by S. G. Night
“What — !?”
The voice had no tangible sound, but he could hear it perfectly inside the corridors of his mind, like the telepathy he and the other Scorpions used. It was, unmistakably, the same voice that had spoken to him on the balcony outside Tayran’s chambers all those nights ago.
“Who are you?!” Racath demanded. “What are you doing in my head?!”
The voice laughed at him. It was masculine sounding, deep and cunning, knowing and sardonic. Like the voice of a other-worldly prince, comfortable in his own wisdom and knowledge. Arrogant, but justifiably so.
Racath suddenly realized it was true. While the voice was obviously telepathic in nature, it was not coming from within his mind. It was coming from some outside source, speaking directly into his mind.
“How do you know my name?!” Racath shouted. “Where are you?!”
The voice laughed again. Hysterically. Like it couldn’t contain itself.
Racath ripped Daragoian out of its sheath and held the katana out at the seemingly empty cavern, pressing his back to the trunk of the dianimus tree. “Where are you!?!”
There was a pause. Racath’s breaths came short, echoing in his ears. The silence lasted only an instant, but it seemed to drag on eternally in the sparsely-lit cave.
And then the voice answered him:
Racath’s breathing stopped. Eyes stretched wide, he looked down at the divine katana in his hand. The onyx dragon on the blade seemed to shimmer at him, like its emerald eye was winking at him. “You…” he stammered. “You’re—?”
“Daragoian?!”
“But—” Racath spluttered, and then realized he was still speaking aloud. But…you’re a sword!
“Oh my God,” Racath whispered. “I’ve gone insane.”
Racath shook his head violently, pinching his eyes shut. Wait…it was you! You were the one who did that thing!
That…that thing! Racath exclaimed. The fiery flying thing on Tayran’s balcony! When I went flying through the glass! That was you, wasn’t it?
Uhh…Racath stammered. Yeah, I guess you did….
Wait, wait, Racath stopped him. Earlier, you said you chose me?
What’s your interest in me? Racath asked. What exactly does a talking sword want with me?
Daragoian chortled once more.
Racath bit his lip, his brow furrowed so tensely that it was starting to her. Uh huh…
Through the fog of confusion brought on by the entire situation, Racath felt a burr prick at his pride. “And what makes you think I can’t do it on my own?”
The katana’s reflective luster seemed to darken.
Racath paused for a long moment. He was still questioning his sanity, certainly. But…what was he afraid of? He and the Pyre were bonded to this sword. There was a connection between them. And he had always known there was something powerful within the adamantine metal. Was this really any different than before?
He sighed in resignation and sheathed the katana. Alright, he grumbled as he started walking toward the tunnel. Partners. I guess.
Daragoian let out a whoop of excitement.
For now, we’re going back to rejoin the others, Racath answered. Then I’m going to bed. I’m going to enjoy my well-deserved rest. After that...it’s back to wreaking havoc and starting fires.
Well, that’s one thing we have in common….
“Mhm…” Racath grunted aloud. “Bloody piss…Just when I thought my life could get a little boring for a few weeks… now the sword starts talking….”
♦♦♦
EPILOGUE
Ice, Ink, and Ember
The Night has deepened. The Cold remains.
It is the bitter sort of Cold. The kind that follows with the sour grip of winter. The penetrating kind that pierces your skin like an icy knife, sinking deep into your bones. The pervading kind that steals the heat from your breath and pulls at the lungs in your chest — a rope around your neck.
The Cold reigns unchecked, unchallenged. This house is powerless. Its protectors — tepid things that once stood vigil against the winter — are gone, gone away from this place. Vanished into the thickening Night. The terror of their absence has faded to a dull, aching fear the corners of my heart.
Gone is the gathering, the friends flush with the warmth of common memories and conversation. The heat of their collective presence has dwindled; what remains is not enough to keep the Cold at arm’s length until the break of dawn.
Gone is the laughter, the chiming chuckles and sweltering smiles amidst clamor of those once gathered here. Their joyful echoes have withered to a meager memory of steam, and now they lack the strength to boil the Cold away.
Gone are the kisses of two lovers, those two happy sweet hearts wrapped in the blanket of a shared embrace. The simple sound of their brushing lips no longer fights to stop the Cold. No longer forces it to recede. And as such honest kisses leave this place unguarded, the Cold has found its victory.
Indeed, all of these warm sentinels are gone. Gone tonight. The Cold drove them away long ago. It had been cunning, patient, aided by the Night. It had frosted th
e shoulders of those gathered here, inch by inch, until they each departed for more temperate climes. It had frozen the laughter, day by day, until the smallest, barren chuckle would blister the throat. And it had slowly stolen away the warmth from those two lovers, kiss by kiss, until even the touch of each other’s lips was chilling to them as ice.
And so the Cold commands this house. Its companions are the silence and the Night.
It has left no place untouched. It long ago infested the heavy iron hinges on the heavy wooden door, and the metal is now stiff with stubborn rigor. Its crackling shackles of ice have bound the stone of the grey, granite mantle. The pair of steely swords crossed above the fireplace, are coated with the Cold, like frigid winter rust. The luster of their blades has long since atrophied — decayed. The very air within this house is trapped within its frozen grip; the atmosphere is boreal, sunken, and only a breathless vacuum is left in the space above the floor.
Nowhere is safe. The Cold rules over every niche of shadow. It floods every nook and hollow cranny. It now nests atop the dusty window drapes. Tarries in the shallow kitchen cupboards. Roosts in the creaking attic rafters. There is no space left to conquer.
What could challenge such a sovereign as the Cold? The dull coals in the belly of the hearth are long dead, slit open like gutted corpses — black, heatless. It seems like eons have passed since the oil lamps lit the walls of this place; they are dark now. All the warmth has bled out of this house, like an artery’s been emptied. Bled dry, and now there is only the Cold.
On the table, a single, lonely candle bears a single, lonely flame. The candle is dark and straight, the table flat and expansive — a black tower crowned by fire, rising from an empty battlefield.
The flame is tall, graceful, and slender. But no heat seems to burn within its core. While its halo bathes my parchment in a quiet swath of white, the fire is dim as a tired star. It does not dance. It does not flicker. It is afraid to disturb the frozen silence.
A man sits opposite me, across the table’s plane. Solitary, he gazes into the heart of that tired, single star.
If you were to look on him fleetingly, to spare him only a passing glance, you would see only a man. If you looked a moment longer, you might get the feeling that there was something about him, something distinctly different. You might notice something peculiar about his eyes, might spot something strange about the tattoos running the length of his arms. Something out of place, something you cannot quite put your finger on. But to you, he probably would still be just a man.
But a clever eye…a clever eye could see him for what he truly is.
A clever eye would notice how his pupils taper at their tops and bottoms. A clever eye would see that his irises are no natural color. A clever eye would see that the patterns coiled on his arms, like blackened tongues of roiling flame, are not sunken into his skin like a tattoo’s Ink, but gently beveled at their edges — a part of his flesh. A clever eye could tell that, no, he is not just a man. Not just a Human.
He is a Majiski — one of my people.
And I know him well. I know his name. His story. I know his face. I know the old scar that jumps across his eye, reflected alabaster in the candlelight. I know the snarl of the ebony hair that falls around his face, casting handsome, familiar features in a stark, unfamiliar shadow. A shadow as alien to me as the Cold itself.
Through that shadow, I can see his eyes. They stare unseeingly at the candle that stands between us. His eyes are striking, colored vibrant: waves of roiling amber overlapped by ochre ripples and subtle crimson flares. Like twin circles of fire. Fire, in his eyes.
A latent warmth flickers behind those golden, burning rings. The Cold struggles to squelch it, shrouding it with the frigid Night. It almost smothers it entirely.
Almost.
But I know it is still there. It is like the heat of an unassuming coal beneath a blanket of graying ash. It is hidden, but not extinguished.
I can feel it. I can feel its gentle breath against my skin, like distant sunlight during newborn spring.
I can hear it. I can hear it reaching to divide the curtains of shadow on his face, like the whispers of blossoms unfolding.
I can see it. I can see it behind his fiery eyes, flickering like a starlight-dappled pool, dancing in and out of view.
It is buried. Buried, but burning nonetheless. Buried but burning, like one last hope in my heart. One last Ember in the dark.
But he is not just any Majiski. He has a story. A story worth more than my own beating heart. He has a name. A name that — if it were only uttered aloud, breathed out in the meekest, softest whisper — would shake the Cold to its arctic foundations. Cut it in half like an ignited sword. Tear it asunder, and cast it broken and crippled from this place. His is the name of fire. The name that rides the whisper of the candlelight.
Once, this man had radiated heat like a storming furnace. Proud, vitalizing warmth that could stir your blood. Once, Ember had ensconced him like a sheaf of roaring sparks, invigorating: a summer sun in zenith.
But tonight…tonight, he is Cold.
His old Ember is gone — vanished, like the gathering, and the laughter, and the kisses. Gone, save for the final spark hidden in his eyes. Now the Cold flows from his body in ravenous waves. He sits at its center, wearing it like armor. He wraps it around himself like a suit of rigid iron, sealing his lips into a bone-white crease.
But, despite all the power it holds over him, the Cold is afraid. Afraid of the pen between my fingers. Afraid of the unfrozen Ink that stains my cramped but eager hands. Afraid of the multitude of words that fill the pages on the table. The first pages of his story.
Before, when I made the first mark — when I’d written that eldest, inked word on that first bride-white page — I had seen his eyes flicker. I had seen his Cold armor falter — a weakness in the iron. A weakness born from fear. Fear of the words that my unending Ink can conjure.
I am the Penitent God. And tonight, I have begun my battle. My siege. The hundred-thousand Ink-borne arrows, flying forth from my flaming pen, to assault the walls of tyrannical Cold that hold this man in awful rapture. My campaign for my friend’s very soul. My war of Ice, Ink, and Ember.
And with this first assault, I’ve found a small victory. I can see it in my friend’s eyes. I can feel it in the Cold’s growing fear. I know what I have done. My friend knows it. The Cold knows it, too. I have cracked the armor.
We are in a lull now. My arrows of Ink have ceased, at least for the moment. It is an ephemeral truce wherein I stretch away the stiffness in my weary hand, and the Cold plots how it will seal its wounds, and destroy me.
But the siege is far from over — the story far from finished. We have yet to scratch the bloodied surface. For now, the Night is quiet. But soon the battle will resume, and it shall be ferocious as the tides of hell.
The War awaits.
To Be Continued…
Acknowledgements
So here I am. I can’t tell you how long it’s taken to get here. Endless hours of world-building, pacing, scribbling in notebooks — a year of getting up at 5AM, six days a week to hunch over a keyboard and write my guts out. Penance has been the center of my universe for as long as I can remember, and now that I’m staring it in the face, I’m having a little trouble believing my eyes. And yet, here it is: alive, well, kicking and screaming.
But I can’t take all the credit. I can hardly take half. There have been countless helping hands through the years, and this story could not have come to life without their contributions. So, here’s to them.
Family first: Mom and Dad, of course, for supporting and guiding me, encouraging me to pursue my art while simultaneously teaching me the value of practicality.
Brother Austin and his wife Jen — editors, commentators, and sources of creative inspiration. It’s because of Austin that I fell in love with writing in the first place; I owe all of this to him. Thank you, bro.
And, of course, Emily and El Tigre (excuse
me, Alex): event planner and legal advice respectively. Both were always at the forefront of my cheer section, even if I didn’t always deserve it. My love to you both.
Ellen. My greatest friend, my girl with golden hair — first editor, confidant, and one-woman support group. Thank you for always being there for me, and for showing me nightfire. I couldn’t have done this without you.
My fellow Vae of the Tue
sday Enclave, Quickus and Räus. Nick Hintze, my sounding board, psychoanalyst, and talented artist (thanks again for the beautiful cover art and concept images!). Nate Benfell, eager reader and control group, and certified fan-girl. Faithful friends both.
Francesco, Peter, Jess, David, Ashlee, and Anthony — the foundation of my writing life, my first critics and admirers, masters of “BS” and “20 Questions.”
I’ll miss you guys.
Mr. Bello, for being the first to introduce me to the complexities and intricacies of literature…and for teaching me the most important lesson of my life, that I had a ton of potential and a gods-awful work ethic. I took that lesson to heart, moved my desk out of the basement, and built myself an office where I could be productive. And it was in that office that I wrote Attrition. Bello, if it weren’t for your honesty, I never would have been able to write this book all the way through. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And, of course, Mrs. Noone, and the other students of the Creative Writing Class of 2011-2012. You guys loved me despite my arrogance, and taught me that a shred of humility can be healthy once in a while. Those ten months in that little room together were a blast, and as much as I’d like to deny it, I did learn a thing or two about writing.
Thank you all. It’s been one helluva ride — and I’m just getting started.
