Hadespera
The 2nd of Skirophorion
The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals
Sunset came and went before Theodorous was able to get everyone settled. Both insulae were at bursting capacity and many had erected tents. At this rate, a third insula looked necessary. Lyssa suspected they would need even more before long, if not for the villagers themselves, then at least for guests.
Arche’s group had been busy in the city. By Theo’s count, one-hundred-seventy-two people had agreed to join them, with the strong possibility of more in the future. They had also brought with them dozens of livestock which, with careful tending, would go a long way toward providing steady food for the village. Tess had also assured her that they had brought back more money than originally planned, so even with a huge influx of new citizens, their treasury was set to last a while. Lyssa trusted Tess to handle the economics of the village. Personally, she had no mind for money. Dawnwood had little concept of it, choosing instead to bargain, barter, or favor as opposed to dealing in fixed currency.
Lyssa sat in a padded chair next to the lit fireplace inside the hall, sipping a glass of wine. Arche had sprawled himself over the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. It was the first private moment they’d been able to share since his return.
“I have your glider, by the way. Seemed too valuable to store under your bed.”
He grunted.
“Keep it. I’ve got no use for it right now, anyway. A lot’s changed while we were away, I see.
“There’s so much,” she agreed. “I hardly know where to begin.”
“You should go first.”
She took a sip of wine and thought it over.
“I think it all started with the decision to open a mine.”
She told him of how she had convinced Grimmolt Sidergrothia to commit his clan to the construction of a mine on Mount Hyperion and of how they had accidentally delved into a dungeon. She told him of the dwarves who died to the basilisk, which led into the goblin attack. The brutality of that night still weighed on her mind. More than once, she’d woken up drenched in sweat and brandishing a knife, looking for phantasmal attackers.
Arche listened in silence, mostly. When she reached the goblin attack and spoke of the eighty-seven who had died, he straightened himself on the sofa and stared into the fire, his face haggard. No doubt he blamed himself for not being there.
“And here I’d been hoping that things had been going well for you,” he said.
“There’s two pieces to the story I still haven’t told you, yet.”
“Oh?”
“The first is to do with Callias Buteo.”
Arche’s eyes cut toward her.
“What about him?”
“Ares has taken him. I don’t know what for.”
Arche dropped his gaze to the floor for several moments.
“I was supposed to be his champion. Maybe he’s recruiting another one. How do you know Ares took him?”
“Vik followed him after he was exiled. He explained what happened to me. I didn’t tell him about Ares, but he’s at least somewhat aware of gods and their power. He’s convinced we can’t win against a force like that.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think we owe it to ourselves to try. I also think we stand a better chance than we ever did, but we need to get stronger.”
Arche looked at her consideringly.
“I take it your eyes changing isn’t purely cosmetic?”
Lyssa shook her head.
“The goblins came from the dungeon beneath the mountains. Several of us pursued, trying to rescue the children that were kidnapped by any means necessary. Our path took us through three challenges. When I passed through them, I met an entity. Hyperion.”
Arche frowned. “The Titan?”
“You know of them?”
Arche knew next to nothing about Tartarus, where would he have heard of the Titans? Had one of the others told him?
He waved a hand dismissively. “Sorry, continue.”
“Yes, the Titan. They offered me a deal.”
Arche shifted uncomfortably.
“I denied it,” she continued. “Until I couldn’t. Through their blood, I’ve been granted new abilities, including access to magic.”
“What kind?”
“Light and Fire. Also, a hybrid of the two known as heliomancy. Sun magic.”
“Impressive.
He held out a hand and a ball of fire appeared above it.
“I was also able to get my hands on some pyromancy when I was in the city. Not too sure how handy it’ll be out in a forest but at least we’ll never need to worry about starting a campfire, no?”
Lyssa’s surprise must have shown because Arche laughed. The sound faded quickly, replaced by a shadow over his face.
“Shall I tell my story, now? I’ll have to gloss over parts of it. I’m not the one to reveal those secrets. The majority, however, I can give you.”
Lyssa paid rapt attention as he told her of Ephyra. The initial run-in with the criminal syndicate known as the Hekatonkheires, how they had fled across the city to escape the gang’s notice. How that had ended with Efterpi’s separation from the rest of the group. Tess and Helwan taking Arche to the Lyceum for healing. Arche’s meeting with Hippokrates, a supposed founder of the school, and his gift of spellbooks.
Arche’s tone took an edge as he spoke of Bits and Baubles and its proprietress, Rune Oyl.
“While there, I used an artifact known as the Agony of Psyche. It cured my Mana Scars and restored my memories.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He shut his eyes and clenched his jaw.
“Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?”
“To anyone else, it might have been. But for me, I…it was worse than I could have imagined.”
“How so?”
Arche worked his mouth open and shut, clearly unable to find the words to adequately express himself. She understood the feeling.
“It might be easier to show you,” he said, tapping his temple. “If you don’t mind the connection. I have to warn you, though, it’s bad. Like, really, really fucking bad. And there’s more than one world-shattering implication that I’ve learned as a result.”
“You’ve stood by me when it was easier not to. I will do the same for you.”
“Yeah, I hope you still feel that way in five minutes.”
Lyssa felt something brush against her mind. It was not entirely unfamiliar to the way Hyperion had communicated with her, but it was still an unsettling feeling. It helped that it was undeniably Arche. She forced herself to relax and opened herself to the connection.
“The only other person who really knows is Tess,” Arche said. “And I don’t think she quite understood. My name was Alex Dazend. I was a warrior, of sorts, from a kingdom called the United States of America.”
Images flashed through Lyssa’s mind. Cities of metal, glass, and stone. Noises so loud, people had to shout to be heard. Metal machines that flew through the skies and weapons of iron that spat fire and could kill from any distance.
“I grew dissatisfied with the world. Disillusioned. Our leaders abused its resources, seeking to line their pockets at the expense of every man, woman, and child who lived there. We were killing our planet, turning it into a place that would no longer be able to support us. I needed to do something about it, so I defected from my kingdom. Nothing born of peace could make changes quickly enough to be useful, so I dedicated myself to starting war. I founded a group known as the Sons of Ares. Our goal was to start a war across the entire world. The third of its kind.”
Fire blazed. People marched against each other, the space between them full of fire, blood, and corpses. Metal boxes and the flying machines created explosions, rocking the ground and killing dozens with every blast. Then, in the distance, an incredibly bright flash, followed by a pillar of fire and smoke larger than Mount Hyperion.
“A nuclear bomb,” Arche said. “I tried to get ahold of variant of one. It was the only sure way to get the entire world on board. One dirty bomb, set off in an American city with the Iranian’s fingerprints all over it, would have forced our leaders to go to war. Our treaties and agreements would have drawn our allies into the conflict, and our enemies would have taken advantage of our weaknesses to strike. No beach would be left unbloodied. No country unscathed. Billions would die. The price of my peace.”
Lyssa saw Arche standing in front of a sea of corpses. They extended farther than the eye could see in all directions, as though the ground below them was made of death. She saw him as he saw himself. A shriveled husk of a creature. Death and War incarnate. A monster in man’s clothing. By his feet, the decayed corpses of children.
“And from the ashes, I was going to create a new world. Instead, I was killed while trying to get my hands on the bomb. Ares dragged me into Tartarus, from my world to yours. I never accomplished my plan but I killed hundreds—thousands, even—on the way. You warned me that I might not like the person I used to be. I should have taken your advice.”
The connection faded and Lyssa found her cheeks were slick with tears.
“I’m sorry.” Arche’s voice choked, his eyes low. “I know that’s a lot to process. If you decide it’s too dangerous for me to remain in Myriatos, I’ll understand. If you want nothing to do with me, I’ll understand that, too. I tried to…tried to put things right, after I found out. Couldn’t follow through. Not sure it would have even worked.”
Lyssa stared into the fire. The thought of billions dead was incomprehensible. It was hard to imagine anything good could come out of so much bad.
The children.
“You have told me how Alex Dazend died. What about Arche? What does he think about it?”
Arche frowned.
“He isn’t gone, not completely. I think I’ll always have him in me, his capacity. But I’m not that person anymore, not entirely. I want to protect people. Maybe make up for some of the pain and death I’ve caused, but I don’t know that I can. I don’t know if I can look these people in the eye knowing what I did. Maybe it would be better if I left.”
Lyssa stared at him, taking his measure. He was haunted by the knowledge. Disgusted by it. Atrocities committed by his hand. Worse, he openly admitted the possibility of that rising again. But this was Arche, not Alex. Two minds, one man. That he could take the life of an innocent, a child, was no more believable than Lyssa herself doing it. She didn’t understand his reasons, his cause, but she understood him. He could not wish death on so many innocents and remain her Companion.
Arche had stood by her when she was nothing, exiled from her people. He was loyal and irreverent and kind. Born of this world, perhaps, and cursed to remember the one that came before. If she abandoned him now, repaid his loyalty with revulsion, then how could she ask for loyalty from any in Myriatos? How could she hope to find any redemption for her own crimes? She was bound to him and he to her. She would not abandon him.
“Fuck that.”
Arche blinked, stunned.
“What?”
“So you did something bad a long time ago. You cannot let the past hang over you forever. If you truly wish to make amends, to assuage your guilt from this other place, then you can start here, with protecting our people.”
Arche smiled; eyes glassed with unshed tears. She let the silence sit between them for a long time before speaking again.
“What did you mean when you said that you died and came here?”
Arche cleared his throat and wiped his face.
“Yeah, about that. I’m by no means an expert, but this is an afterlife. A very specific afterlife, actually, and not a popular one.”
“Afterlife,” Lyssa muttered. “What are you talking about?”
“A world of the dead. A place people go after they die. Tartarus was a story from a region in my world called Greece. I think they had three, actually, and Tartarus was said to be the worst one of all of them. A prison, more than a place for people. I never actually thought it was real, I don’t think anybody did. I just liked the stories, you know? Now I find out the gods are real and they’re not at all like I thought they’d be. Or maybe they’re exactly how I thought they’d be. I don’t know.”
“Unknowable creatures that treat you like a piece in a larger game?”
Arche snorted without any real mirth.
“That about sums it up. I think I’ve met five gods at this point, depending on how you count it, and I’m no closer to understanding any of them than I was when I first woke up here. All I know is that things are going to get a lot crazier before they calm down.”
“On that, we agree. So, what else happened to you?”
Lyssa sat back and listened as Arche told her of the kidnapping of Basil’s family, the breaking into the palace treasury, Arche’s battle with the witch and the dragon, his absorption of another Divine Spark, and his freeing of Ephyra’s king, Sisyphus, who had pledged friendship to Myriatos. All of this culminated in being introduced to Captain Ryan Blackdog, whose ship they had hired to take them home.
“Oh, and on top of all that, I’ve learned a trade. Rune gave me enough skillbooks to learn how to enchant things. I figure that might come in handy, in the future.”
“Enchanting might be the most useful trade for the village,” Lyssa said. “With the possible exception of an alchemist or apothecary.”
“That’s like, potions, right?”
“Yes. With luck, someone among the new travelers will know how to make potions. I want you to focus on raising your skill levels and practicing with your Mana. There’s no telling what you’ll be able to make with time and effort.”
Arche put his fingers against his eyebrow in a strange gesture.
“Can do, boss. I’ll get started on it tomorrow. Before I retire for the night, however, we should discuss our vampire friend.”
Lyssa sighed.
“I cannot, in good conscious, allow her to stay within the confines of the village. It’s too great of a risk, as it stands. However, I trust your judgment on the matter. If it’s amenable to her, she can stay in the dungeon that was excavated. I would offer the mine but we caved it in to prevent more monsters from escaping. Perhaps, in the future, we can see about an above ground dwelling that would be better suited.”
Arche stood.
“Very well. I’ll go break the news to her. Time to feed her, anyway.” He started to walk toward the door, then paused. “Thank you, by the way.”
“For what?”
“For not giving up on me. I’m not so sure I haven’t given up on myself.”
“None of us are blameless, Arche. We all have blood on our hands. You have power, how are you going to use it? You have three options. You can stay in the past or you can look to the future.”
“And the third?”
“Death and taxes.”
Arche smiled. His eyes were haunted, but there was a familiar set to his jaw.
“Right.”
“You’re not alone, Arche. You may see yourself a monster, but you are still a man. I am with you to the end.”
He nodded, but said nothing.