by Adam Burch
My whole life was a lie, including my friendship with Faria. It doesn’t matter. The shaman once told me that I was using him just as he was using me. So I will use him now. I take the reader from him and stand.
“Wait,” he croaks. “Remember the oath you made the day I gave you my knowledge?”
To take a life of his choosing when he asked it of me. All agreements are null and void now. My training was paid for long before he taught me a single thing.
I won’t kill, old man. Not Phaestion. Not my father. I will not kill at the behest of another. Not now, not ever. That is the sacred oath I have made with myself.
“Take my life, Edmon of House Leontes. Please help me go, without pain,” he begs. “I cared for you, watched over you. I shared my story with you. That was real. Sometimes death is kindness. End my suffering, please.”
What about my suffering and all I’ve lost?
“Please—” he whispers.
Words The Maestro taught me echo in my memory. A story of two star-crossed lovers fated to die in the end. I think of my own star-crossed love . . .
Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle, Dans ce nid de vautours? Quelque jour, déployant ton aile, Tu suivras les amours!
Gentle dove, wherefore art thou clinging to the wild vulture’s nest? Trust me soon thou wilt be awinging to a far dearer breast.
My finger contacts his temple just as Faria taught me. I feel the spark of his life go painlessly dark. His eyelids fall, and in this last instant of life, I feel something between him and me. No words can name it, but if they could, the closest translation would be forgiveness. So ends Faria the Red.
The music swells.
Un ramier, loin du vert bocage, Par l’amour attiré, À l’entoure de ce nid sauvage, A, je crois, soupiré!
See you guard him safely, that they live will know! Or your dove may flutter, from his cage and go!
A day later, my boots hit sand, and I’m overcome with the urge to kick them off. I dig my toes into the grittiness of the white beach. A wave splashes my feet, leaving them buried. It has been almost six years since I left home, and this is the last stop.
I run up the twisting switchback through the lazy town. What’s left of the place is ruins. The homes are broken and torn. Cracks in the stone storefronts are highlighted by the scorch marks of humbatons my father’s men made the day he took me, the day he took Nadia from me . . .
A little girl walks naked down the windy cobblestone street. There’s nothing in her eyes but hopelessness. She freezes when she sees me, terror stricken. I reach out a hand, but she runs down an alley between two crumbling buildings.
I walk up the crest of the hill to the manse, the house where I grew up. I don’t know what else I expected. A part of me wanted to see if it still stood, the place where the villagers would gather and play music around the fire. I imagine Nadia standing in the doorway holding a child in her arms, welcoming me home. It’s only a dream. All that’s left are rubble and ghosts.
EPILOGUE
SUSTAIN
Just before launch of the rocket purchased with the last wealth of House Ruska, I’m told by my sister that Phaestion of the House Julii mounted the champion’s dais. He announced his ascension to the College of Electors and promised the beginning of a “Golden Age.” He vowed to follow the path of the Great Song and conquer the universe.
For my part, I take a last look through my porthole at the small lonely planet hanging in space as the ship breaks the gravity well of Tao.
Why run, boy? I still feel the monster inside me. My father tried to bring it forth. Phaestion told me it was the truth of everything, but I know what it really is—suffering.
The pilot announces the ship’s approach to the Fracture Point. The hull rumbles, and a tear in the fabric of space opens. Some ancients used to say that life is suffering. The only compassionate response is acceptance. I accept that violence is a part of me, but I choose to listen to the leviathan no more.
I look through my small window. I see light everywhere and a great whirling tunnel in the blackness. It surrounds me. I feel a tug on my chest as if it is being pulled apart and opened, raw and naked for the first time. I feel music beyond words. I wish Nadia were here to feel it, too. And I realize she is. She will always be a part of me.
“Elder Stars illuminate only because there is darkness. A warrior can know righteous cause only because there is evil. Heart to thought, thought to voice, harmony rises from discord. This is the Balance.”
As the door of light pulls me in, I’m no longer Edmon Leontes. He was a spirit of pain. Now there is only kindness. Out there in the black, there are good people, kind people. I’m going to find them. My body sings. For a brief moment, I’m filled only with hope.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to my early readers, Sean Toohey, Navaris Darson, Michael Onofri, and Matt Ritchey. To Jackie Batston for beta reading and believing someone would want to publish this book. To Philip Eisner for his experience and wisdom as a master storyteller and inspiring the game out of which this yarn was spun.
To my agent, Andy Kifer, who gave me my shot; my publisher, 47North, and Adrienne Procacinni, who helped bring it to life; and my editor, Caitlin Alexander, who helped me make the work the best it could be.
Finally to Samantha Barrios, who saw past the finish line before I did and who lent a friendly, honest, and enraptured ear (mostly because she insisted that I read early drafts to her aloud rather than read them herself). I am in your debt.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2015 Vaney Poyey
San Francisco native Adam Burch is a classically trained actor who has had one or two lines on such television series as Scandal as well as multiple death scenes in cult horror films such as Nazis at the Center of the Earth. In addition to auditioning regularly for the part of Paramedic #2 and performing in theatre, he is an accomplished martial artist, holding a Black Sash in Wing Chun Kung Fu. The Fracture Worlds series is his literary debut.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CONTENTS
MOVEMENT I: EFFLORESCENCE ÉTUDE
CHAPTER 1 FIRST LYRIC
CHAPTER 2 DUET
CHAPTER 3 COUNTERPOINT
CHAPTER 4 CONTINUO
CHAPTER 5 MAGIA
CHAPTER 6 ACCOMPAGNO
CHAPTER 7 MAESTRO
CHAPTER 8 MOLTO ALLEGRO
CHAPTER 9 BANDA
CHAPTER 10 BANDA CONTINUO
CHAPTER 11 PRIMA DONNA
CHAPTER 12 DISSONANCE
CHAPTER 13 ARIA
CHAPTER 14 TRIO
CHAPTER 15 ELEGY
MOVEMENT II: INTERMEZZO
CHAPTER 16 TREMOLO
CHAPTER 17 SOLO
CHAPTER 18 CRESCENDO
CHAPTER 19 CABALETTA
CHAPTER 20 TOCCATA
CHAPTER 21 ARIOSO
CHAPTER 22 NOCTURNE
CHAPTER 23 CADENZA
CHAPTER 24 CABALETTA SEGUNDA
MOVEMENT III: FINALE
CHAPTER 25 CODA
CHAPTER 26 CANZONETTA
CHAPTER 27 SOTTO VOCE
CHAPTER 28 ORACION
CHAPTER 29 ARISTEIA
CHAPTER 30 ENCORE
CHAPTER 31 DENOUEMENT
EPILOGUE SUSTAIN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
