by D M Wozniak
Chimeline nods once, very subtly, almost as if she’s embarrassed.
“How?”
“Dem,” Blythe interjects, leaning in. “Did you not see the woman fall into the white pool of axion? She must have been pulled into soteria.”
My eyes lock on Chimeline. “So were you, but you’re still alive.”
“I barely touched it,” she replies, blinking once. “I was lucky. Marine was not.”
I exhale deeply and bow my head. I bring Chimeline’s head into my chest again, as I stare at the distant body.
“Was she dead before she hit the ground?” I ask, swallowing hard.
“It would seem so,” Blythe answers. “Putting anyone in soteria would kill them immediately. This is a horrible act of wanting. Her mortal life was never his to take. But the continued enslavement of her soul is the far greater crime.”
I sharply raise my head. “You mean that her soul is now in one of his voidstones.”
“I’m afraid so.”
It takes me a moment to even comprehend what Blythe is saying. It’s the most obvious conclusion, but it still doesn’t seem real.
Ever since I learned about the enervated, they were strangers to me. A distant people. During eleutheria, I saw through their eyes when their shapes passed through me. Memories in the white room. Flashes of their short, mortal lives prior to being placed in soteria.
That experience changed me forever, but the souls were still strangers to me. Like how a child in the womb must be to an expectant father—priceless, yet unshaped. A paradox of the unknown and of certainty.
But now? The idea that Marine—someone whom I have known for years—is trapped inside one of Mander’s voidstones seems too cruel to be true.
A gust of wind hits me.
I become enraged by both the sight of her body and the absence of what remains. Two crimes, one visible and one unseen.
It’s not a burning rage, as when Chimeline was tortured and I could do nothing. This is a rage of loss—something frigid, bruised, and empty. My wife left me for Mander because she was following something that was not quite love. She had thought that Mander would lead her to greater things. Gilded heights.
And now her dead body lies in the sand. An opened cage.
When I met her, her youth was an attractive quality. Her beauty could have taken her anywhere. Now, all I see is the other side of that hideous coin. Gullibility. An innocence exploited.
The tide rises slowly. The waves start to reach her, pulling her away to a place she had always loved.
My gaze eventually leaves Marine, following a set of footprints down the length of the shoreline. It looks like a trail of ants.
Even though he’s hundreds of feet away, there is no mistaking Mander. His bald head is visibly red, and his brilliant blue shirt and pants are torn to shreds. The way he’s walking is even clumsier than what sand would impose. As I watch, he falls to his knees, and then he scrambles back up again, arms flailing.
He’s in a hurry.
Colu points further ahead. “He’s headed for that sloop.”
Far in the hazy distance, a red-painted pier juts out from the beach like a congealed scar. There are a few smaller fishing vessels tied up there, and a gracious, single-masted ship.
“He’s moving slow, but we can’t get to him before he reaches it. Unless you have one of those stones left on you.”
“I don’t,” I answer. “Nor will I ever again.”
My gaze continues westward, out toward the bay.
In the hazy distance lurks the cobweb of ships and anchor chains, with the Axiondrive in the middle.
“Dem?” Chimeline says softly.
I turn to her.
“I know this sounds crazy, but you must jump.”
My rage is doused with sadness, as I touch her shoulder. She is surely thinking back to when we were in the citadel, in front of the Royal House. The night we first met. In the moonlight, we jumped off the stone wall together. It was when I was still following a man in shadow and the stain of black pitch.
“I wish I could, Chimeline, but I can’t do what I did in the citadel. I don’t have a voidstone.”
She looks down, past the precipice.
“No. But she does.”
I follow her gaze. Marine’s body is so far away, I can’t make out that level of detail. I doubt that Mander would forget to take her stone, but it makes no difference.
I turn back to her. “Voidance doesn’t work like that. I need to touch the stone in order to work it. By the time I’ll be able to reach it, I’ll be dead from the impact.”
She shakes her head forcefully. “No! Not you. Them.”
“Them?”
Chimeline flickers into a glow again, as Blythe, Colu, and myself all frantically grasp her, pulling her away from the edge as she collapses to the ground. But by the time she lies down, the glow has already faded.
“Aim for Marine,” she exhales. “The voidstone. We will slow your fall.”
“Are you speaking to the enervated?” Blythe asks.
She glances distractedly to him and then gives him a quick nod.
“How is that even possible?” I ask.
Blythe looks unsure. “Perhaps her brief touching the pool changed her in some way.”
“Is Marine there?” I ask her.
“Yes. She’s with them now.”
Colu laughs out a dark breath and raises his hands to his head. “This is insane.”
I lend a hand to Chimeline as she scrambles back to her feet. She grasps my shirt with her fists.
“I know this is hard for you to understand, but please believe me. It is the only way.”
I’m paralyzed, until she shakes me with surprising strength.
“Please, go now! The waves are taking her body out to sea!”
I peer over the edge once again.
She’s right. Marine’s body is now face down and floating free of the sand, the gentle waves rolling over her.
“Do you trust me, Dem?”
Briefly, I close my eyes.
May the Unnamed help me.
“Dem, do you—”
As an answer, I take Chimeline’s face in my hands and kiss her deeply on the lips.
When I pull back, her gaze is built of matching conviction. “I trust no one more.”
Then, without another word, I step backward a few paces.
Colu and Blythe look on in shock. The Xian still has his hands on his shaking head.
“Dem? Are you sure about this?” Blythe asks.
But there is nothing left to say. Reason is tangled up in dialog, but faith is wrapped in silence.
Taking a running jump from the edge of the broken Celestium, I cross into open sky.
Owning the Dark
This is the first time that I have fallen without a membrane.
It is terrifying.
I look down to make sure my aim is true. The ruins quickly pass under me, replaced by shallow turquoise waters.
Marine’s body.
It comes too quickly.
Currents of hot and cool air rush around me, howling, almost like being in the void. My white shirt lifts up over my head, obstructing my view of the blue sky, but it doesn’t matter. I decide to close my eyes anyway.
Then, perfect silence.
An abrupt slowing down. Nausea. My heart in my throat, my body spinning forward.
I hit the water with enough speed that it stings. I submerge, my boots and clothes instantly soaked through. The wound on my back stings anew.
The bottom.
I blindly grab a handful of rocks and seashells on the seabed floor while swallowing saltwater.
If I can do this, I can stand.
Waist-high waters.
Regaining my balance, I spread my arms and feet wide, coughing out the sickening taste of salt.
I turn around in all directions.
Marine is a few feet away from me, face down in deeper waters, floating away.
I rush ov
er, splashing in the shallows, until I grab her arm and begin dragging her back to shore.
I try not to look at her.
There’s a noise from above. Colu cheering, from the sound of it.
I look up at the sheer cliff, my free hand sheltering my eyes from the harsh sun. The three stand inside the shadowed, open-boxed Celestium.
I wave once.
So much debris blocks my way that I need to walk north, down the length of the beach in the direction Mander went, before I reach a clear section of sand. I spy a flat and smooth boulder, at least five feet long.
Here. She will be safe from the rising tide.
Kneeling by Marine’s side, I turn her body around, so that she faces upwards. Arms under her, I gently lift her body and lay it down upon the large rock. A makeshift altar.
A string of blackish-green seaweed covers her face, which I remove. One of her pale breasts is visible, and I pull up on her white lace dress to conceal it demurely, spreading the waistline out at her side. Then I see her glassy eyes reflecting the sky.
I force them closed with a gentle hand.
That’s when I see it.
Her voidstone.
The gold necklace still hangs around her neck, the heavy stone lying off to the side, hidden in the tangles of her blonde hair.
She’s trapped inside.
No. Not this one. She in one of Mander’s. The voidstone that turned white.
It must still be taken for eleutheria. There are thousands of souls in this voidstone alone.
Following the chain, I carefully separate it from the tendrils of hair and then rip it off while looking away.
That’s when I see him.
A hazy, black ellipse on the sandy horizon.
Careful not to touch the stone itself, I stuff Marine’s necklace in my pants pocket by the gold setting, and then force myself to look at my wife one last time.
I wipe the sand off her face and kiss her on the forehead. She broke my heart, but she didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this.
“I promise I’m going to find you,” I say, even though I know she can’t hear me. “I’m going to set you free.”
I rise to my feet.
Next comes off my boots and socks, both of which are saturated with saltwater. They will only weigh me down. I curl up the ends of my pants to mid-calf and orient myself.
The sheer bluff is to my right, Xi Bay to my left.
And through my tears, Mander is far in front.
I begin to run.
Almost immediately, the lure of voidance is at my side, as if it was this second set of footprints in the sand I follow. As I put one foot in front of the other, my frequent admonishment to my former students runs through my mind.
Never use voidance to move faster, to carry heavier weight, to attain something out of reach. Never use it to assist you in everyday activities. This is the surest way to voidance dependence and addiction, a certain path to voideath. If you must use voidance to run faster, it should be a life and death situation.
A life or death situation.
There has never been a greater need than right here and right now.
No.
I will test the limits of my body instead. I am done using voidance.
The dark form slowly becomes larger. Blue, not black. I step in Mander’s footprints when I can. Two of his for every one of mine.
My legs soon burn, pleading for rest, but this burning is nothing compared to the screams I heard when Chimeline and Marine touched the pool. The souls plead for rest in every moment of voidance, but these pleas go unheard.
Sweat drips into my eyes, causing me to briefly lose sight of Mander. I rip off my white, sodden shirt, wiping my brow so that I can see, and then I throw it away.
I’m slowly catching up to the bastard.
The red pier lies five hundred feet in front of him, and he’s half that distance from me.
When I’m about two hundred feet away, Mander sees me.
He spins around, then looks back over his shoulder at the crimson pier, a rickety structure seemingly dipped in blood.
You’re not going to make it.
He seems to reach the same conclusion. He faces me fully, shoulders hunched with legs spread and shaking.
I slow my pace to a brisk walk. One hundred feet now.
He grabs his voidstones, holding one in each hand.
Between us, the sand begins to divide in a perpendicular line, from sea to bluff. He forms another rift.
It widens as it deepens. Two feet. Then three.
Instantly, the waters from Xi Bay fill it.
I pick up my pace to a sprint. By the time I reach the edge, the rift is five feet wide and still growing.
I take a running leap.
But my legs are tired. They are wet clay, hot ash.
I hit the water. My hands barely reach the surface of the beach on the other side.
Sand crumbles under my fingers, and for a moment I go under. The saltwater burns the cut on my back.
When I rise to the surface, I try again. Sand crumbles.
And again.
The fourth time, my clawing hands find purchase, and I use all my strength to pull myself up. I cry out with a voice that burns my lungs.
Slowly, I rise to my feet as he backs away.
He’s less than twenty feet from me—close enough for me to notice that sweat and blood have darkened his silky emerald shirt and pants.
Head and shoulders bent in exhaustion, he looks up at me with a murderous gaze, fear and hatred grappling with each other.
He grabs his voidstones again as I walk toward him.
This time, it isn’t a rift that he’s creating. Instead, the sun slowly dims, replaced with a rising, swirling, bronze cloud of sand.
Within a few steps, a sandstorm buzzes around me, blowing tall drifts into the beach on each side of me. The gusts stream constantly from him to me. A shaving of bluff to my right collapses in the buzzing and shadowy air. The speed is deafening.
I shield my eyes with an outstretched hand, but I don’t need to.
The sand doesn’t hit me.
Between us, sun barely flickers through a narrow tunnel of twilight, as though filtered through swaying, heavy branches. Beyond it, in all directions, a torrent of sand and wind.
He’s doing what he did in the park. The violent gusts that brought down the bell tower and destroyed the fountain. They would have killed me as well, if it weren’t for the enervated’s help.
And they’re still helping.
Within our tunnel of air, Mander and I lock eyes as I continue to walk slowly forward. Even though I’m not being buffeted, I still feel hidden resistance. I lean in with my body, as if pushing a heavy weight, legs behind me, using the deep tracks in the sand as leverage. He blinks rapidly, and I see the struggle within him wash away. Hatred has lost. It’s only fear in his eyes now.
He spins around as the sandstorm shifts.
I catch my balance as the resistance disappears. The wind begins to fly in the opposite direction. It now comes from behind me and towards him. But the tunnel of emptiness between us remains the same.
He’s trying to use voidance to move faster.
But it’s not working. The currents of air snake around him. Drifts fan out to the left and right, but not where he stands.
In a hideous scream, he gives up.
The storm instantly dissipates, the hazy brown air collapsing to the beach as the sun returns.
He cuts left, out to sea.
I follow, cutting in on an angle to head him off.
When he’s up to his knees in water, he dives forward.
A shimmering sphere appears. The shallow water around his body cuts away in a negative of perfect curvature.
I reach him, pounding the membrane with my fist, a hammer to the anvil.
I’m met with resistance. The same pressure that prevents the water from entering the sphere also prevents my attack. As I hammer on the membrane with my fists,
it gives slightly—almost like flesh. Rainbow-colored ripples of iridescence form, the look of oil on water.
The sphere is too large and heavy to lift. I step around it so that I’m between him and the sea, and push the sphere with all my might, back toward the shore. I’m not going to let him get to deeper waters.
I continue hitting the clear membrane with my fist, over and over, feeling the pressure give and seeing the iridescence darken.
Behind it, Mander floats within its center, looking at me with a face that seems to be melting.
The skin underneath his eyes resembles a beeswax candle left out in the wind. Additional layers peel off his scalp, revealing a patch of skull. When he grimaces at me, the gums between his teeth are tinged red with blood.
I hit again with my fists, which are already numb.
He shouts something at me, but I can’t hear him. No sound penetrates the membrane. But the bloody spittle from his mouth hits the inside of the bubble, dripping down from the inside.
Finally, with what must be my twentieth blow, it disintegrates in a syrupy splash.
I fall onto him, as we both go under the knee-high water.
My strength is sapped. I have nothing else to give. But he has less than nothing.
Both of our arms flail and our necks crane for air. I find his wrists and push him down, into the coarse sand. He tries to reach his voidstones, but I hold his wrists down. A wave comes over me, and I take a shallow breath, going under.
Rotating my body, I pin one of his arms underneath my foot. This frees up my hand, which I use to place on his face, pushing him down below the water while I go up for air between waves.
As I take a gasping breath, the skin of his face slips off and I lose my grip. He rises.
“You’re too late!” he screams.
I grab his face again—what’s left of it. And push it down.
Mander says something else, but only bubbles of air are rising.
I fall to my knees as he writhes under my weight.
You’re too late.
His strength slowly leaves him. Tears and saltwater blind my eyes, so I shut them briefly as I wait for the end.
It comes within three waves.
I face the shoreline. The water slaps my back and stings my wounds, and the crests roll over my shoulders.
His body remains underwater but is now lifeless. I search blindly for his voidstones, and then rip them off his neck, bringing them above the surface.
