Vultures

by Luke Tarzian

  Serece stood at the Bastion gates, yawned open so she might pass. She was not surprised. The Bastion itself rose into the night, its pinnacle devoured by the clouds and its interior illumination turning its many windows into watchful eyes. She swallowed, set her jaw, and started in with measured steps, failing horribly to keep herself from trembling as she went.

  She stopped in the center of the courtyard, in the center of a crescent moon-shaped inlay. Instinct bid she go no further until whatever lurked in wait invited her inside.

  A minute passed.

  Then another.

  And another, until Serece could not say how much time had elapsed. It could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour. She supposed it didn’t really matter. Whatever came next would have been the same regardless of how much time had passed.

  Her ears twitched. Footsteps approached from behind. She turned her head ever so slightly, enough to catch a pair of silver eyes.

  “Serece.” Fenrin stopped beside her, though his gaze was fixed upon the Bastion.

  Serece said nothing, and Fenrin offered nothing more. She wondered if the same idea had crossed his mind and knew she wouldn’t blame him if it had. Everything he’d lost, everything he’d seen… The notion of a second chance was captivating, especially when all attempts to save their current world seemed to have been in vain. Serece knew loss, and this was a war they had lost even if no one cared to admit so yet.

  The Bastion doors swung open and a silhouette emerged. Its presence forced Serece and Fenrin to their knees and Serece was certain this was It—Te Mirkvahíl. The silhouette approached at a measured pace, each footfall rousing whispers in Serece’s ears, voices from an age long dead and gone. Their words were foreign, but that mattered not, for they brought to life myriad pictures in Serece’s mind. A city like the one Theailys and the twins had seen in dreams. A raven, and an oak tree in a meadow underneath a triptych sky.

  “I know it hurts,” Te Mirkvahíl said, and its voice was nothing like Serece had thought it’d be. It was not monstrous nor cold, not hungry nor something from the abyss. It was soft, soothing. “More than anyone, I know. The loss, the remembrance, the agony of it all.”

  Serece hadn’t realized she was crying again. Te Mirkvahíl knelt, reaching to wipe away her tears. She allowed this, and the demon’s touch eased her trembling and allowed her heart and mind to relax. No fear. Just…solace.

  “I have done horrible things, and I will do more before this night is done,” Te Mirkvahíl said. “Know this brings me pain. Know this brings me guilt. I am not proud of what I have done and plan to do…but it is necessary. I just want you to know that.”

  “W-What comes next?” Serece stammered. She felt small before this thing, this entity, however old it was.

  “Pain,” Te Mirkvahíl said.

  Fenrin sputtered. Serece turned her head, stifling a cry. Mirkúr blades protruded from his chest and blood dripped down the corners of his mouth. Fenrin’s head lolled to the left, the brilliance fading from his eyes, the color from his flesh as Te Mirkvahíl took his illum for its own. The blades dispersed and Fenrin dropped to the ground, blood pooling, threads of mirkúr rising from his wounds.

  “He thought his coming here would alter things. He was wrong.” Te Mirkvahíl sighed. “Such sorrow. Such agony. Perhaps it is better he will never come to be. Life, regardless of the path, eventually leads to pain.”

  Never come to be? You fool, Fenrin. Serece longed to cry, to mourn his loss, but she dared not do so. Though what would it matter if I did? Surely death is better than this life, a life soon to be rewritten.

  “Come,” Te Mirkvahíl said, pulling Serece to her feet.

  “Where?” she asked, trailing the slender silhouette.

  “To see Theailys An.”

  * * *

  Behtréal stood atop the highest tower of Ouran’an, watching dawn creep through the clouds. The plague had taken lives, but in the end his people had persevered. Two years later and it all still seemed a wonderful dream from which he hoped he never woke.

  “How do you feel?” a gentle voice inquired from behind.

  Behtréal turned to find her standing there, his Aveline. Her gray eyes shone like gems, her waist-length mane like dark flames. “More alive than I have in quite some time.”

  She approached, raising a hand to caress his cheek. “You gave up your illum. You spent it all to eradicate the plague, to save our son, to save them all. Even now I find myself unable to say—“

  Behtréal pulled her close and pressed his lips to hers. They melted into one another and, in this moment, there was nothing else but them. “You need not say a thing,” he said, pulling back to look at Aveline, to commit her face to memory. “I would do it every time. I would risk it all, I would give it all to keep you safe, to keep our child safe—to keep them all safe.”

  Aveline smiled and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know.”

  They stood there a while longer, letting the sun warm their skin. It felt good, refreshingly cathartic after the years of coldness the plague had brought. Aveline sighed against his chest.

  Her breath was cold as ice.

  Behtréal pulled back from Aveline as she fell to ruin at his feet. Below, the city erupted into screams. He should have wailed to see her dead, naught but ashes scattering in the breeze that had come, but the only thing Behtréal thought of now was Jor. He leapt the balustrade, melting into smoke as he hurtled toward the streets. He regained physicality once outside of the Reshaperate Spire grounds and broke for home.

  Failure met Behtréal at every turn, falling from windows, stumbling from alleyways and doors. Eyes ringed black with the infected mirkúr that he thought he’d quelled, reaching desperately for this man they years ago had called their savior. Turning to ash as he passed them by in a panicked sprint.

  The trees were black and gnarled as Behtréal leapt the small fence surrounding his home. The grass was dead and dusted with a snow he’d not been privy to ’til now. The front door swung ajar and little Jor staggered out into the yard, wailing, reaching for his father. Behtréal ran, heart caught in his throat. He reached to scoop Jor into his arms.

  But there was only ash.

  * * *

  Behtréal walked through Helveden, Serece trailing several steps behind. Her fear was palpable and rightly so. The threat of something monstrous stealing everything you knew? It was something with which he could intimately empathize. And the fact her people had been able to endure their mirkúr plague where his had not? Well, that was of interest as well.

  “Stay the path,” Te Mirkvahíl hissed. “We’re so very close, Te Luminíl.”

  I am quite aware, Behtréal thought.

  “Yet once more these lesser things tug at your heart,” Te Mirkvahíl said. “So weak.”

  You love to call me so, Behtréal thought. But you would hold your tongue if you truly understood. Empathy is not weakness, nor is reflection, as I have tried explaining to you many times before. To empathize with others is to know their minds and hearts.

  “What good is that?” Te Mirkvahíl asked. “Why seek to understand such fragility?”

  I would have thought the answer obvious to you, a thing so heavily reliant upon manipulation, Behtréal thought. If you need tangible proof, look no further than the Faithbringers, Wardens, and Illumurgists of this realm. War manipulates men and women into unified machines of violent capability. It peels away all logic and instead appeals to the most primal of emotions. If you want something more concrete… Behtréal trailed off. Look to Theailys An, look to the suffering we’ve subjected him to.

  Besides, Behtréal continued. Her people spat in the face of the mirkúr plague where mine could not. There is something to be said for that.

  Te Mirkvahíl was silent. Behtréal had made his point.

  He turned his thoughts to Serece. Would she linger here to die or follow him into the Temporal Sea? The agony of remembrance was an awful price to pay, one he wasn’t sure he
could impart on someone else, least of all against their will. My dear daughter of the mountain, he thought. Whatever will you do?

  Behtréal stopped and turned to Serece. “What do you wish?” She swallowed. Her lips parted but she failed to speak. He reached for her trembling hand. It was warm despite her kind being incapable of comprehending heat. “Please. Tell me.”

  “To not hurt,” she whispered, and fresh tears welled in her eyes. “To fix things.”

  Behtréal nodded slowly. “I too long for the same. I have done such monstrous things. I have slaughtered through the centuries. I have twisted families against each other. I have hurt the ones I loved. But I intend to rectify it all, and you may help me if you wish, for my time is the seed from which this sorrow bloomed.”

  Serece said nothing.

  “Consider as we walk,” Behtréal said, towing her gently. “As chaos claims the night.”

  He called to the lokyns with his mind, called to them through the incorporeal mirkúr network through which they were bound to his will. Awaken from your sleep. Cast away your veils of flesh and reap this city of its soul. Vengeance for the sake of… Behtréal sighed. Just reclamation. He had lived amongst these people—most were noble. It wasn’t fair for sons and daughters to pay for the sins of their fathers and mothers, but that was life—unfair. His heart ached for having issued the command, but he could not afford a heavily armed response, not again. This time would be different. This time he would succeed.

  * * *

  Cailean wasn’t sure how long he and Leyandra had been walking. They hadn’t spoken much either. So much for talk, he thought, though he wasn’t really complaining. The walk did him good, helped to clear his mind. The air still smelled like shit here in the farmlands, but at least it was clean shit.

  “So. Nightmares,” he said, hoping it would prompt Leyandra into conversation.

  “Nightmares,” she echoed. She had a faraway look in her eyes.

  Cailean raised an eyebrow. “…About?”

  She took a deep breath. “The night I lost my illum. Have I ever told you?”

  “In passing,” Cailean said. He squeezed her arm. “Say what you need.”

  “Having your illum reaped from your flesh…” She spat in the grass. “It was so cold I thought they had lit me on fire. And I’ve had to relive that moment every night for the past three days. Always burning in my sleep as those creatures force their way beneath my skin and steal a piece of me, knowing I can never get it back. D’you know what that feels like, losing something irreplaceable?”

  Cailean furrowed his brow. “You know I do,” he murmured, taking Leyandra’s hand. “Often times I think of Bar, of Harbanan, of that stupid mistake that left me looking like the ugly fuck I am.”

  “But have you ever had a piece of you removed?” Leyandra asked. “Do you understand that violation, Cailean?”

  Cailean was silent a moment, then he nodded. “Bar, he…” Fuck all, but this was hard to admit. He’d not told a soul in all the years since. “That night in the cathedral—he killed me, Ley. Drove that dagger through my heart and left me there to die. He stole my life…and then he gave it back, and how do you think that feels? Comprehending what’s beyond, only to have your murderous husband bring you back to knife him in the heart.” He took a deep breath, resisting the urge to retch.

  They walked in silence for a time. Cailean thought he smelled smoke in the air, but the odor went as quickly as it’d come. He felt nauseous from their brief conversation, for having learned Leyandra’s pain and spouting his. What was it he’d wished all those weeks ago? Amnesia and a second dead eye, he recalled. Maybe a blow to the head or a blade through the heart. Whatever it takes to forget.

  “Except that isn’t what you want.” For the second time that night, Bar emerged from a twist of light. “For all your woe, you know you want to keep your memories, the history that’s made you who you are.”

  Cailean said nothing lest Leyandra think him crazier than he already was.

  “I can hear your thoughts,” said Bar. “I’m memory, after all, and memory”—he tapped Cailean’s skull—“resides within.”

  Fuck you, then, Cailean thought. You must be stupid to think I want this rattling around inside my head. All the bullshit, all the sorrow…why in Perdition would anyone want to hold on to that?

  “Like I said, my sweet. History,” said Bar. “Introspection as a means to personal growth.”

  And I suppose you know all about personal growth, do you? That’s rich coming from the man who slaughtered half a city then left his husband dead in a fucking cathedral. Cailean spat in Bar’s direction. It passed through Bar and hit the grass. Why would I want to remember any of that? Why would I want to remember you?

  “You’ll have to find the answer to that yourself,” Bar said. “I can’t speak for the dead.”

  Wish you wouldn’t speak at all, Cailean growled.

  Bar shrugged, dissolving into the night.

  Cailean reached into his jacket and cursed. He’d forgotten his flask. He took another whiff of late-night air, wrinkling his nose. “Does it smell like smoke to you?”

  “Smells like shit,” Leyandra said. Humoring Cailean, though, she raised her nose. “Faint, but yes, it smells like smoke.” She turned about, settling north toward the city proper. “Cailean…”

  But he’d already turned, swayed by the cacophony of distant screams. The city was aglow with bursts of illum, swirls of mirkúr braiding, twisting in a violent dance as fire licked the walls. Shrieks of varying pitch sent shivers up his spine. Without a second thought he sprinted north, Leyandra at his heels. Fuck all, but if they were going to die, they were going die with blades in hand and lokyn ash on blade.

  * * *

  Cailean knew they were fucked the moment they entered the city proper, and it wasn’t because of the myriad lokyns ripping flesh from bone. Leyandra had dropped to her knees and was retching something black that reeked of death.

  “F-F…uck,” she gurgled, looking up at Cailean. Her eyes were stark white save a small black dot of a symbol where her pupils once had been. Her face had begun to crack; black veins webbed outward from her eyes. “…ailean—rrruuuuuun…”

  She could tell him to run, but she couldn’t tell him how or where. He scooped her up into his arms and started back the way they’d come, into the farmlands now ablaze and half concealed by acrid smoke. Cailean coughed every several steps, and Leyandra wailed. Keepers, what the fuck am I doing? And where could he go? What could he do?

  He started as a lokyn shambled from the smoke, wearing the flesh of a little girl. Another followed, this one a little boy, and another, a woman, presumably their mother. Cailean had seen a lot in his years, but this was one of the worst in recent memory. He shifted course and headed east before the demons could make him.

  Screams ruled the night as Cailean ran. It was hard to tell where exactly he was going, but he didn’t care. Eventually the smoke began to thin. In the distance he could make out the burning ruin of a manor house, swarmed with lokyns slipping into suits of flesh. Beyond that, a small copse. He shifted course a second time, praying to the Keepers that he’d not been seen. Considering how thunderfooted Cailean was, and Leyandra’s gurgling, it was a fucking miracle they’d made it this far.

  He jogged into the copse, keeping on until his legs gave out beneath him and he tripped. Leyandra flew from his arms and landed with a thud. She rolled a couple of times before coming to rest on her back, wispy threads of mirkúr leaking from the cracks on her face. Her deep red hair had burnt to black and Cailean knew—he fucking knew.

  She reached for him, face contorted in a rictus of whatever it was that people felt when they knew they were at the end of their line. When their friend knew they were at the end of their line. Cailean crawled to Leyandra, fresh tears welling in his eyes. He forced himself to his knees and pull her into his arms, clutching her to his chest.

  How? How the fuck—

  Bar watched from beside a bla
ck stone entombed in the grass a few feet from where they were. His expression was solemn. Tears dripped from his eyes too, telling Cailean all he needed to know.

  “P…whee…se. Caaahleeuh…” Leyandra garbled, with one hand clawing at her face. “I…on’d…wha..nt…” She tugged weakly at his jacket with the other, as if she had known the dagger would be there.

  “Ley—“ She tugged harder, and what could he do but oblige? He nodded, a lump in his throat. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck.”

  Time felt slow as he finally drew the blade, slow and horribly surreal. There was moonlight peeking through the leaves, and the farmlands were ablaze with ravenous light. He wasn’t sure how long he’d sat there holding Ley. The air was sick with the odor of burning flesh, pungent with the tang of blood.

  Cailean cradled her against him, dagger hovering over top her heart. “Look at me,” he whispered to her. “Look in my eyes, love. Look here, all right? Just look…”

  He didn’t watch the dagger punch through flesh and bone, didn’t watch the life leave her eyes, but he felt it in her body going limp. Felt it in her body growing colder as the minutes passed.

  Eventually he did look. He cupped her cheek. It possessed a modicum of warmth despite the blood crying around the dagger impaled in her chest. The very dagger with which he’d been forced to slay Bar. “You fool,” he hissed of himself, choking back tears. “You ignorant fucking fool.”

  Once marked, always marked.

  He closed his eyes and wept as entropy claimed the city for its own.

  1 5

  Sorrow

  Serece could see the Hall rising up in the distance, as of yet untouched by pandemonium and fear. She looked at this thing she trailed, watching it take the shape of a woman she knew to be dead—Anayela An. She felt sick at the implication this ghost of yesteryears evoked. For a creature that claimed itself ashamed of what it’d done and planned to do, Te Mirkvahíl seemed quite intent on making Theailys’ end a festival of wretchedness and everlasting pain.