by M. R. Forbes
They had managed to get into the brush only moments before a dozen horses crested the hill, a Mediator at its head. A woman with long black hair and the olive complexion of the south. She rode casually, her eyes focused ahead. His soldiers rode in formation behind her, in full heavy armor.
It was odd to see them fully dressed for battle. Did they know he was near? How could they?
"It is coming," Oz said next to him, at little more than a whisper. It pointed in front of them again. Silas watched another contingent of soldiers ride out to greet the first, again with a Mediator at the front, a man... little more than a boy... He appeared to be even younger than Wilem.
Silas looked around, searching for an escape route. Even with the power of the juggernaut, they would be hard-pressed to defeat a group this size should they be discovered.
"Which way?" the first Mediator asked the second.
"It went east, towards the Killorns. Tibbleton is a ruin. The cattle eaten, the village burned."
"Then why are we riding west?"
The second Mediator handed the first a piece of paper. Orders carried by a messenger.
"From General Thornn. The beast came from the mountains, which means that is where we should look for Silas Morningstar and his whore. He is riding east to deal with the monster himself."
Silas pursed his lips and bristled. He hated when they referred to Eryn as a whore. At least now he knew it was the dragon that had brought them out in full armor, though it would do them little good against the monster's breath and claws.
They would travel up the mountains and find what was left of the Dark, of Genesia.
They would discover that he was days gone.
They stayed hidden from view while the pair of Mediators continued the journey west, the soldiers trailing behind them.
"Why would he send them after me?" Silas said under his breath. "Why not go with them?" Thornn had always been the logical, pragmatic one. The most calculating, the most averse to risk. He had to know their chance of success was limited.
Unless another of the Nine was already there, or would be soon?
"It is confused."
"So am I. Thank you for alerting me to the Mediators. I would have been caught in the open without you."
The juggernaut made a huffing sound that Silas took as a chuckle. "It is pleased to save First of Nine. It is pleased to save its friend."
Silas stared at Oz. Juggernauts were creatures of magic and metal. They didn't have feelings. They didn't have friends. "Friend?"
"It remembers."
"Remembers what?"
"It remembers."
"What do you remember, Oz?"
"It remembers."
Silas kept looking at the dented, rusted face of the creature, waiting for it to say more. It simply stared back at him with its small red eyes.
"Perhaps another time," he said. "We're almost to Varrow City. Come."
"It is pleased to follow First of Nine."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Silas
They reached the hidden entrance to Davin's tunnel without running into any more soldiers. Even so, Silas could hear the commotion in the distance - the sounds of steel and horses and trumpets, the sounds of hundreds of soldiers assembling for march.
He pulled the brush aside, branches and leaves and clumps of grass intended to make the passage invisible from more than a few feet away. Oz waited behind him, motionless and silent save for the occasional burst of steam from his mouthpiece.
"It looks like it's still intact," Silas said, pushing aside the last branch and peering inside. It was going to be a cozy fit for Oz, but not an impossible one.
"It is dark."
"It is, and we don't have a lantern. Thankfully, the path leads straight under the city, from here to Davin's estate near the palace. So long as no one is waiting for us at the other end, it shouldn't be any worse than a walk in the woods."
They moved into the tunnel, replacing the brush behind them, losing more and more of the light as they got the covering back in place. They knew they were done when the only remaining illumination came from the soft red glow of the juggernaut's eyes.
They started walking.
In the beginning they were silent, the sound of their footsteps and the occasional drip of moisture passing into the tunnel the only thing breaking the void. For a while, Silas was grateful for the chance to clear his head, and let every thought and worry drift from it.
Only for a while.
The silence and darkness turned his head, brought it inward to deep and dark thoughts, memories of flames and ash, of death and decay. He blinked, and in that bare instant he fixated on the image of a town whose name he could not recall. A town decimated by the Shifters.
Bodies gored and torn, broken and bloody. Once grand buildings of stone and alloy and magic reduced to rubble and dust. A child amidst the awful filth, naked and crying.
Silas pushed his eyes open, trying to will the image away. He picked up his pace, as though he could outrun the horror.
He blinked again.
The child. A girl. Four? Five? A soldier approached her. A grizzled man with a shaved head and a short white beard. She held her arms out to him, eager for comfort.
Silas felt his heart beating faster, the darkness of the tunnel shrinking in on him. He looked ahead, desperate for a hint of escape. Desperate to be away from his mind. His legs carried him even faster, the juggernaut behind him growing louder in an effort to keep up.
They were too far from the end. Silas tried not to blink. He fought against his lids even as his eyes teared and ran and begged him for relief. He didn't know how, but he knew what he would see if he lost this battle against himself.
Murderer.
He tripped on a small rut, losing his balance and stumbling against the wall. The slip cost him his concentration and his eyes slammed closed.
The girl wasn't crying anymore.
She would never cry again.
"No," Silas shouted, his voice echoing in the tunnel. He dropped to his knees, his hands going up to his eyes, his heart pounding. "No."
Oz stopped behind him, silent.
"It can't be," Silas whispered. "It can't be true." He smacked his hand on his head, as though it would change the memories held within. "That never happened. It couldn't have."
Or could it? He had stolen his memories. He had changed him from a thinking, feeling man to a... a thing, powered by an ancient heart of ircidium.
He was a monster. Why wouldn't he have killed the child?
What did it matter if he had done it after the war was already over?
Murderer.
Silas stayed on his knees, leaning over in the darkness, sobbing into his hands. With each tear that fell, with each moan that spilled from his lips, his anger continued to grow. He had ordered the populace of Genesia killed. He had ordered the child killed as well.
Why had I complied?
He didn't know how long he would have remained there, if he hadn't been brought out of his thoughts by the feeling of a large hand on his shoulder. He turned his head and pulled his hands away, finding Oz's palm in the dim light of the creature's eyes. There were no words exchanged, and yet Silas knew the juggernaut was trying to be comforting.
He sniffed and wiped his eyes, getting to his feet and beginning to move forward again. All of the tears in the world would mean nothing if they never stopped falling.
If the blood of the Empire never stopped being spilled.
"I'm well, Oz," he said, tapping the creature's hand.
"It is pleased," Oz replied.
The tunnel continued for another half of a mile, turning a sharp corner before reaching the dark end. Davin had hidden the entrance beneath a pile of manure near his stables. It would normally have been shoveled aside in anticipation of anyone arriving through the passage. Since there was no one to expect them, they would need to move it themselves.
Silas reached up, stretched to full height to feel the woode
n crossbeams that prevented the manure from falling in. "Oz, can you lift this?"
Oz shuffled forward, shifting his head to look up towards the cover, bathing it in dim red light. Silas hadn't realized what a tight fit it had been for the juggernaut before then. The plank was only inches from Oz's face.
"It is pleased to lift it," Oz said, shifting and moving his hand forward. He placed it on the wood and pushed. A gout of steam poured from his face, the only indication that he was expending any effort at all.
"Slowly," Silas said. Bits of manure tumbled down as the cover rose into the air. Silas smelled it all around them, mixed with the scent of burned wood and cooked flesh. "Hold."
Oz stopped moving, and Silas put his feet on the wooden rungs that were planted in the side of the wall. He went only to the second one, until his head was pressed against the top of the cover, and he could see outside. It was early evening, the sky just beginning to darken.
"They razed it," he said softly, his eyes falling on the burned out stone shell of what remained of Davin's house. He shifted his gaze in search of soldiers, thankful that the tunnel had gone undiscovered. Then he climbed back down. "You can lower it again. We'll wait here until night has arrived in full."
Oz slowly lowered the lid until they were once again coated in darkness. Silas sat on the ground and closed his eyes. The light had helped fight off the demons that threatened to destroy him.
He hoped that they would stay away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Silas
"Time to go," Silas said some time later. He had fallen into an empty sleep that cradled the edge of consciousness, leaving him feeling groggy and unhappy when he woke.
Oz hadn't moved the entire time they had been waiting. He pushed against the cover once more, lifting it away without a sound.
"All the way," Silas said, getting to his feet and removing his sword. While he would have liked to keep it, only soldiers and the wealthy carried such things inside the walls. "I need to get out."
The juggernaut pushed a little harder, until his arm had reached full extension. Silas scaled halfway up the ladder and scanned the yard again. It was clear. He climbed the rest of the way out, and then turned back to Oz.
"Stay here. I'm going to get you some clothes."
"It does not require clothing."
"It does if it wishes not to frighten the commoners and have them call the guards."
"It will remain."
"I'll be right back."
The barn had been perfect cover when it had been standing. Now there was only a single damaged wall providing any kind of obfuscation from the crossing thoroughfare. Silas ran across the lawn, ducking and putting his back to it. He leaned out to watch the street. It was getting late, and most of the shops were closed, so foot traffic through the area was light. He waited until there were no pedestrians in sight, and then ran across the burned lawn and out to the road. Once he made it safely, he switched to a more normal pace and headed towards the Heart. If he could make it back to Waverly's, he was sure Pat and Urla would help him.
He only made it a block before he was forced to stop and duck behind the corner of a small millinery. A trio of horses was trotting down the road, soldiers on their backs. They were quiet and alert, their eyes scrutinizing every commoner as they passed.
Even as they did, a second trio trailed them, heading north. It was obvious to Silas they were on high alert. For him? Or for the dragon? Either way, it was going to be impossible to make it halfway through the city without falling under the soldiers' watchful eyes.
He waited until they were gone, and then skirted around the side of the millinery, bringing himself to the window. He glanced around, making sure he was alone, and then put his fist through the glass, ignoring the pain of the cuts, and reaching in and finding the bar slung across the door. He dislodged it, wincing when it hit the ground with a loud thud, and then opened the door and slipped inside.
He would need to be quick, in case the noise had disturbed the owner, likely asleep on the second floor of the shop. He navigated in the dim light of the lanterns outside, quickly locating the largest hat he could find from the selection hanging on the wall. Oz was big, but not impossibly big. Silas had seen blacksmiths and soldiers who could match the juggernaut in overall size, even if not in strength. It was rare. It wasn't unheard of.
A squeak, and the sound of soft footsteps on the stairs above got his attention. He grabbed a pair of shears, a large square of cloth, and some thread from a workbench and returned to the door, slipping out and peeking back just as the door from the upper floor began to swing open, and the owner appeared in his nightclothes, holding a lantern in one hand and a cudgel in the other.
Silas kept his eyes moving, trying to watch every part of the road until he ducked into another dark corner. The moment he vanished into the shadows, a third trio of soldiers rounded the corner, silent and serious.
He leaned back against the wall and waited, listening for the shopkeeper to complain to the soldiers about the break-in. If the man were a loyalist, he would surely raise the alarm that he had been robbed of nothing of black market value. If he wasn't...
It was well known that Davin, the King of Hearts, had been a rebel sympathizer. It didn't surprise Silas that the businesses so close to where he lived shared his perspective. There was no report. There was no alarm. The man must have guessed that if someone was to risk stealing with soldiers everywhere, there was a good reason to do it.
Silas put his hand to his head, running his fingers through his long, white hair. Talon Rast had never had long hair. Only Silas Morningstar did.
He didn't have a mirror to work by, so he did his best with the shears, pulling at his hair and cutting it off in uneven chunks, watching the locks fall to the ground around him. Genesia had opened his mind to memories long suppressed. Painful, sad memories. Memories he wished he could have left buried.
Who would avenge them, if not me? Who would offer penitence in blood?
He stared down at each lump of hair, imagining that each strand was a life he had taken. Too many to count. Too many to be forgiven for.
Did you know about this, Alyssa? Did I ever tell you what I had done?
He knew now that each time he had been grievously wounded, close to death, he had returned to his origin, and Rossum had put him back together. His memories of the time between would be hidden, and he would start over. General Talon Rast, leader of the Northern Armies. He knew now those memories were still there in his mind, ready to assault him when he least expected it. He also knew that they were heavy and thick like the street after a storm.
Talon Rast had died when Silas Morningstar was born, the day he had confronted Overlord Iolis demanding to know what had happened to his son. The day the promise had begun to show its first signs of wear after many hundreds of years. A promise he now wished he had never made to begin with.
And what of Aren? To hear him tell it, he was never truly my boy at all.
In his memories, Aren had died long ago, killed by the Shifters along with his mother and brother. In that truth, he had been without them for over a thousand years. Yet he remembered watching Alyssa set sail for the Unknown Lands, leaving him after he had ordered the Aren who wasn't Aren killed.
Is there any truth in there, or has it all been twisted in the wreckage of my mind? Will I ever know?
Silas finished his cutting and ran his hand along his scalp. His hair was still thicker in some places, his trimming uneven.
It was good enough. He was ready.
CHAPTER NINE
Wilem
Wilem stood outside the small cave, in front of the thick cover of tangled roots that concealed it. He stared up at the night sky, counting the bright points of light that rained down from above. He considered speaking to Amman; saying a prayer for his love, who lay inside the hole trapped in an unconscious fever, her body going through changes he could hardly understand.
He decided against it.
Instead, he sat and leaned back against the roots, staying close enough to hear Eryn if she were to cry out again, and at the same time gaining some relief from the damp, heavy air that lingered inside the small space. It was too small to remain trapped in.
His mind wandered back to the place called Genesia. To what he had seen. Marvels and monsters that should never have been, the secrets of a time long forgotten. A time not as lost as they had believed it to be. Silas, the First of Nine, an eternal man with the power to fight the creatures that could move through time itself, that could attack in the space of a blink.
That had destroyed the world before this one.
He had grown up in Edgewater. Even when Wilem had been afflicted with the Curse he had remained loyal, collected by the Mediators without a fight, brought willingly into their fold. He had passed their tests, he had learned their lessons, and he had become one of them. His entire life had been devoted to the cause. His cause. Without question. Without compromise.
The Cursed were dangerous.
At least he had believed it until he met Eryn. She was dangerous, sure enough. Dangerous to those who crossed her, to those who wished to do harm to innocents. Dangerous in her beauty, too. Her disarming wit and charm and natural looks, her big smile and strong eyes, her passion and energy. He succumbed to it, as any right-minded man would. What was there not to love?
He smiled at that. A sad smile. She was sick. Very sick. If Silas didn't return with the cure in time...
He had left the dagger on the small table inside. Just looking at it made him feel unwell. It whispered to him of a hopeless future, where all Eryn had endured would come to nothing. Where his Empire would always be the only empire.
Had it been so easy for him to change sides? Was love such a powerful thing that he had forsworn his pledges and his promises to it? That he had forged new promises? Was he being young and foolish?
