Vultures

by Luke Tarzian

  “The endgame is all but here,” Te Mirkvahíl hissed gleefully.

  They had all but brought the city to its knees, and the queen would soon be dead if Ronomar and Raelza hadn’t finished her already. Once Helveden was destroyed, there would be no stopping Behtréal.

  Funny. He allowed himself a melancholy smile. I thought the same thing last time and look how well that turned out. Foiled by Khar Am. Behtréal had been far more careful this time, more calculating in his methods, and it showed.

  He continued on his way before stepping out onto the grass of the garden. The garden wrapped around the rear of the Hall, and at its center was an oak tree for which Behtréal had a particular fondness.

  * * *

  Theailys held The Keepers’ Wrath in the palm of his hand. Years of theory and three straight days of forging had finally seen the creation of this weapon to fruition. He should have felt the weight lessen, should have felt the tightness in his chest subside even the smallest bit, yet he did not. Instead, as Theailys held this power focus, no bigger than an apple, he felt a combination of uncertainty and dread, laced with a trace amount of desperate hope, as if all the opposition to this weapon’s genesis had finally made its home in the center of his mind.

  Theailys placed the orb on the pedestal beside his desk. His hands were trembling horribly, and he clasped them together in an effort to calm himself, the little good it did. The trembling made its way up his arms, to his shoulders and torso, and he found himself shaking, shivering almost, as the weight of his reality pressed itself upon him like a serpent strangling its prey.

  Breathe, he urged of himself, though he struggled even at that. Each breath was ragged and apprehensive, the opposite of what his mother had taught him as a boy. He closed his eyes, hoping the darkness might see fit to ease his troubled mind, but it only served to chill his blood.

  “Shift your focus elsewhere,” Remy said. “To a memory that brings you joy. To a thought that fills your heart with hope. Think of a distant land bereft of war and death. Think of the ocean breeze against your face as you set sail for this new and wondrous place.”

  Theailys had said that he would leave the country once the war was done, and it was ludicrous to think he might go back on that. What was left for him here? Why remain in the city in a country where his life had been an anxious wreck at best?

  I’ve always wanted to visit Liosene, he thought. Good whiskey from what I hear.

  Remy scoffed. “Liosene is a cesspool of rape and slaughter.”

  Theailys shrugged. Still sounds better than Ariath. Than Helveden.

  “Quite a low bar,” Remy said. “But I suppose I understand.”

  Theailys twiddled his thumbs, gazing at the open door at the far end of his office chamber. What do you think of temporal alteration, Remy? At first it seemed a ludicrous notion, but…I don’t know. Serece seemed hellbent on the possibility, on the idea that Te Mirkvahíl might rewrite history. Let’s pretend all this is true: what reason would Te Mirkvahíl have for wanting to accomplish this?

  “If I were to venture a guess,” said Remy, “I would say the ruined city Ouran’an is at the center of it all. Both you and the twins have seen this city in your dreams, walked its dead halls, even, and the consensus seems to be that Te Mirkvahíl is an old Reshaper. So…”

  You think Te Mirkvahíl is trying to save its city? Theailys asked.

  “Perhaps. I can think of little else,” said Remy. “If…if you were Te Mirkvahíl and your city had been destroyed, would you not do everything in your power to see it restored? Would you not try altering time if you possessed the means?”

  Theailys frowned. You’re asking that I empathize with Te Mirkvahíl in an entirely hypothetical situation. You do realize this, right?

  “I do, and I did for the simple fact that empathy allows for a better understanding of the enemy,” Remy said. “Ariath has fought this entity for years, centuries, even, yet has anyone ever thought to inquire as to why Te Mirkvahíl saw fit to start this war, or if Te Mirkvahíl was even the one to start it?”

  Those were dangerously bold questions, the latter of which had never even occurred to Theailys. He had always been taught, always assumed that Ariath had simply retaliated toward hostile intent. But what if the truth was more complex? He felt cold at the notion that the war might not be as straightforward as he’d always thought. From that came a queasiness in his gut, one that grew more violent as he gazed upon The Keepers’ Wrath.

  A faint whisper rippled outward from the center of Theailys’ mind, growing louder the longer he looked at the orb. Somehow, sitting here, transfixed on the fruit of his theory and craftsmanship, felt…familiar. He reached for The Keepers’ Wrath, but stopped a couple inches short, hand quivering as the whisper’s volume rose. At first, he thought it was Faro, struggling to flip the coin, to wrest control from Remy and supplant him as the dominant voice. But the whisper grew to a distressed murmur, and Theailys realized Remy was the source.

  “I have lived this once,” said Remy. “This scene, this calm before the storm.” He wailed with such affliction that Theailys thought his skull was going to crack. “The Keepers’ Wrath must be destroyed.”

  Theailys steadied himself, head still pounding. What are you talking about? Remy, what—

  He grabbed the orb, lurching from his seat against his will, and started toward the oaken door at the far end of the chamber, leading out to a patio at the rear of the Hall. Theailys pushed, trying to wrest control of his body back, but Remy, in all his fear and desperation, was undeterred. In fact, his control of Theailys seemed only to grow as they opened the door and stumbled out onto the grass.

  WHAT IS GOING ON?

  Remy held his tongue, but fractured recollections flashed across Theailys’ mind. An office chamber—his office chamber—flooded by Illumurgists with threads of shadow leaking from their eyes. In the center of the chamber stood a man, strikingly, terribly reminiscent of Theailys in the face save purple eyes instead of gray. In one hand he held a mirkúr blade, in the other The Keepers’ Wrath. It was identical to the very sphere he carried with him now.

  Reality melted as Theailys ran, as he became the figure in the scene.

  “They have come to claim it in his name,” said Remy. “Faro, you must run”

  Theailys—Faro—lunged at the lokyn nearest him (he was undoubtedly sure that was what these creatures were) and swung the mirkúr blade clean across the demon’s gut. Blood, smoke, and a sick black liquid leaked between the flesh and robes, and the creature shrieked as Faro reaped its spirit for his own, drawing the dark essence into the orb. He finished the other three off in a similar fashion. They’d obviously been lesser demons, and those stood little chance against a Master Illumurgist such as he was.

  Faro turned, starting for the door at the chamber’s rear, but stopped abruptly at the call of his name. He turned, a cold sweat dripping down his face and neck, down his spine as a slender silhouette took shape some hundred feet away in the dimness of the hall. It walked with measured steps, with swaying hips, a pair of blue eyes shining brightly in the gloom.

  “My dearest Faro.”

  The chill beneath his flesh intensified. Faro knew the master of the voice and knew her well. To hear her whisper such a name was agonizing. Only one had ever called to him like that, and she was four years dead.

  “Anasharon.”

  He approached this thing, this reflection of his wife with guarded steps, The Keepers’ Wrath and mirkúr blade still tightly in his grip. She seemed to float, to walk the air like faeries do. Her tresses fluttered in the breeze her steps conjured.

  “Come now, Faro,” said this thing, his wife. “Come now, let me feel your touch.” A sob escaped her phantom lips and she reached a quivering arm his way. “So cold. So cold where I have been. Won’t you…” The darkness melted from her frame and pooled around her feet. She stood before him, motionless in winter-white with silky hair and eyes of blue. Her skin was fair, her thin lips pink, as though s
he’d not been touched by death. She was just as he recalled and looked exactly as she had the night that they’d been wed.

  “Won’t you hold me as you did so long ago? Faro?”

  He jumped. Her voice had shifted, now filled with life, so unlike the haunting call he’d heard. He dismissed his blade and stepped toward Anasharon, yearning for the sweet familiarity of her voice. He reached his hand to her face. It was cold as death, if not more so.

  “How could you let this happen?” she inquired tearfully. Darkness wreathed around them and the Hall dissolved, a forest rising up from memory to take its place.

  “Anasharon?”

  She spun away, dancing sadly through the skeleton trees, her dark tresses bouncing as she went. Her eyes shone bright amongst the gloom, never straying from his face. They bore into Faro, slicing open wounds he’d done his best to suture shut. A throbbing pain shot through his chest, one he hadn’t felt in years, not since he’d reaped her soul, then held her as she’d died. In the burial mounds he’d placed her corpse and carved her name into a stone. He’d sat beside that grave for hours every day, wish her back. Yet she stood before him now, dancing about the trees. But there was something different in her eyes, something cheerless, odd, and hollow. Something dead.

  “Anasharon!”

  Like smoke she was before him, seething. “YOU DID THIS TO ME, FARO! YOU STOLE MY SOUL AND KEPT IT FOR YOUR OWN!”

  Faro watched her twirl away, mouth agape, eyes about to burst.

  “You let me wilt away so long ago,” she whispered. “You let your memories of me fade. Are you ashamed of me, my Faro? Have you no desire to keep me in your thoughts? Was my soul the only thing you hungered for?”

  Faro fell to his knees. “How could you think such awful things, Anasharon?” he croaked, on the verge of tears. “What you say, it isn’t true! Of all the things my mind has fractured, never could I let it break my thoughts of you. You are always constant in my dreams. Never once have I forgotten you.” He bowed his head. “Never once I have ignored the shame I feel, knowing that you’re dead because of me.”

  Anasharon said nothing. Her blue eyes turned a somber gray, then she slipped away. Faro leapt to his feet and chased her through the trees. He would not lose her a second time.

  She led him to a clearing where the night sky shone. It was a twisted, ugly mass of charcoal, lightless and bereft of life. Behind her stood the remnants of a church, a crumbling thing with toppled spires stretching toward the clouds and stained-glass windows where the eyes of the long-dead looked out at nothing but the darkness of the grove. The trees around the church were bare and dry, the ground beneath it cracked. Fog hung in the air, and mist crept through the trees. There was a sense of hopelessness about this place, and Faro knew that he had found it. He had found the place—

  “In which I died,” Anasharon said, as though she’d read his mind.

  Faro turned his gaze to her. A cold breeze slipped between the trees and snaked around the woman. Departed was the gilded portrait memory had bestowed, washed away beneath the ashy night, replaced instead by the truth that was her hollow, rotting corpse. Faro wiped away the tears, his emotions threatening to rend him from the inside out. Sorrow, grief, and desperation consumed him. She’d been so real, so very real.

  Faro stood before her, letting memories pass through on repeat before they fizzled into nothing, leaving him alone once more. Anasharon drifted toward him, placed a ghoulish hand upon his cheek, and wiped away his sorrow as he mourned. She took up her lively form once more, whispering softly in his ear.

  “Stay with me, always and forever.”

  And for a moment, yet again, Faro fell prey to her lifeless mouth, aching horribly to say, “Of course, my Anasharon, of course I’ll stay.” But he kept his tongue, watching as his seconds-long delusion vanished in a breeze, replaced again with death. He glared into its eyeless holes and snarled, “You…you are not my Anasharon. You are a foulness from the trees and if you linger but a second more your death shall come again.” The corpse, the thing, did not relent, and Faro pushed its clammy hands away. “Just leave me be.”

  Anasharon whimpered sadly as he shoved her to the side and stalked his way to the church. He placed a hand upon the heavy, oaken barrier and pushed. He could see, could smell the gore-filled reality of the Hall within and longed for its ugly, terrible comfort, to be away from whatever thing had come to him. The doors creaked open and he slipped into the forlorn, antique temple, Anasharon vanishing from sight, her voice an echo out of time.

  “Always and forever…”

  Faro gasped as the Hall materialized around him. His chest stung, and blood spilled from his mouth. Anasharon stood before him, a grin spread wide across her face, the hilt of a mirkúr blade clutched tightly in her hand. She relented, and Faro dropped to his knees, reality undulating as he dragged himself across the floor.

  “I wish I could say I was sorry,” Anasharon said, trailing at a walk. “Rather, the coward inside me does. I would like to say thank you for the tremendous amount of work. Without you, Faro Fatego, my undertaking might not have come to fruition.”

  Faro dragged himself through the chamber and collapsed by the pedestal, The Keepers’ Wrath rolling from his hand. Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes, blood from the corners of his mouth. Keepers, what have I done?

  Anasharon extended a hand and tugged on his soul.

  Keepers…

  He could see his corpse on the floor as he floated toward the demon.

  what

  Faro could see, feel amidst a swirl of smoke the demon taking up his corpse and wearing him like a suit. Could hear the monster’s incorporeal laugh and the shrieks of myriad stolen souls.

  have I…

  More Illumurgists flooded the chamber, blades in hand. Faro knew they were doomed.

  done?

  The memory dissolved, and Theailys screamed as the waking world came into focus with the ferocity of a fire eating grass. He stumbled, tripping over his feet and falling to ground before a giant tree. An oak tree.

  Remy was screaming too, trying desperately to force Theailys to his feet, but the shock of the memory kept him planted where he was, trembling madly.

  I WAS HIM. I WAS HIM. FARO FATEGO.

  “GET UP! GET UP, THE DEMON COMES!” Remy shrieked.

  He could hear the screaming now, to the distant west but loud enough to know the storm had come. That it wouldn’t stop until it’d claimed its prize. He clutched The Keepers’ Wrath to his chest and cursed himself for having ever been so foolish.

  “Please,” Remy whimpered. “You have to get up. You have to run from here. You have to destroy The Keepers’ Wrath lest it annihilate us all.”

  So many questions. So much pain. Tears leaking from his eyes, Theailys forced himself to stand and stagger past the tree. Beyond it, though, was something he had not foreseen—his darling wife, as beautiful as she’d been the night she’d died. Urine ran down Theailys’ legs at the sight before him, as he stood there, stuck in place.

  “No…” he croaked, lower lip trembling, a lump in his throat. “No, I…I killed you.” Anayela approached, boring into him with that beautiful emerald stare, the skirt of her gown fluttering with every step she took. “This isn’t real.”

  Like smoke she was before him. So quickly he’d not seen her disappear nor reappear. She just was. She reached up to caress his cheek, and he could see there were tears in her eyes too. He faltered at her touch and dropped to his knees, but Anayela went down with him, tipping his chin up with her thumb so she could look into his eyes.

  “I really am sorry,” she whispered. “Our love—I want to you know it was real.” She leaned in to capture his lips, and she tasted like honey, like she always had.

  Remy was still screaming, but the sound had faded to a dull buzz. Everything had faded to a dull buzz, and the world was nearly black as pitch. There was rain, too, and the cold was nice. It’d numbed him long enough to mask the pain of sundered flesh and the
heat of blood.

  Anayela pulled away, taking care to remove the blade from his chest with a gentle hand. When had she summoned it? “It will all be over soon.”

  It must have been the blood loss and the torment. He imagined Anayela taking up the orb. Felt a tugging on his soul as sorrow spilled from Anayela’s eyes.

  Keepers…

  Theailys could see his corpse on the ground, just as Faro Fatego had so long ago.

  what

  He could hear the monster’s gulps and sobs, the shrieks of myriad stolen souls.

  have I…

  His spirit floated toward the silver moon that would end the world.

  done?

  * * *

  Behtréal laid Theailys gently beneath the tree and closed his eyes. He had brought this man two lifetime’s worth of pain. Closing his eyes to the darkness of this world was the very least he could do.

  “Someday, somehow, in another time perhaps, this will all make sense,” he whispered, looking over Theailys’ still and battered form. Behtréal placed his hand on Theailys’ chest, over the spot where he had run the poor man through, and with his mind he tugged, calling Theailys’ illum, calling his soul. Taking it with him away from this ugly place—that was the very least he could do.

  “I told you pain would rule this night,” he whispered, half to himself, half to the memory of Serece in a firm but gentle tone. It was a shame she had turned, but then again life was full of shame, was it not? “What is done, is done. Soon the real work begins.” As if these last centuries had been little more than leisure. He stood and started from the tree.

  “Where now?” Te Mirkvahíl inquired. There was such monstrous glee in that voice.

  To a Place Where the Sun is Silent, Behtréal said, and in a rush of shadow he fled, leaving Helveden to its violent end.