Ald breathed in the air of the whitened landscape around him. It was air impregnated in freedom, liberated from the humid shackles of the cave. He took not many steps before considering to collapse over the dandruff-like flakes, the little squirming tentacles on their sides his only indication that it wasn’t the best of ideas to do so. Sore all over, he could only think on resting, and about how his body was failing him. But the form of Unkindness cast a shadow, and it, long and dark, pointed straight to Felsia.

He hobbled hurriedly, dragging his good leg to avoid burdening the amputated one too much. Unkindness strutted away without looking back, still seeing him of course, always seeing him.

He had to reach her, but the faster he dragged his limp body across the deserted fields, the more distance she seemed to put between them, despite the constant pace of her march. Ald strained his eyes as the image of his guide seemed to double, to triple. And each mirage of the Masterwork had a mind of its own, diverged in the direction they walked. .

“Stop that! I am following you despite my wounds, disregarding my need for rest. Don’t make it harder.”

All of the copies of Unkindness turned their heads at the same time, ragrding Ald with an annoyed expression. “Stop what?”

“The… doubling images, the…” Ald didn’t know which face to look at. “That!”

“Ah, that’s Archivist’s doing, not mine. Disregard him, he does no harm to the body.”

No harm to the body. Ald went over those words once and again inside his head. His fingers cramped, curling as if they were rigid claws. His hands trembled. No harm to the body. No statement about the mind. He needed to run, any way he could. He needed to escape. From what? From where? To where? His neck was made of concrete as he tried to turn his head to the sides. This wasn’t an effect of the Masterwork’s presence, or at least Ald didn’t think it was. This was worse. This was sheer horror. Stiff all over, he felt his body crumbling down, escaping his control function by function. He had the limbs of a statue, a ribcage made of stone. The throat of an orchid. A silver tongue, if only because it felt as rigid as cutlery. “Help. Me,” he let out a sorry murmur, about to fall into his good knee and lie on the monstrous flakes.

Every copy of her kept on walking, disregarding the stopped Felsian. “Paralyzing fear is more of an aid than I can ever be. Stillness makes his inspections easier.” She raised her chins slightly, as if regarding something behind Ald. This made him turn, despite his stiffness, despite his fear.

Now he knew where to run to, at least. The wall of flakes had eyes for bricks: the tears, joined by their tendrils, conformed the eyes, and in turn they cried. The pupils were simple, dark holes embedded into the structure. They shifted positions, joined one with another or split in two as the eyes transitioned from a state to the next. A kaleidoscope from the underworld, that’s what Ald though he was looking through. He extended his hand to crawl away, forgetting he was still standing despite all odds. When he turned away from the eyes, they followed him: the wall, all. All he could see, every direction he would turn his head to. Eyes. And when he looked at his hand, he could see the ones below his own flesh, like he was made of glass, or as if they were under his skin. Soon enough, a soothing sensation washed over him. Defeat. He had given it all, and now had lost.

“More than any sister or brother. Less than Father and Mother,” he said, keeling as he could, over his good leg, and then sitting amidst the macabre show unfurling around him. In the eye of the storm of eyes, Ald smiled weakly, suffering from the sort of relief that robes itself in sorrow. He couldn’t see anything but Archivist: his transient pupils, his eyes composed of this disgusting dandruff-like tears with little spines and tentacles, that generated whenever two eyes separated, a single flake being created, falling to the ground. Thoussands of them, all around him, all over him .And if he raised his head, there was no sky at the eof the endless tunnel , just a big, dark spot.

“If you wish, you can keep walking. Follow my voice, and we will be out of my sibling’s territory soon. Or stay as still as you can, and he will lose interest before the moon completes a cycle.”

“I give up. I failed. I lost a leg, now I am losing my sight or my sanity. I cannot do this no more, and it is time to accept it.” Ald blurted, slightly annoyed at Unkindness’ order.

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Her voice broke through the veil of eyes like a tangible thing, like a blunt weapon hitting the back of Ald’s skull. “Do not force me to honor the name your people give me. Everything they have done to you I can do a million times worse. You think a leg is a bad price to pay? A bit of sanity is too much to ask? I can deform your body until it is unrecognizable. I can turn your flesh to a blistering mass of sulfurous bloody rags and make a monument out of your organs while keeping you alive. Give fangs to your intestines and turn your fingers to perpetually smoldering lumps of carbon. Create little stars inside your eyes, keep them boiling forever with them. Intercept your thoughts, chop them into fragments, rearrange your memories as I please. Follow me out of hope or do my bidding out of fear: To surrender after coming this far is to spit on my wings.”

Ald let out a racous laugh that stirred the eyes around him, making them retreat a few palms. “That’s all hot air. You can, and I know it well. It doesn’t mean that you will. Why don’t you make your sibling scamper and let me be instead?”

“Archivist’s stalking is harmless.”

“To the body! You said it. I cannot see! I am blind, all I see are eyes. Eyes when I close mine, eyes when I want to think of anything else. Eyes now that I talk to you! This is the pebble that leads to the avalanche. I gave a leg; I gave up my trust in my own reality after Caretaken drove me as mad as to kill Kali. Can’t you see I am suffering? Can’t you see I am not going to make it? I was born a blessed son of mother. You turned me to a wreck. All because I thought I could play hero.”

“You are not playing hero, Ald,” she decided to let out the important part of the statement: that he was playing executor. “A Felsian may walk the plains around your dear city a thousand years from now. A Felsian may watch over the walls. But only if you gather the dregs of yourself and conclude this journey.”

Exact words. That was the thought of Ald. Exact words. May, she always said may. “You offer me no guarantees. Defeat would grant me sure relief.”

“You will reign over all of Felsia if you follow and do as I say. No brother or sister shall oppose your will.”

“A proposal as tempting as the idea of a rotting limb. I don’t want to rule.”

“Don’t interpret it as a proposal. After you are done, no brother or sister of you will be able to rule. None lived the things you did live, nor will live the things you will live. This journey may end soon, but your fear about it marking your soul forever is far from unfounded.”

Ald raised his gaze, stared in the direction the voice was coming from with eyes wide blind. “I could show them. I could teach others. Tell them about what I have seen.”

“I find it amusing that you think you will be able to tell anyone who matters about this when you are done. You may return to your beloved city after the task concludes, Ald. And you will have two old legs if and when you do.”

The Felsian mustered whatever strength he had left in his sorry excuse for a body and got onto his foot once more. Giving up was still tempting. But Felsia needed him. Kali needed him. And if he was closer to the finish line, if these eyes that surrounded him left both his mind and body untouched beyond some optical tricks, he was exaggerating. Defeat offered relief. Egoistical relief, that is, but one he could accept, embrace. To carry on was to suffer, to martyr himself for a city he loved and hated. Because there was not a single Felsia, if he thought about it. There was the Felsia that hid that fishmonger’s hut, whose owner he hated with a passion. There was the Felsia where Kali and her friends chased each other across the cobbled streets. There was the Felsia of the boot camps, the one that existed briefly in the confusing days of the youth when he offered himself for military service; he dreamed to bring back the head of some beast, to slay that which no other sibling had the guts to hunt. What a nubile idiot he used to be. With the years he had learned that steel is like trust: you need a good reason to wield it against others.

There was the Felsia with the orchard, there was the Felsia where he had raised animals, there had been the Felsian where he had grown. A mosaic of familiarity, home through a kaleidoscope. And he couldn’t pick to help only the facets he held dear. That fishmonger better gift him some good catch, if he were to be alive and in his mind whenever Ald returned. And then, there would be the issue of facing Kali, and the lies he had told her. With some luck, she would have matured enough to understand that you cannot tell a child you embark on a suicide mission for the greater good.

“Guide me through the plains, Clivanaratea.”

The smile of a sister reached Ald’s mind. “The Fairest One,” she uttered. “The Fairest One, in ancient Felsian. A name I have not earned yet. What do you want in exchange for the name, Ald?”

“Peace. Sight, even.”

“You have three minutes,” She sentenced, her voice booming with authority.

Ald managed to casually scratch his temple despite the tornado of eyes slowly spinning about him. “What?”

“I am not talking to you. Remain still and let him watch.”

And so Ald obliged. He slowed down his breaths. He closed his eyes and let his expression turn into a tired frown. Let his legs give in as he collapsed over the soft dandruff, letting the monstrous cotton receive him. “Wake me up when it goes away.”

“A nap of three minutes? Will do more harm than good.”

But when Clivanaratea finished her phrase, Ald wasn’t conscious anymore. A deep slumber immediately raptured him, marked by long, pained snores.

“Observe at your retinae’s content, sibling. You may have more than three minutes. And so does Father, to the disgrace of many.”