” James said. He stood between them, the locket in his hand.
“What’s happening?” I said. “Bannon is gone.”
“We know,” Bec said. “Everyone went back to normal.” She seemed uncomfortable even talking to me, her eyes focusing on everything but me.
“We owe you our lives,” Peter said. “So do many others, I suspect.”
“What’s happening?” I asked again. My heart was skipping and I had a bad taste in my mouth, and I didn’t like the look on Bec’s face.
“We’ve decided you can’t stay,” Peter said. “You’re too powerful. Too destructive. We didn’t understand that before.”
“I’m not talking to you,” I said, trying to get Bec to look at me.
“We have decided—”
“Shut up, hollow man.” My outburst made James and Bec jump.
She finally looked at me, focusing on my bloody clothes. She looked me up and down, as though searching for something she couldn’t find. Eventually she held my gaze.
“You can’t stay,” she said. “You have to go back.”
I stepped forward and she shuffled back, dragging James and bumping into Peter. He let her press against him and I felt a moment of jealousy.
“I don’t understand.” I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening, but I could see the future as easily as the angels in their heavens.
“You’re too dangerous,” Bec said. She stumbled over her words, unsure of herself in a way she never was before. “You cause things to happen, and when you fight them you…you…”
“You destroy people,” Peter said. “You can kill with a thought, and your anger stops you from thinking clearly.”
“If you open your mouth one more time, hollow man, I’ll tear your jaw off.”
“My point exactly.”
I advanced on him, ready to make good on my threat. Bec stepped in the way and froze me in place.
“Just stop,” she said. “Please.”
“Don’t do this.” I dropped to my knees before her, bringing our eyes to the same level. Hers were red, though I doubted she’d been crying. “You know me. I only fight because I have to.”
“And you will always have to, Agmundr. As long as you’re around, we’ll all have to fight.”
“I thought we were going to be partners.”
“That was someone else’s dream,” she said softly. She put her hand on James’s shoulder and the boy held up the locket for me to see.
“Agmundr,” he began.
“Stop,” I said, making them jump again. “Just, stop for a moment.”
“This is happening,” Peter said. He shut up when I glared at him.
“I’ll go,” I replied. �
�But you should hold onto this.” I handed Bec the dog tags. “Bannon is in there. Don’t call him out, alright?”
“I won’t.” She took them from me like they were made of spoiled meat.
“Keep my clothes, too.” I undressed quickly, stripping the clothes she’d bought me and leaving them in a bloody pile on the ground. “If you need to summon me again you’ll want to give me those. The blood on them will make me stronger.”
She looked from the clothes to me and back again. Whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t good, but I hoped she heeded my advice.
“Thank you,” she said after a long pause. “I know what you’ve done, good and bad. Thank you.”
I wanted to scream at her, to let her know how little her thanks meant to me in the light of what she was doing. I wanted to get violent with Peter, to tear his stolen body apart and burn it. I wanted to shut little James away in a box forever, so he could never betray me again.
Which was the point they were trying to make, I guessed. I wouldn’t do it, but they couldn’t be sure. The only way they could trust that I wouldn’t tear a building to pieces or hurt them again was to lock me back up.
“I forgive you,” I said. Peter looked confused and James looked like he wasn’t listening. Bec, though, smiled.
“Do it,” Bec said, tapping James on the shoulder.
“Agmundr,” he said. “Return.”
The world faded away and I wondered what I looked like to them. Did I disintegrate the way Bannon had, or was there some other mechanism for me? I’d never asked and now might never get to.
I wondered what I’d see when I was summoned again. Would it be Bec who held the locket, and her voice who said the words? Or would it be someone in the distant future, unaware of the battle that had raged so recently? Recently for me, but perhaps a long time ago for them.
Before the darkness I saw Erindis, and for the first time I didn’t want to. I would have been happy never seeing her again.
She stood atop a pyramid, deep in a riotous jungle. Water flowed around the structure and an army waited beyond that. They were the souls of the departed, raising their voices up to worship her.
She looked at me as though she could see me, and she smiled.
