by K M McGuire
Voden tried to force the pang of guilt from piercing his heart. “Grandfather, we hadn’t meant to worry you. We just weren’t allowed to talk about our mission.”
“Oh, no, I understand,” he chuckled. “I never worried! The Great Beyond always provides. I’ve never been gifted with knowledge. Gracious, you know that, Voden! Everything always works out the way it needs to.” He smiled. “It sure did get cold.” He shivered, but his smile never waned. “Can’t remember a time I’ve seen the weather like this.” He shrugged, and Voden just watched him quietly. He was right. It had never been cold like this in Adetia. It was always mild. A white drop melted against his nose. A snowflake. He could see the gentle, quiet snow begin to fall from the grey sky. “Oh, well this is marvelous! To think snow could happen in Adetia! The Great Beyond is always finding new ways to give us miracles.”
He again chuckled to himself and pulled out a wooden goblet from his cloak. Voden shared a nervous glance with his friends, and he looked around the square again, noticing the citizens staring at the sky, muttering to one another. They shot strange looks towards the group. Voden’s grandfather dipped the cup into the pool of water. “Grandfather,” Voden whispered, “we left Adetia,” he croaked, feeling the guilt in his throat. He could not bring himself to hold the secret from his grandfather. Voden could not shake the strange feeling that the elixir had not worked. His grandfather looked at them as he sipped the water.
“You left?” he asked, his voice layered with confusion and awe.
“Yes,” Voden said, looking at Andar. Andar bit his lip. “We needed to get something to save Adetia.”
“Adetia?” he repeated, sipping again from his cup. “My boy, there was nothing to fear here! All has been well! Eigan, in fact, has been showing impressive amounts of grace recently. Allowing those poor people into Adetia…” He sipped again from his cup, thoughtfully. “Why, I never thought I would see the day again, if I am to be honest! And they’ve adapted so well! Granted, those men seemed hostile at first, but they have improved. Such lovely people. Though, I must admit, what Koruza has done to them seems rather unnatural. But they became much more handy. It’s a wonder why they never leave Eigan’s side.”
Voden felt he misunderstood what he had said.
“He’s letting people in?” Vec asked briskly. It seemed the old man had struck a nerve.
“Yes, such a blessed man! It’s something I think we had forgotten for some time. That was one of our founding tenants when the Scarred King built the Keep. Invitations to the world!” He finished his cup and breathed out a cloud of cold. The snow began to fall harder, clumping into thick, lazy precipitation. “Oh, merciful heavens! This is painful to my joints! Be good lads and help me to my feet.”
Andar and Voden obliged and held him until he stabilized himself. “Oh,” he blurted out. His hand thrusting against his chest.
“What’s wrong?” Voden asked.
“I’m not sure, just—” He coughed severely and doubled over. Black droplets fell from his mouth and spattered against the flagstone. His eyes suddenly rolled back, and he began to convulse as he dropped to his knees, Andar and Voden barely able to catch him before he collapsed on his back. The tremors stopped for a second, and he coughed again, dark blood flicking against Voden’s cheek.
“Grandfather!” Voden shrieked, holding the old man’s head, “No, no, no, no! You’ll be okay…just…hey! Please stay with me! Yael!” Andar moved aside to give Yael some space to examine Voden’s grandfather, and she placed her hand against his forehead.
“I can’t feel a way to suppress this!” she cried. “Usually you can find a node. I can’t sense one! He’s…he’s hemorrhaging throughout his body!”
The blood became more vibrant as the sun began to rise, like rose petals lost to winter. His grandfather’s eyes stared up at him, confusion taking the sparkle they once had. His eyes groped for an answer, all sense of understanding lost between them, just an atom away from connecting. Voden ran his fingers through the old man’s flighty hair, feeling tears form, as his grandfather began to pulse fiercely, sporadically bumping against Voden’s chest. Foaming red wax dripped onto Voden’s pants, and the blue orbs of his eyes rolled to the back of his grandfather’s head. The blood gurgled on, curdling from his mouth, but the shakes became less and less until limpness seize the old man.
The snowflakes now were dyed in red, the thin dusting settled beneath him, melting from the wax of life pooling on the ground. The soundless ring of finality struck in the din. His grandfather hung in his arms as Voden waited for the silence to be brushed away. Just a word. He would accept a cruel joke, but not this. The anguish writhed in his chest, swelling the coiled snake of despair. He thought he should be fine, knowing his grandfather would return to the Great Beyond, but the unknown made the thought unable to return with confidence. Even a man so deserving of forever—now it seemed even he was no longer safe from absolution. Not even a proper goodbye was whispered to him. Voden felt he had forgotten how to say, “I love you”, and even if he could remember, he would never know if he could hear it.
The pain deepened, knowing it could not change a thing even if he said it. His happiness drained with the color from his grandfather’s cheeks. He had felt the beauty of life slip through his fingers, staring at the unknown. The storm gave nothing as it hung above, with no hope of how it would ever return to normal. The tears were now drained from him as he slipped his grandfather’s eyelids closed. He now understood the sentiment of closing the dead’s eyes, and felt it was the best thing he knew to do for his grandfather.
He looked up to find the Well silent, the water no longer flowed. All that was left was the last ripple from the final drop of water settling in the pool, slowly becoming stagnant. The silence forced everyone’s attention to the Well, watching the final drop of liquid ripple into stillness. Horror connected Voden’s eyes with his friends, fear deepening inside them.
“Voden,” Yael choked, eyes glassy as she gave Voden a concerned look. “This isn’t right. This shouldn’t have happened!”
“What should have happened?” Voden cried, stroking his grandfather’s cheek.
He felt he could put it right, like when a person dropped a glass and tried to piece it together. How could one bring life back into a broken husk? His tears splashed against the darkening blood draining from the body’s nose. Everything about his grandfather looked fake. The eyes were now glassed over. That softness of life had found a way to escape from what Voden now believed to be the vessel holding the soul. The skin’s elasticity became loose, furthering the concept of life whisked away.
The hair was all that felt the same. Voden ran his fingers through the course strands. Embers of red blood glowed on Voden’s cloak, and as the wind pierced through it, it granted no mercy. His pain clouded his sight. He wanted to know if Yael had something to make it better.
“What should we do?” Voden asked, struggling to reconcile her inability to answer him.
Snowflakes speckled his grandfather’s face. No. This wasn’t his face anymore. It was a seed pulled from its shell, the remains cast aside and forgotten, hardly a husk threshed from the grain. He tried to force himself to remember something better of his grandfather. The flecks of snow erased Voden’s good memories, like pure fragments of cloth removing sot from a table. The snow would melt at first, but as more began to fall, it covered his grandfather. The heat from his grandfather’s body left, and more of his presence was erased. He wanted the moment to reverse.
Dong! Dong! Dong!
They snapped their attention to the Keep. The bells did not ring for pleasure. These bells, so specific, were of a tone meant for one purpose: The worst fear of Adetia had come.
Dong!
Dong!
Dong!
The bell beat its cadence into Voden’s heart, feeling it drop every time it struck. The sun was covered in a veil of dense clouds, marching time forward as it broke the line of the horizon. He continued to look up, hoping he h
ad just missed the soft shimmering coming off the dome, but he knew it was gone. Not even a flash of iridescence flickered above them, and the more he remembered the events, he knew all was lost. The bells kept ringing, pounding the absolution—to how profoundly he had failed Adetia—deeper into his core, unable to let go of the fading heat of his grandfather. He hardly heard the calls echoing throughout the Blue Keep, the shouts of those beginning to rush towards them.
“No! It was all a lie!” he heard Andar scream as one of the bakers tackled him to the ground. “We only meant to protect Adetia! Listen to me!”
They pressed his head firmly against the stone, while Vec stood defensively with his knives raised, holding the three men surrounding him at bay. Voden felt hands snatch him, and he watched them take Yael, her face screwed up with flailing jerks, trying to pry herself from them. They were all trapped. Voden made no attempt to fight, he only tried to cling to his grandfather, but they loosened his fingers from holding him, and all he could do was watch as his head bounced and rolled dully against the stone. He heard Andar urging Vec to drop his knives, and though he hesitated, he allowed for them to fall. The three men quickly pulled his arms behind his back, and he grimaced at the embarrassing capture. Voden still looked at the frail form, quiet on the ground, and his eyes again filled with tears, wishing he could do something to bring a sense of decency back to his dead grandfather, but the helplessness only burned further inside him, pushing the tears out, and he felt the pain so truly that they could turn to blood at any moment.
And the mass of people, racked with confusion, came filing into the square, while the four of them were pulled towards the Blue Keep. Murmurs boiled like a bubbling cauldron. Their eyes turned to the sky, and wails became one of the many lamentations heard, while some splashed their hands in the pools of the Well of the Will. The accusations soon followed, beating each of them with fearful images of how the Beyond would punish them, or that the Collapsing Plane was a just punishment for them. But none of it really made a difference to Voden. He felt his legs bouncing to the texture of the flagstone, while he turned a terrified eye towards Yael, and he could not keep the guilt from his face.
She was wide-eyed with confusion, fighting to find a solution to their dilemma, but he could tell, that even with AD, there would be too much risk. Voden had still hoped she could somehow save his grandfather. Maybe that could make this all right. He looked at the man, still weeping at the edge of the Well, and for a moment, he wondered how faith in artifacts, or anything really, could make someone forget the corpse of the sentient that had been lying at their feet. He struggled to understand, and he could not grip how faith was put so far above the individual, as if whatever they believed in was never about sentients at all. He felt it was never about relationships, just like his mission, it was all fake. He turned his head, not wanting to cry anymore, though he couldn’t stop it, shaking bitterly as his feet still moved across the stone. The crowd closed around them, screaming their pain to the Keep, calling for hope from someone with a voice they could trust. He heard words that cut him almost as deeply as watching his grandfather die, many spouting off at them for being heretics and terrorist who were bent on calamity, all because they were just as scared, lashing out at anything that was easy to blame.
Shame came like bloody fists against Voden’s temple, believing that the Beyond had truly abandoned them all. They were dragged into the atrium, where a line of half-men came filing down the stairs of the upper lobby, with Koruza and Eigan briskly trailing behind them, and the two of them moved to the balcony, looking down at the mass filling the entranceway. Voden could not understand why these half-men now formed a line in front of them.
“It was you,” Vec whispered.
“What is the meaning of this?” Eigan called out to the crowd. His eyes scanned the rabble, falling on Voden, curling his lips palely into his cheeks, “Voden, Andar! You’ve found your way back, and with friends! But why do you all seem so uneasy?”
“This was your plan, wasn’t it?” bellowed Andar, pulling against the men holding him. “This is your doing! You and that engineer of yours! Just puppets to your scheme! You plotted Adetia’s fall, didn’t you?”
“I fear I am rather confused by your accusations. Adetia has fallen?” Eigan responded, his voice nuisance so well as to make himself sound concerned. He held out his hands. “I see no sign of devastation.”
But the crowd began to spout out a string of words, where only a few words could be caught about the dome and the Well, no longer active.
“This is a terror. And you blame me?” His eyes grew sad with the accusation, as though hurt by the words. “I’ve only ever been in the market of protecting our home here! I had feared that you two were lost out on your field research assignment. I can’t imagine how I would be capable of something so vile! Too much responsibility seems to have plagued your minds, and with it came imputations of a conspiracy! I should have considered more capable individuals.” He turned and gave Koruza the slightest smile. “It’s a marvel that we have had such an intelligent person as Koruza inventing these apparatus’ to maintain those of the outside world!”
“They are monsters!” screamed Yael, her eyes glistening with the pain of the dead children, “We witnessed their slaughter not even a day ago! And they are on their way here! They are coming to destroy this place!”
“What a lovely girl,” Eigan muttered, and scanned her features. His hand found its way inside his blasphemously white cloak. He smirked and all but chuckled. “I can’t imagine that being the case. They are truly docile. They have given themselves over to the Beyond, and to be frank, to cut out the part of us that is so committed to freewill…well, we can see how foolish one who wishes to obey the Great Beyond becomes when they are allowed to decide for themselves.” He snapped his fingers, and the row of half-men pulled themselves rigid. Their arms fell firmly to their side, and as one, they barked their obedience.
“Do you not remember, Voden, what we had discussed before you left?”
Voden could see a strange mania in Eigan’s eyes.
“You see? They are of no consequence. We have some out in the world, of course. They are recruiting all those lost souls who need salvation! That is their purpose, my children.” Vec spit on the ground at that comment. Eigan ignored him. “But tell me, how does one corrupt the Great Beyond’s gift?”
All grew quiet, until they heard a shuffling through the crowd, where another half-man forced his way through. “This, Lord Eigan,” came the half-man’s voice from behind them. There was something familiar to his voice, and he held up the small crystal vial that Voden had unknowingly dropped. The half-man cut his way to the front, and Voden could now see his features more clearly as his tongue flicked out of his mouth. “I found it by the Well, sir. It ‘ad some kinna liquid innit.”
Eigan waved him up, and Voden watched the half-man ascend the stairs, the gold encasing the side of his face flashed in the light, and his metallic arm handed Eigan the small vial. “Thank you, Scelus,” he said.
Voden instantly recognized him, and he tensed his muscles, but the men holding him pulled his arms tighter.
“There’s an ol’ man dead by the Well, too,” Scelus added.
“Where did you get this…poison?” Eigan asked, his face turning to a scowl.
“It’s what you asked us to get!” Andar growled.
“That is not what I asked!” Eigan blurted out. His face had turned sour, and the room seemed to take a step back at the furious outburst. He composed himself, waiting for an answer.
“You told us the Well was dying. You said the Well would dry up, and we had to save Adetia,” Andar seethed, his head drooping. Voden gave Yael a glance, but she seemed to stick in her head, unwilling to at least meet his attention. “You told us that was the cure! You told us that was our answer!”
A churning of voices flowed through the crowd.
“Merciful Beyond, even still you speak erroneously,” Eigan proclaimed. He strok
ed his chin thoughtfully, while the crowd began to bubble with fearful cries, wondering what to do. “I struggle to find a form of recourse. There has never been such atrocity to root inside our streets! Dear boys, what have you done?” He held the crowd with silence, and he gave them each a stern expression, though there was a hint of a smirk tugging at his lips.
Andar had not taken his gaze from the priest’s eyes, burning every vehement feeling he could muster, firing them up at the man.
Eigan turned back to the crowd. “It seems clear to me that our path forward is evident. I have tried to explain the augmentations as necessary, but what further evidence do you need?” He let the question stir amid the people, who Voden could see were shaking their heads in agreement. “I fear there can be no other alternative to fulfilling what the Beyond has in store for the world. Perhaps we must take this further.” He again snapped his fingers, and Scelus scurried down the stairs, directing the other half-men into action. In an instant, they pushed the men holding Voden and his friends aside, and Voden heard a strange whirl vibrating from their chests. A pulse of different colored light slid along their metallic limbs, and their arms began to split into polygons, forming strange, shackles that sparked and rattled with energy. The sparks trailed up Voden’s arm, at first sending a shock that suppressed his nerves, or perhaps his will to resist, ebbing back to a slight tickling along his hair. “People of Adetia,” Eigan said when the shackles were secured, “it is time to move our marvelous city into the new age! What we have to offer is eternal! We must make our pledge to the Beyond and offer our souls, our freewill, to Him! We must become one with the Azucrepyhs and become the undying! We will make an example of these four, and they shall become obedient to the Will! We must all ascend to the celestial and become the Azuchons, the culmination of everything the Great Beyond has called us to be!”
The crowd, seemed hesitant at first, and then, as though by magic, or by some strange enlightenment, they began to cheer, shouting phrases about proper justice and divinity, and each time Voden heard them speak, he felt that they were speaking of something darker than they had any capacity to understand.
