It was just a dream, and an unrealistic dream at that. Even Ned wasn’t that lazy. A century or two—providing he couldn’t finally die of old age, which he didn’t know—and he’d get bored. He lowered his goal to a more reasonable few hours of peace and quiet before life assaulted him again.
What really held him under his covers was fear. Not fear of death, which he’d lost long ago. Nor fear of resurrection, which he begrudgingly accepted. What haunted him was the unknown. He couldn’t remember how he’d died. All he remembered was getting his stuff together and stepping out of his room on his way to desertion.
And then ...
Waking up. How he’d died, who had killed him, or if it’d merely been another accident. All those details escaped him. Without some idea of what had done him in, he had no idea how to avoid it again. So far, Ned had never died the same death twice, and he had no intention of starting now.
He’d noticed the faint, almost invisible burn on his chest. It must’ve had something to do with it. For once, he wished the Red Woman had stuck around after raising him. He could’ve asked her without much embarrassment. He refused to ask anyone else. It would just be too embarrassing, too preposterous. He’d rather not know.
But that left the question of the door and what terrible doom awaited him on the other side. The riddle bedeviled him for a few hours, but Ned’s mind wasn’t possessed of the determination to hold on to any single obsession for long. Eventually he ran out of wine, and the comforting call of booze was one of the few things capable of pushing him into action. He got out of bed and paused at the door. And then, heedless of whatever nameless death awaited him, he opened it.
He didn’t die, and he wasn’t surprised. That would’ve been too easy. No, the fact of the matter was that each time he’d died, it had always come as a shock. It was only natural to assume a man who’d died so many times would get a sense of it. But so far, he’d never seen it coming. Which made him wonder why he ever bothered worrying. If he couldn’t predict it, if dangerous things didn’t always kill him and harmless things sometimes did, and just as often the other way around with no perceptible pattern, then worrying was pointless.
Still he worried as much as he worried about anything: not very much. Worrying implied control or, at the very least, the illusion of control. Ned had long ago abandoned that illusion. He often skipped worrying entirely and went straight to acceptance, with only a brief stopover in annoyance.
When he stalled in this process (as he sometimes might), he used booze to kick-start the journey.
He stepped into the hall. The door shut behind him, and a moment after, Ned realized he didn’t need that drink after all—at least not enough to go out in public or deal with other drunks. He turned back, but something, some overwhelming dread, kept him from touching the handle. He didn’t know about Miriam’s dirge, but he knew he dared not go back inside that room.
Laughter and obnoxious shouts filled the hall. Soldiers were coming. Rather than stick around and face them, he ascended a nearby staircase in hopes of escape. He followed the spiral all the way to the top, where he opened a trapdoor and stepped out onto a watchtower and into the cool night air. There were supposed to be sentries posted, but the place was deserted. Relieved, Ned sat down low so that no one below might spot him (not that anyone was that alert) and didn’t think of anything at all.
It wasn’t much later that someone else climbed those stairs. Ned slumped into the shadows as best he was able, hoping to avoid detection and knowing the hope was futile. A small figure, too big for a goblin but too short for an ogre, rose from the trapdoor. It was a dim night, but his long beard gave Owens the oracle away. He walked to the opposite edge of the tower, and though he was blind, he seemed to gaze down on the surrounding countryside. Ned tried not to breathe too loudly, and for a minute he succeeded admirably. Then a tickle worked its way into his nose, and Ned felt the germ of a sneeze developing. He shuddered. He choked it back. He held his breath. But it was only a matter of time before he lost the battle with his traitorous nostrils.
Owens kept staring off into the horizon. Without turning his head in Ned’s direction, the oracle remarked, “I told you you’d sneeze. Gods bless you, sir.”
Ned wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Thanks.”
Owens’s only reply was a nod.
Ned noticed a small jug hanging from Owens’s belt. He wondered what was inside it.
“Ale, sir,” answered Owens.
Ned was about to ask for a drink when Owens threw the jug. His aim was off by a good yard. Ned had to get to his feet to retrieve it. He uncorked it and took a sip. Before he could thank Owens, the oracle said, “You’re welcome, sir.”
Ned took another drink and frowned. “That’s really—”
“Yes, sir. I know.”
Ned gave back the jug, and Owens enjoyed a draught.
“I love coming up here at night, sir. Wonderful view, don’t you agree?”
“Too dark to see anything.”
Owens chuckled. “That’s one of the advantages of being blind. The view’s always the same.”
Ned opened his mouth to ask how long ago the soldier had lost his sight.
“Seven years,” the oracle replied.
It was then that Ned noticed something, and since he rarely noticed anything, he was taken aback. Observations were a sure sign of a sober mind. He almost asked for another drink, but he decided to ride it out this time. He could always get drunk later if it became too unpleasant.
“You hear the future, don’t you, Owens?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But how can you hear a question which, by your very act of hearing it, never gets spoken?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand the question, sir.”
“What day is—”
“Wednesday, sir.”
“See what I mean?” said Ned. “I was going to ask you what day it is, but you answered before I finished asking, which means I never did ask, which means you couldn’t have heard the question because it was never actually asked. You heard a future which doesn’t exist.”
Owens contemplated this. “Bit of a paradox, isn’t it?”
“A bit,” said Ned.
A few quiet minutes passed.
“Mind if I ask you a question, sir?”
“Go ahead.” Ned already knew the question as surely as if he could hear the future. How did he cheat death? As if immortality was some grand prize.
“How the hell did you get this job?” asked Owens.
Ned hadn’t expected that, and that made it a pleasant surprise.
“Not to offend you, sir,” added Owens.
“It’s okay.” Ned chuckled. “I’m here because I don’t have any other place to go.”
“Same as the rest of us, eh?” Owens tilted his head in Ned’s direction. “Welcome to Ogre Company, last stop in your illustrious Legion career. Well, I suppose it’s nice to have somewhere to belong.”
Ned didn’t have the heart to tell Owens the company was careening wildly toward dissolution.
“You don’t want to be here, do you, sir?”
“No. I want to balance books.”
“Seems a waste of talent, if you ask me. What with your immortality and all, sir.”
“Immortality isn’t a talent,” replied Ned. “It’s a gimmick.”
“Maybe so,” agreed Owens. “Maybe so.”
They were quiet again.
“Could I offer you some advice, sir?”
Ned didn’t reply aloud. But he thought of his answer and pictured himself saying it. Owens, true to form, heard the unspoken words.
“As long as you’re here, you might as well make the most of it.”
“You don’t understand. I’m a terrible soldier, and I’m a worse leader. The only thing I’ve ever been really good at is dying, and even that I can’t get entirely right.”
“I know what it’s like to feel sorry for yourself.” Owens pointed to his useless eyes. “Bu
t life doesn’t always go the way you want. You can either grumble and moan about it, or do what you can with what you’re given.”
Ned took another drink. “I think I’ll just stick with grumbling and moaning.”
“Always play to your strengths, I suppose.”
Ned gazed down at the citadel. In the gloom of night, the courtyard was full of darkened soldiers lost in drunken carousing. His citadel. His courtyard. His soldiers.
He hadn’t asked for this job. This was all the workings of cruel fate, of forces beyond his ken. And those forces certainly didn’t give a damn about his whining. Since they enjoyed tormenting him so much, it was a good bet they probably relished his suffering. But hell, he had a right, didn’t he? Moping might not accomplish anything, but accomplishing things was overrated. Everything always fell apart in the end. So why bother?
He hadn’t intended to pose the question, but somehow or other, Owens heard it.
“What have you got to lose?”
Ned let the question sink in. He didn’t really think about it, but he didn’t completely ignore it either.
“When I went blind, sir, I thought I’d lost everything. The Legion was my life, you understand. In addition to seeing the future, I was a damn fine soldier. Then it all went away. I went back home, grew potatoes, and felt sorry for myself for three years. And then one day I realized something. Two things, actually.”
“What—”
“I hate potatoes. I despise their taste. I despise their skin. I despise digging them up. I despise them mashed. I despise them boiled. I absolutely despise everything about them. Damned potatoes. A pox on whatever god created them.” He spat over the watchtower edge and made an obscene gesture toward the heavens.
“The other thing I realized was that going blind wasn’t the worst that could happen to me. There are always men worse off. And the way I see it, there are a lot more terrible tragedies in this world than an oracle who hears the future and a man who can’t die.”
“You—”
“Oh, I understand. None of us wants to be here, sir. But we are. And maybe while we are, we should give it a go.” Owens started toward the trapdoor. “You can keep the jug, if you like.”
Ned uncorked the ale and put it to his lips. But something made him hesitate. He wasn’t a good commander. He couldn’t save Ogre Company. But what did he have to lose? He could always get drunk later. And there was no rule saying he couldn’t do his job and still feel sorry for himself. Anyway, how badly could he screw it up?
He stopped Owens, who had already started down the steep steps.
“Thanks, but I won’t be needing this.”
Without thinking, he threw the jug. It sailed through the air to smash into Owens’s face. He crumpled over and tumbled loudly down the stairs. Ned winced with every thud, flinched with every curse shouted by the crashing soldier. After a brief pause, a weak voice echoed through the trapdoor.
“I’m okay. I think I broke my arm, but I’m okay.”
Never Dead Ned glanced to the heavens but kept his rude gestures to himself. It was going to be a long, long six months.
Thirteen
LATE THAT NIGHT Regina received a summons to Ned’s office. She was quite pleased for she felt certain that at this late hour there could only be one reason. Obviously Ned had noticed her incredible beauty—of course, couldn’t help but notice—and had only been hiding his growing attraction to her. But that attraction must surely have grown too strong to ignore any longer. She admired that he’d resisted for as long as he had, but now he planned on announcing his affections in a quiet meeting behind closed doors. She hadn’t decided how she would deal with this. Even her culture couldn’t completely deny the worth of men, and there were provisions set down for how an exceptional man might prove himself worthy of an Amazon’s love. She doubted very much Ned was such a man, but she didn’t care about that right now.
Before reporting, she changed into her finest garment, a suit of ceremonial armor she hadn’t worn in years. It wasn’t intended for battle, a fact made apparent by the plunging neckline of its chain-mail bodice and the shortness of its metal skirt.
She had a devil of a time putting on the thigh-high, polished leather boots. They’d always been skintight, and her thighs, loath as she was to admit it, were not as perfectly shaped as they once were. She studied herself in a full-length mirror for five minutes, adjusting buckles, shifting straps, and alternately pushing up her breasts and tucking them back until achieving just the right amount of cleavage. She went through her many capes, settled on a flowing crimson cloak, then decided she didn’t like it after all, and went with a shorter black one that complemented her shoulders without hiding her butt.
Next she sorted through her many weapons. Amazons collected armaments like dragons collected the bones of heroes, and Regina was especially guilty of this habit. She searched for just the right one to wear on her hip. A huge silver claymore was her best sword, but it was too awkward and would remove the grace from her walk. A short sword would’ve been comfortable, but too comfortable. She didn’t want to appear easy. She considered and discarded a pair of sabers. Too showy. And she deliberated briefly on something unconventional, like her trident or maul, but decided it might seem as if she were trying too hard. In the end, she went with her standard, Legion-issued sword. Not her best weapon, but the best for the situation.
Studying herself in the mirror, she decided that there was no doubt she was a most beautiful and irresistible creature. Miriam, for all her otherworldly siren charms, could never match the flawless magnificence of an Amazon warrior in her prime. Regina smiled with no small pride.
Then she saw them, and her confidence waned. Crow’s-feet. Almost imperceptible wrinkles around her eyes. She frowned, and the wrinkles deepened.
She leaned closer to the mirror, and this tiny flaw grew larger. She wasn’t that old. She shouldn’t have these. She leaned closer still and ran her fingers along the hideous chasms in her flesh. Touching her skin, she noticed the dryness. And her eyes, they were too close together. Or possibly too far apart. Either way, they were at an imperfect distance. And had her nose always been so pointy? Her blond eyebrows could use a good plucking. And was that a mole just below her left earlobe?
She wasn’t flawless. On the contrary, she was covered with flaws. Hundreds, she observed. Thousands she probably hadn’t yet. But Ned would notice. He must have. That was why he hadn’t announced his feelings. He didn’t have any. He couldn’t possibly care for such a ghastly beast, such an imperfect thing as she. Why hadn’t she taken better care of herself? Why had she been so neglectful?
Because she was an Amazon, and Amazons weren’t supposed to care about those things. But now she did, and she scowled. Those wrinkles tore their tainted path across her offensive face, and she scowled even more so with the realization that she cared.
Miriam didn’t need to worry about these things. Her accursed golden scales were as smooth and wrinkle-free as ever, and probably would be until the day she died. And while it was true Miriam’s fishlike face wasn’t the most ravishing, Regina couldn’t justly call herself superior. Not so long as those imperfections in her own face mocked her. She couldn’t bear to look upon herself anymore. Regina grabbed her mace and smashed the mirror with one enraged strike.
It didn’t make her feel better. If this was what came from attracting men, she’d been better off without them.
Her door opened, and a goblin stuck his head in. “Are you okay, ma’am? I heard a noise.”
Regina’s only answer was an annoyed huff.
“The commander sent me to check on you,” said the goblin. “He wanted to know what’s keeping you.”
She huffed again. “Tell him I’m on my way.”
The goblin shut the door.
Regina made a few more last-minute adjustments. Her limited experience assured her that men liked breasts, and this was one area in which she surpassed Miriam. She pushed her bust forward until it threatened to s
pill forth from her breastplate. Hair was another area where that scaly aquatic female couldn’t compete. Regina undid her bun and let the shimmering blond mane cascade across her left shoulder. But perhaps that was too obvious. She threw it behind her back. With a little more time she might do something with it, although she had no practical experience with hairstyles.
The door opened, and the goblin poked his head in again. “Ma’am?”
Snarling, she whirled on him. “Come here.”
He swallowed a gulp and stepped just within the threshold of her room. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Do you desire me?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am?”
She stood straighter, hands on her waist, her hip cocked to one side. “Do you find me desirable?”
He cupped his weak chin and chewed his heavy lips. His long ears twitched thoughtfully.
“Well?” she asked impatiently. “Be honest.”
“No, ma’am.”
“No? Look at me!” She advanced and bent over until her breasts were practically in his face.
The goblin stared into her cleavage with mild interest. “It may surprise you, ma’am, to discover that not every species worships the human female form.”
She straightened and stared down at him. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have sex with me?”
“Oh, sure, I’d have sex with you, ma’am, but we’d have to put out the lights first. And I’d be thinking of an ogress the whole time.”
If her mace had been within easy reach, Regina would’ve caved the goblin’s skull in. But she was already late for her date, and she refused to fret over this nonsense any longer. She was beautiful, perhaps not flawless, but close enough. And if Ned didn’t see it, she’d pummel him until he did.
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