Vultures

by Luke Tarzian

  Focus on the moment at hand, he urged himself. It felt very much like the night before Theailys had left. The air was crisp, the moon bright, the two of them reminiscing on what a shit day, what a shit month it had been. Behtréal was not fond of such profanities, but they were an important part of Eisley Khal’s personality, at least where Theailys was concerned.

  He inhaled from his pipe then passed it off to Theailys, letting the smoke escape his lips in threads. Closer, now, he thought. To success. He tensed his jaw at a twinge in his chest, just above his heart, and allowed himself to frown.

  “Searyn’s really gone,” Theailys said, and the weight of that reality, of that sad acknowledgement hit Behtréal like a maul. Using his mirkúr he attuned himself to Theailys’ thoughts, listening to the internal strife as Theailys worked to push the black pictures from his mind, his nightmare manifestations of what Searyn’s end might have been like, of what it might have felt like for her. He instead tried to focus on her as she’d been before she’d left for war, before the both of them had sold their souls to abetting in their nation’s death.

  Do you see what we have done? Behtréal thought.

  “Every great cause has martyrs,” Te Mirkvahíl replied. “And who better than the man who at one point might have been your brother, hmm? After what you saw in those dreams, what they suggest, how can you harbor remorse for such a man as this? How can you harbor remorse for a man whose predecessors abetted in the slaughter of your friends in Zorahl half a millennium ago?”

  Behtréal sighed. Those were both good questions. He thought a moment. Because Remulus died eons ago. Theailys An is someone else. Faro Fatego was someone else. Another thought occurred. I created Theailys An. Who’s to say that dream wasn’t of my making as well? A happy accident that served to further bend him to my will?

  Te Mirkvahíl chuckled. “Think that if you wish, Te Luminíl.”

  “I need this all to be over,” Theailys whispered, looking up. Behtréal met his gaze with a forlorn expression of his own. “I need you to tell me it will all be over soon.”

  Behtréal squeezed his arm, nodding. “It will be. I promise. The Keepers’ Wrath will see to that. We all of us will see to that, and once it’s over we’ll be able to start anew and properly mourn the dead. We’ll be able to put this madness in the past where it belongs.”

  He leaned back on his elbows, a wistful yet contemplative smile drawn across his lips. Play the part, he thought. “Temporal alteration—” A chuckle escaped, and Behtréal gave himself a moment to let the amusement pass. “Imagine the possibilities.”

  “It’s pure conjecture,” Theailys said, though Behtréal could sense he’d put a bit of stock in what he’d learned. “A fool’s fantasy to think we could ever change things in such a profound way.”

  Behtréal arched an eyebrow. “Is it? With everything going on, with everything that’s happened, do you really believe it’s such a reach to think we might be able to rectify our wrongs, to reset the world and do things right?”

  “I think,” Theailys said, “you’ve let my nonsense make berth in the space between your ears. It’s better to focus on the task at hand lest we distract ourselves from the monsters lurking in our midst.”

  Behtréal’s jaw tensed momentarily. “Perhaps you’re right.” He took up the pipe and drew another breath, smoke leaking from the corners of his mouth. “Searyn would probably have said the same thing.”

  Theailys allowed himself a smirk at that. “Of course she would. We’re twins.”

  Were twins, a voice inside Behtréal hissed. It was not Te Mirkvahíl. It just was, and Behtréal’s thoughts drifted momentarily to what Ronomar had seen inside his mind.

  “I’m going to leave when this has passed,” Theailys said. He stood, offering his hand, and pulled Behtréal to his feet. They walked toward the entrance of the Hall, eventually bidding each other goodnight and going their separate ways.

  “You should rest,” Te Mirkvahíl said as Behtréal wandered through the labyrinthine streets of Helveden. “You’ve spent yourself this day, and the endgame is nearly upon us.”

  I shall rest once all is said and done, Behtréal thought.

  Te Mirkvahíl grumbled. “What now, then?”

  Behtréal said nothing as he made for the inn at the end of the street. He knew he was foolish to be doing this—he’d been foolish for a lot of what he’d done—but Celestials damn it all, it was too hard to resist. Just this once, he told himself as he ducked into the shadow of the inn. Just this once.

  * * *

  Behtréal had seen this woman twice before, the first time ten or fifteen years ago at war, and the second earlier in the day, a companion to Theailys An. Leyandra, she was called, but in his desperate fantasy she was Aveline, for they looked so terribly alike. Had he not been married to the past…

  “You are a fool,” Te Mirkvahíl chided. “Just as you were a fool to have commiserated with Theailys An in the courtyard. Did you expect yourself to have sewn shut the wounds on your heart in such a short amount of time?”

  Behtréal ignored the voice and instead kept his focus on Leyandra’s sleeping form, little more than a silhouette. He reached out with a trembling hand to caress her cheek, taking care to do so lightly enough that she wouldn’t wake. She was beautiful, and her battle scars served only to enhance her elegance. They were a window of sorts, a peephole to her memories and soul.

  Such pain, Behtréal thought, tapping into the modicum of illum that remained beneath her flesh. Pain for which I am responsible. He had been there the night his lokyn brood had reaped her light. Not all, but enough that she could no longer channel it. “I am sorry,” he murmured for that and so much more, withdrawing his hand.

  “The irony of your infatuation with this mortal woman is pathetic, almost as comical as the guilt Theailys An stirs within you and as the shame you feel for having marked the twins,” Te Mirkvahíl sneered. “If you care so dearly for these things you once were strong enough to realize were a plague, then perhaps you ought to slit your throat and let them be.”

  Behtréal said nothing.

  “You won’t though, will you?” Te Mirkvahíl said. “Because I’m right, and I know how much you hate when I’m right.”

  Have you no empathy? Behtréal thought. Truly?

  “Have you no spine?” Te Mirkvahíl countered. “The end is drawing near, Te Luminíl—no time for second thoughts. You either forge ahead with staunch determination, emboldened by the thought of holding your beloved wife and son again, or you fold and cede ambition to uncertainty and guilt.”

  Aveline. Jor. Behtréal squeezed his eyes shut, trying to call upon a memory of his wife and son, anything at all. Something strong enough that he might feel their phantom presence pressed against his chest. Celestials, how long had it been, how many years since he had held them in his arms?

  “Time has little meaning to forever people,” he murmured. Something Aveline had said to him once. If she could see him now, she would understand how horribly wrong she’d been. Time was everything to Behtréal, it ruled him, had molded and transformed him into what he was today. And that was…what, exactly?

  He withdrew from Leyandra’s room, formless, traveling in the shadows cast by light. This led him out and away from the inn, south to the burial mounds from which he’d resurrected ghosts from years and centuries past. He took up the shape of a wispy silhouette and wandered on his way.

  1 4

  Vultures

  There was sunshine, and the meadow was ablaze with gentle light. The air was sweet with the scent of myriad perfumes, yet pungent with the tang of iron. Cailean held Bar’s body close. It was still warm despite the blood crying around the dagger impaled in Bar’s chest. You fool, Cailean thought, choking back tears. You fucking beautiful fool.

  In his heart of hearts Cailean knew Bar’s death had been for the best. The fallen angel had said so himself in his way. “From Entropy, Law. From both, balance.” Peace. Cailean wondered what that might feel li
ke. He’d jumped from one war to the next, though searching for what, he was still unsure. It certainly wasn’t this. This was just chaos of a different kind, the chaos brought by Law, and Keepers did it hurt something fierce.

  Cailean laid Bar down in the grass and sobbed as uncertainty claimed his world for its own.

  * * *

  To Cailean, restlessness was as familiar as his flesh was scarred. He slept little these days. Most of the time it was a nap induced by drink, and even then, he found himself roused from sleep by the profoundness of his dreams, as had been the case tonight.

  He stood on the small balcony his room at the inn afforded him, looking out into the black night. The air smelled of coming rain, of horse shit, smoke, and piss. Nothing new. He took a sip from his flask, letting the whiskey saturate his tongue for a couple seconds before he took the liquid fire down his throat to let it settle in his gut. The sensation elicited a sigh, letting Cailean know he’d picked a good thinking whiskey. He’d been awfully pensive these last few days in Helveden, a strange, unsettling amalgamation of confusion, curiosity, and déjà vu.

  Smells like that night, he thought, Bar’s face rising from the depths of memory. You sure flipped that coin mighty fucking hard, you beautiful prick. Instinctively he rubbed his hand along his chest, lingering on the inch-long scar above his heart, the place where nearly sixteen years ago Bar’s blade had parted flesh and bone. It itched like hell, and the very thought of Bar, of what’d transpired in Harbanan all those years ago, sent agony flaring outward from his heart. Cailean clenched his teeth to keep the tears at bay.

  “Once marked, always marked.”

  Cailean started at the ethereal voice. He wheeled around to the darkness of his room, and from a twist of light emerged an inverse silhouette with eyes like setting suns. Cailean clutched his flask with a trembling hand. “…Bar?”

  Obscurity melted from the silhouette and pooled around its feet. Bar was lithe, fair of skin and fair of hair, garbed in a snow-white suit with polished shoes. He looked exactly as he had that terrible night in the Drahl Muuz cathedral.

  “Cailean.” His voice was soft, grating, like flies on a summer breeze, and it was all Cailean could do to keep himself from lunging at the man.

  “How? Bar… I killed you,” Cailean said. “You made me kill you.”

  “You can’t slaughter memory, my sweet,” said Bar. “You can cast away my mortal flesh, and you can send my spirit to Perdition or the Second Life, but you can never rid your memories of me. Once you let the devil in your bed there is no letting go.”

  “Once marked, always marked,” Cailean murmured. “Why now?”

  Bar cocked his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to answer that yourself, my sweet.”

  “Or”—Cailean slugged the whiskey in his flask—“you could answer that.”

  “Truly, I cannot,” Bar said. “Not the way this works. I am little more than memory, and the meaning of a memory, the reason for a memory rousing from its sleep, takes time to understand.”

  Cailean tossed the empty flask into the room. “You telling me I need to quit the drink? Is that it?”

  “On the contrary. You were always more perceptive when you drank,” Bar said.

  Cailean arched an eyebrow. “Haven’t had that kind of whiskey in a while. Fuck all, but I barely remember how to make the drink of the Galrun Muir. Even if I did…not like I have the means.”

  Bar smiled. It was soft and inviting and it served to magnify his monstrousness. Beautiful creatures, beautiful things were often times the deadliest. Cailean allowed himself to shudder. He knew Bar would take it as a compliment of sorts.

  “Things are coming to a head,” he told the fallen angel. “I can feel it in my gut.”

  “You never liked the feelings in your gut,” said Bar. “Nor I, mine.”

  “It’s like you said—the coin has flipped,” said Cailean. “Or, it’s on the verge of flipping.” He furrowed his brow. “I just don’t know what comes next, and that terrifies me to no end.”

  “What do you think comes next?” said Bar. It was more a challenge than a question. “If you learned anything from the night I broke your heart or the morning that you took my life, pray tell, my sweet—what comes next?”

  Cailean leaned against the balustrade. “Chaos. Doesn’t matter which way the coin has flipped. Chaos follows Law, chaos follows Entropy. That’s just the way of things.” He turned to face the night, gazing far into the blackness. “Why’d you do it, Bar?”

  “Do what?”

  “All of it.” Cailean kept his back to the fallen angel. “Harbanan. Killing me in the cathedral. Resurrecting me. Forcing me to kill you in the meadow. What was the truth in your madness? You said it was about restoring order, balance, but it has to be more than that.”

  Cailean turned to Bar, but the fallen angel was gone, and that was answer enough. Suppose I always knew, he thought, and the scar on his chest screamed as he allowed the truth to finally sink in.

  Sometime later a knock on the door drew Cailean’s gaze. “Come in.”

  The door opened and in stepped Leyandra. “Surprised you’re awake.”

  “Could say the same of you,” Cailean said. “Dreams?”

  She nodded. “Nightmares, really. Not going to sleep anytime soon. Walk?”

  “Sure,” Cailean said, and he took a moment to quickly dress himself. “Where to?”

  “Anywhere,” Leyandra said, and they withdrew from the room and the inn, into the night.

  * * *

  For the first time in her life, Serece found herself wishing she could wield illum. Aunt Fiel could, so why not her? Why not the rest of phantaxians? She rested her arms on the balustrade of the tower’s highest point, gazing out into the blackness of the night as the question stewed. What she would give to walk The In Between, to relive dreams and memories of yesteryears, to hold her daughter tightly in her arms as she and Rejya laughed at something their father had said.

  Suppose I could knife myself, she thought, remembering how Fiel had drawn her to The In Between. Or not. Stupid idea. She was low enough on vials of snow to the point that trying something so bold would probably lead to her death—and wouldn’t that be a terrible way to go? She curled her lip at the notion of dying in Helveden, at the increasing possibility that she might. Her ears twitched and she tensed her jaw.

  “Your anger is justified.”

  Serece started at the voice, nearly tumbling over the balustrade. She turned to its source—Rejya stood before the balcony door, arms crossed to her chest.

  “Rejya?” Serece blinked several times, but her sister remained. “H-How? I—” She reached for Rejya, grasping air as her hand passed through her sister’s arm. She swallowed, choking back tears. “Did I drink something weird? Keepers, I’m not dead, am I?”

  Rejya shook her head and approached the balustrade, each graceful step leaving gossamer threads of luminescence in its wake. “Memory is a fascinating thing. The ways in which our minds react to the world without are more extraordinary yet.”

  “Is that what you are?” Serece asked, turning to Rejya. “A memory?”

  “A fragment,” Rejya replied. “An echo.”

  “But…how am I seeing you?” Serece asked. “How are we even having this conversation? Why?”

  “I can’t answer that,” Rejya said. “You’re going to have to dig deep to understand.”

  Keepers, but there were a great number of possibilities. Guilt, fear, and shame seemed the strongest candidates though. “I’m scared, Rejya.” Serece’s ears twitched rapidly, and she reached to steady them with her hands. “The uncertainty of everything in this wretched place…”

  “You’re right to be,” Rejya said. “Only a fool would claim otherwise.”

  “The absence of evidence, Searyn An’s death, and the dreams…” Serece wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering. “They make me feel colder than I already am.” She gazed out into the night, eyes unblinking.

  “But somethi
ng else makes you absolutely frigid,” Rejya guessed.

  “The possibility, however ludicrous it seems, of Te Mirkvahíl altering time,” Serece murmured. “Rewriting history and erasing everything and everyone.”

  “And would that really be so terrible?” Rejya asked. “All of this misery and madness gone as though they’d never been. A second chance at a better life, to keep this plague from ever coming to be.” She approached Serece, stopping so their noses nearly touched. “To hold your daughter once again, to watch her grow before your eyes.”

  Serece chewed her trembling lower lip, allowing the tears to fall. All of that…it was horribly tempting. A chance to start anew. Maybe then her mother wouldn’t look at her with shame. And maybe then… “We could be together, you and I.”

  Rejya nodded. “I would like that very much.”

  Keepers, the notion of a better life was so horrifically seductive. Serece gripped the balustrade, her nails scratching the stone as Rejya whispered sweet tales of possibility in her ear.

  Would it be so wrong to seek it out? Just the fact she had asked herself turned Serece’s flaking flesh to goose pimples. She was balancing on the precipice of no return, on the edge of desperation. To simply ask? What could it hurt that hasn’t been already?

  Serece took a breath, then exhaled raggedly.

  “You know where and how,” said Rejya, as if having read Serece’s thoughts. She was a memory after all, a projection of Serece’s mind. “You need only ask. Like you said—what could it hurt that hasn’t been already?”

  Serece nodded, starting for the balcony door.

  The Bastion called to her.

  * * *

  The streets were empty save the occasional late-night wanderer or guard. Every step felt heavy, every breath a struggle, as though the city sought to keep her from this thing with every ounce of strength it still possessed, which at this point wasn’t much. The nearer Serece grew to the Bastion, the more palpable the blackness over Helveden grew, until she found herself brushing strands of shadow from the air. Dark curiosity and adrenaline kept her on the path, and eventually the city’s last stand against her desperation died.