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He closed his eyes for just a minute.
Just a minute, slumped against Val by a small fire in the woods.
Their clothes and hair were dripping, and the smell of the river water and wet linen sickeningly contrasted with the smoke carried from the River Cities. He didn’t mean to, but after what they had been through that night, his body did not follow his command.
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Was he asleep? He didn’t know.
All he saw was a burning ring, hollow with darkness reaching from within it –the red burning sun of the big house. Of the River Cities.
“Tragic, isn’t it? All those people?” A man stepped from somewhere behind him to stand at his side. Marat glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Erlan’s face looked so much healthier and brighter than he remembered. “They weren’t bad people.”
“They pledged their fealty to the Nothing,” Marat answered quietly. They both watched the circle burn brighter, expanding, seeming to feed on the sooty dark around it.
“She did not think they were bad people,” Erlan said, his hands clasped casually in front of him. “She had even loved some of them. The midwife, Nadia, and even the All-Mother. She poured her kindness into them and received it in turn.”
“They poisoned her. They took…” Marat did not say it.
“Corruption runs deep, brother. But if you fall ill, do you deserve to die?” Erlan said.
Marat lowered his head, looking at his feet. They stood on nothing.
“I’d fallen ill once, brother.”
Somewhere far away, the sound of a drum sounded once.
Thud.
The darkness behind the ring of fire shifted and began to crawl. What was just a void in front of the two men had separated into black scales, crawling upward without a beginning or end.
“You’d loved Khaleel,” Erlan said, seemingly unaware of the large, thick, menacing body unwinding itself right in front of them. “It had been a long time since there was a person you could call a friend. Not since I left. He’s dead now. They all are. Do you feel nothing?”
“She’s still alive,” Marat answered but felt the sting inside his chest at Erlan’s words. The images of his friend’s wife and kids, even Asha, at that dinner table, flashed across his mind. “That’s all that matters. She’s alive.”
“Is it?” Erlan said, looking at Marat with no hint of surprise. “And by what grace is that? Your own?”
“Yes.”
“What happens when you die?” Erlan asked, the question taking Marat aback. “Who does she turn to?”
Marat remained quiet. The serpent’s body twisted—a head, then another, and a third, slowly rising from behind the wall of coils.
“And you will die, Marat,” Erlan said. “You are human. You have a mortal soul. And you’ve foolishly taken the weight of the world onto your shoulders. So accustomed to being alone, of people leaving if you let them too close, you now bear the burden of living just for her. And she will leave you too.”
“There was a time I was prepared to die for you.” He answered.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“There was. And you would have. It was the only gift I had. The only thing to repay you for all you had sacrificed for me.” Erlan’s words came softly, recognizably. They were not the words the man would have ever said in life, but they were his.
He nodded at the serpent that had stretched its long neck into the sky, now winding the heaviness of its body around the ring of fire, coiling around it.
Erlan pointed up at it.
“See him? He will eat the world.” He said. “And he will eat her, too.”
The serpent turned its heads, seemingly only now aware of the two men standing far below it. It began to lower toward them.
“How do I stop it?”
“You can’t.”
Marat looked at his brother, feeling anger swell inside him, but Erlan looked at peace.
“It’s coming, you know,” Erlan said. “The three-headed serpent. Look at it again; what do you see?”
Marat looked up.
The serpent's body was coiled around the ring of fire, becoming the background, becoming the sky. Its heads slowly threaded through the middle toward the two men.
It looked familiar.
Erlan waited, looking at his brother expectedly.
“I see,” Marat uttered. In front of him was the three-headed dragon atop a red sun, as it had been on every shield of the soldiers in the North—Korschey’s heraldic symbol.
“Walk with me.”
“She’s weak,” Erlan said. "She won’t make it far. She lacks the experience a woman her age would have - and she is afraid. The responsibility she carries is great and heavy.”
“I know.”
“You’ve done her a great disservice, oh gallant knight.” His brother continued. “Sheltering her from the world, holding so closely that she had no chance to learn for herself.”
Thud. Thump.
The beats sounded again but closer, turning more distinctive.
They walked on something that was not a path but just vague darkness that seemed to have enough presence to take step after step across it.
“There is Nothing inside of her,” Erlan said. “It’s tethered to her. Has been for a long, long time.”
Marat looked at him, his eyes demanding more, so his brother continued.
“The Hag once had her name. They hold a bond that cannot easily be severed. She holds no power bound as she is, but Valeria cannot hide.”
Thump. Thud. Thump.
Marat looked around, annoyed at the disruptions that seemed to be coming from nowhere. Ahead, a shapeless heap appeared. They walked toward it. A faint light had glowed around it, the only means by which he saw a chestnut horse on its side, an arrow sticking out of its neck. It was Aditi. He frowned, regret spreading like a poison in his veins.
Erlan stopped on the other side of it. At his feet lay a man, crushed under the horse’s weight. Still alive, his body twitching, hands clasping at nothing, his fingers curling and letting go.
As Marat stepped forward, he saw the dying man’s face. It was his own.
“It’s coming, you know,” Erlan said.
The man moaned. The weight of the horse was not quite enough to release him from the suffering but enough to trap him in this state of agonizing death –pleading silently for help.
Marat looked at his pale face. The pain reflected on it skewed the features.
Was that how old he’d grown?
Undeniably, he was going to die soon. But not soon enough.
“When?”
"He will tell you soon.”
Thump. Thump-thump-thump.
They grew faster.
Erlan led him forward.
“I was sorry, you know.” He said. “About the girl.”
“I know.”
“I cannot say that I would not have done it if you did not intervene. My mind was not my own.” Erlan’s eyes had not been downcast; it was as if he was simply recalling historical facts. “But, as I chased the Legho - I knew it had been my atonement.”
Marat again remained quiet.
“We’re near,” Erlan said.
Thump. Thump-thump-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-TAP TAP TAP TAP.
The drum turned faster and distorted. It grew so loud and near, rapidly drilling into his head, that he doubled over, trying to protect his ears.
“Make it stop!”
“I cannot. We are here.” Erlan stopped.
Only darkness was around them.
It did not appear, it only seemed as if it was always there and was overlooked - but two crossed wooden boards rose into the sky. A gutted chort hung from them, a wardwright against the Nothing beyond.
A black woodpecker sat at the top.
Tap. Tap-tap.
Marat looked up at it and then at Erlan.
“What does it mean?”
“That you cannot shield her. Death waits for you.” Erlan said, “You’ll know it when it calls on you by name.”
Erlan was looking up at the hanging creature.
When Marat looked up again, he saw that it was not a chort but himself, hanging up with his arms and head bound with rope.
A cut ran from his chest to his gut.
Tap. Tap-tap.
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