916 Anno Lunae, Third Age

Reverie Island, Alnam Archipelago, South Altan Sea

Death is a bridge.

He was walking, just walking. His name was Gwilym Oubliette, and he was heading home from the market.

A rotten jungle embraced Reverie’s village. Gwil lived in a rundown windmill on the far side of the woods. Feet plowing through wet leaves, he plodded along the muddy path without a speck of haste. Familiarity was a heavy thing.

The sky was pale gray, blank and drained. Weak sunlight blotted the clouds like blood on gauze.

The morning chill prickled in the places where his clothing was torn. Gwil had light brown skin, as was common among the Alnami people. He was of medium build, with dark eyes and a tangled mess of wavy black hair.

Among the trees were mounds of crushed metal and plastic and stone. He passed by the shredded, rusty carcass of an ancient vehicle.

“Hey! Come over here!”

Though the call came loud and crisp, it did not echo. It sounded like a woman—her voice singsong but hoarse. Gwil spun in place, trying to nail down the direction of the voice.

“Yes, you. Come here. To the river.”

Gwil knew what the voice meant, but ‘river’ was too generous a term. He moved toward the edge of the path, a precipice for how steep the drop. A ravine punched through the land, cutting perpendicular against the path. Along its floor was a shallow stream, its mucky bed littered with garbage. The water did not run, but crawled, gurgling.

Looking over the edge, Gwil blinked at the vivid splash of color among the browns and blacks and grays. A huge red flower sat on the shallow water. Its dirtied, wilted petals splayed across the mud. This thing did not belong, like the first stroke of paint on a canvas.

“Hurry up, idiot!”

Gwil laughed. “Are you a talking flower?” he called back.

Gwil set down his two grocery sacks. The crumbling slope was matted with roots. He picked out a rut that he’d used to make this same descent before and stepped in. Using the roots as handholds, he made his way down.

Momentum pulled him into a flailing stumble. Reaching the bottom, Gwil threw an arm around a tree trunk to catch himself. An antlered wildcat that had been drinking from the stream darted away at the commotion.

Stepping to avoid the engorged worms and fist-sized slugs that were entrenched in the mud, Gwil approached the flower.

It resembled a common lotus, except that it was so big—chest high at its clustered center. Crimson pigment edged the white petals.

The poor thing was stained and mangled. There was only the blossom, with no stem or roots, as if it had bloomed from nothing.

“Finally. Come closer. Help me.”

Gwil’s boots sank into the muck and the cold water nipped at his feet. He leaned forward to peer into the flower’s center, a writhing cluster of ink-black stamens.

“Thank you! Sorry!”

The flower’s tentacular organs lashed out like crazed serpents. Gwil dove away—too late. The tendrils coiled around his legs and his waist, drawing him in the way a spider wraps up a fly.

Futility choked his struggling. Moist darkness swallowed him whole. He smelled something sweet, and Gwil realized his mind was being affected, because he felt no fear.

This was not so bad. Pleasant, even.

The petals closed.

Ah, dammit. This is it. Sorry, Caris. I tried.

He drowned in a pool of gold-brown liquid, a syrupy nectar, cozy as a fleece blanket. Gwil felt no urge to breathe and knew that he was dying or dead.

Smothering comfort enveloped his being. Twisted crimson skeins pervaded the nectar. Oh, that’s my blood. His giggle came out as a thick gargle.

He was being crushed. Devoured. Slivers of tissue and viscera peeled away. No more flesh. Bones reduced to dust.

The darkness unfurled into madness. A towering tree with serpents for roots. An inverted fortress wreathed by a cascading black river. So many eyes, uncaring, staring blankly. A white silk swaddle, centipedes crawling through the folds.

It all went up in smoke. Searing fire filled his lungs. He heard the beating of great wings. An immense silver hand emerged from the haze, grasping, fingers closing.

***

“Oh! I didn’t expect you to resurrect,” the voice sang.

Gwil sputtered, face down in the cool muck. Gentle hands flipped him onto his back. Dark spots swam through his vision.

He pawed at his face, wiping away clumps of mud. The lotus—it loomed above him, shaded as if eclipsed. Gwil flailed away, slipping and splashing.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Hey, watch it. Calm down.”

The same voice that had hailed him before. His sight clarified. A woman was staring at him, her head tilted in curiosity. The flower obscured the left side of her face.

Gwil blinked. No, it was that same lotus, but in miniature, and it grew from the woman’s eye socket.

She scrunched her wet, stringy hair with her hands. Its color was a mottled mix of greens and purples and reds, like the leaf of a deprived plant. Her skin was pale but reddened and glistening, and she was covered with some sort of slime. Her sole eye was gray. The surrounding skin was red and puffy, as if she’d been crying.

The woman stood with her arms crossed, tapping her foot as Gwil scurried back in a crab walk. A violent shiver racked through him, and his arms gave out.

“W-What are you?” Gwil stammered. “Did you kill me?”

The woman clicked her tongue, more sympathetic than rude. “I’m just a person. And yeah, I did. Sorry, but I-”

“Ooh!” Gwil yelped. “Finally!”

“Hmm?”

“I really did come back to life,” Gwil said. “I wonder if that might be bad, though.”

“What are you on about?”

Gwil looked at his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Are you sure? I don’t feel any different.” His words were slurred. His head felt full of glue, and his heartbeat was irregular, frenzied.

She laughed. “Trust me, you were very dead. Dead, dead, dead. You fell out of the flower like thirty minutes ago. Did it hurt?”

Gwil shook his head, and that made him dizzy, then nauseous. He retched a few times, but nothing came up. He drew his knees up and bowed his head between them. That was better. His lungs were starving. He breathed with greedy, gulping gasps.

She gave him a thumbs up. “Good. I hoped the flower wasn’t such a bad way to go.”

Gwil saw that the giant lotus had transformed into something gray and petrified, like a log of ash in a fire. Parts of it had crumbled.

He struggled to stand but managed with the woman’s help.

“Easy now,” she said, making sure he stayed upright. “Give your body some time.”

His limbs were buoyant and jittering. His skin stung, as if sunburnt, and it tickled with sweat. But his heart had settled, and his breathing normalized. Gwil shook out his legs, stretched his arms over his head and arched his back. Nothing hurt. The aches had vanished.

A grin spread across his face. “What a load off! I’ve been stuck here my whole life trying not to die. It’s been so boring.”

“What the hell?” the woman muttered.

“I made someone a promise,” Gwil said. Then he grimaced. “But I guess it’s broken.”

The woman stomped her foot, spraying flecks of mud. “What’s going on?”

He waved her off. “I’ve become a Hallow, yeah?”

"Obviously. That’s why you came back to life.”

“Nice,” Gwil said. He raked trembling fingers through his hair. “This is exciting. Thanks, lady!”

She cocked an eyebrow. “No problem. What’s your name?”

He took a moment to answer. Not because he couldn’t remember, rather, his thoughts were erratic with giddiness. “Gwilym Oubliette. Call me Gwil. What’s yours?”

“Leira.”

“Hey, is a flower gonna grow out of my eye?”

“No.”

“Damn. I like yours. It’s so interesting.”

Leira laughed. “I don’t care much for it.”

Gwil looked her over properly now that he’d calmed down. She was stick thin and very tall, a whole head taller than him. Her paleness verged on translucence; webs of veins mapped her flesh.

She was barefoot, and her ragged shift was the grimiest piece of clothing that Gwil had ever seen. It might have been white, but now it looked like a greasy rag, caked with mud.

Leira pinched the filthy thing between her fingers and sneered. “I know. It’s disgusting. Is there a shop nearby? I’m past due for something nice. And I’m starving. And I bet you are too.”

Gwil clutched his stomach as it grumbled. “There’s a shop and a pub in the village up that way-”

He shook his head as if beset by gnats. “Wait a second, lady. You killed me! What’s up with that?”

This time Leira’s click of the tongue was sharp with irritability. “I thought we were past that.”

“Nuh-uh,” Gwil said. He pointed an accusatory finger at her. “I bet you knew I’d be stupid and confused after I died. You thought you could fool me.”

Leira folded both hands over her heart and fluttered her lone eye. “Noo. Of course not. What does it matter anyway? Becoming Hallowed calls for celebration! Let’s go to that pub. Do you have any money?”

“But I heard you say you were surprised I came back to life. How do I know you won’t do some more murdering in the village?”

“I won’t!”

“Why’d you kill me?”

Leira sighed. “Fine. See, I had to kill someone to escape from the flower. I was trapped inside the damn thing for three months.”

“Three months?” Gwil scratched at the scruff on his chin. “Alright. That’s a pretty good reason.”

Leira gaped. “Really? Are you stupid or way too forgiving?”

“I dunno, but you must’ve been going crazy in there, so it’s fine.”

She snapped her fingers. “You got that right. I was starving. Lead the way to the pub!”

“No, no,” Gwil said, waving his hands. “The villagers don’t like me, and they’d hate you. You’re too strange and dirty.”

“Tch. I don’t care,” Leira said. “And you should know, you’re gonna need my help. No living mortal will be able to perceive your existence for nine months.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding emphatically. “You’ll be like a ghost.”

Gwil looked at his hands again. They seemed solid.

“I made that up,” Leira sang. “I’m a perfectly normal living mortal. If it were true, I wouldn’t be able to see you, would I? Just a bit of gestational humor because you were reborn.”

Gwil stared at her for a moment. “I have food and clothes and a bath at my house. We’ll go there.”

“I don’t want your ugly clothes. You look like a vagrant. I said I wanted something nice. Do you know how to cook?”

“I have a kitchen.”

“Onward!” Leira marched toward the embankment that Gwil had clambered down.

Back on the path, they headed toward Gwil’s windmill. Leira hummed as they strolled along.

“Are you a Hallow too?” Gwil asked.

“No, I wish,” Leira said. “My circumstances are unique.”

“Damn,” Gwil said. “I was hoping you could show me. Shouldn’t I have some magic or something? I feel normal.”

She scoffed. “You think the stuff you hear stories about comes easy? Nirva is a fickle, dangerous thing. You’ll need to learn to wield it, and that’s a lifelong pursuit.”

“Nirva?” Gwil said. “What’s that?”

Leira spun on her heel. “You’re all excited to become a Hallow and you don’t even know what Nirva is? You’re weird and dumb.”

Gwil shook his head. “All I know is that Hallows are undead people that use magic.”

Leira laughed and patted Gwil on the back in a very condescending manner. “I can’t believe that there are people just… living in the middle of nowhere, completely ignorant to the wider world.”

“What is it, though?” Gwil asked.

“Ahh, well.” Leira scrunched up her nose. “It’s… hm… erm… It’s…” She blushed. “It’s not so easy to describe with words, and I’m no expert. I’m not Hallowed, after all. But it’s some sort of magical energy. Or maybe a force? Right, Styzia Nierva—the Black River of Bliss that surrounds the Hells. That’s where the word comes from.”

She started walking again, and Gwil fell in step alongside her.

“You didn’t really tell me anything,” he said.

She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “Wait, lemme think. Nirva can only be channeled by Hallows. And it’s very diverse in form. See, that’s why I’m having a hard time explaining. Whatever impossible feats you’ve heard of Hallowed people performing—it’s all Nirva. It can be bizarre or downright whacky. I heard of some guy whose Invoke was to turn himself into a giant apple, as big as a house. Do you have any fruit at your place?”

“But what is it?”

Leira shrugged. “Hell if I know. I doubt anyone in the World has that answer. I’ve met a lot of Hallows actually, and none of them had a damn clue about the…” She fluttered her hand, searching for the word. “Metaphysics. All that matters is what you can do and what you do with it.”

They emerged from the thick of the woods and crossed the field to the windmill.

“You’re not very helpful,” Gwil said.

“Piss off! I’m starving. Three months without a single bite of food.”