XXXI. I’M SORRY, THIS IS….

  All that remained of the soldier was rotted fabric and bones that rapidly decayed to dust. Aichlan raised his arms to shield his face and eyes from the billowing dust and debris that washed over them like a roiling sea. The trees of the hidden grove lay flattened and shrubbery had been uprooted. The frigid gales of the mountain blew in unhindered and with a vengeful fury. The beam of light had parted the clouds, leaving and unobstructed view of the billowing plume of smoke in the distance. As far as the eye could see in the lowlands around the mountain was smoldering remains and obfuscating smoke. In the basin, the freshly cleared grove was littered with far too many corpses of their already depleted expeditionary force.

  “Don’t just stand there fool!”

  Aichlan looked up and nearly fell over from the shock. “Garrick?!”

  “After them!” his father roared. “They mustn’t get away!”

  “Where have you been!” Aichlan demanded as he slowly stood up. “What the hell is-“

  “You fool!” Garrick thundered.

  Aichlan held out his hand for patience as he scrutinized his father’s shade. “Hold on a minute!”

  There was something off about the spirit, something only a son could pick up, or perhaps it was something blatantly obvious; whichever the case, this was not the same man he had known as his father. Garrick was rough, prone to fly off the handle from time to time or berate his son as if he were simply one of his soldiers, but there was always a measured nature about him. Garrick was not a man to give himself to emotion, he was always in control, even when he seemed he wasn’t, and he always had a reason for his anger, a reason the recipient was often well aware of. This man, spirit, thing possessed none of those traits. Its eyes were wild with desperation and fear. While Aichlan wasn’t fool enough to believe his father never felt fear, he certainly never saw it in the man.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Aichlan demanded, surreptitiously searching for his blade. “Who the hell are you?”

  Everything seemed to have come to a stop around him. Taryn leaned precariously on one foot, as if frozen in the midst of collapsing, a burning wound upon her side and her right leg mangled. Madden hovered above the ground in a full dive nearby, arms outstretched to catch her. Enyo stood silently, her hand on her head, tears eyes squeezed shut and her mouth wide in an agonized, yet silent, wail. Mages hunched over to lift fallen comrades and several clerics glowed with the light of dawn like static candles in the gloom. The clouds of smoke and debris were frozen in the distance, and even the air was still.

  “What the fuck…?” Aichlan breathed in disbelief.

  “I told them this would never work!” Garrick growled as he leered at Aichlan. “This fool is too headstrong, too stubborn, too simple. All it takes is a new pair of tits to take him off mission!”

  “Now wait a second, that’s neither fair nor true, and who are you?” Aichlan backed away from the shade as he glanced about warily. “You sure as hell aren’t Garrick…”

  In an instant, Aichlan felt nothing and everything at once. All direction and sense of direction was gone. He looked down to see his body collapsed in the dirt, and above him, he saw himself from below as he ascended to the shattered heavens. To his right, he saw himself, looking back at the million or more mirror images that stretched off towards infinity. He felt himself falling backwards as the stars and the spheres shot past him so fast that they became trails of nonsensical swirling light. If he had a sense of what a soul felt like, he would say that his own was ripped from his body, but he felt neither cold nor warm, only both at once.

  The encounter with the not-Garrick seemed an eternity ago, but his journey, assuming he was moving, seemed to have only been days. He turned around, or rather, thought of turning around, and saw the whole of Silex floating serenely in the void behind him. The sun crested western hemisphere, chasing away the night as the moons chased each other to the other side. He knew his world was rich with blues and greens, but never before had he conceived of seeing it such as this. He recognized the continent of Eurithania and his home of Aes Sidhe across the sea to the north, the first morning rays illuminating prosperity bay and the white-hot sands around the Eurithanian Rift. The sphere turned, and the light shone on many familiar landmarks. The Elysian peninsula, The Bay of Woe, Rhode, and the Oceanus Irae.

  Aurum passed before him as the ocean passed beneath, and he was met with an unfamiliar landmass. It took him several moments to realize it was Agrardya, a land he’d only heard tales of. It held a wealth of different terrains, mountains, plains, deserts, all were represented in the narrow strip of land. An ancient nation, the pariah of Silex, and now an enigma to most. He was curious as to what it was like before the collapse, to see if their people were truly the demons The Order portrayed them as or merely humans like the rest. Faulty, idiotic, mortal humans.

  As he thought of how he would have liked to visit the nation once before he died, Aichlan felt himself plummeting back to his home. Where there was silence before, he now felt the subtle whistling of wind, and that whistle turned to a roar as flames erupted around him. He felt hot, and saw the flesh torn from his bones by the friction, only for a new layer of flesh to be revealed. Perplexed, he tore at his skin, but where there should be sinew and bone, there was only more flesh. His clothing and hair burned away and his body began to glow like a candle.

  Below him, Silex steadily grew larger, and the narrow strip of land he once marveled at became a much larger continent. Soon, it took up his entire field of view. Out of a flash made from the convergence of space, matter, and time, his new form blasted out. He opened his mouth in a scream to engulf all the world, to swallow it whole becoming one with the rock he had called home. He could see the individual peaks of mountains, rivers and all of their tributaries, cities built of glass and light, a boy and his father star gazing in a field…. Then nothing.

   When his skin was done burning and his flesh was no more, he opened his eyes, tears turned to ashes, the ashes to dust. He reached out to touch them but they faded too soon as the glow of the moon wrapped him in light. A startled scream erupted from his mouth, a mouth that became several in a chorus of one, to bid the ground welcome as he prepared to crash into dirt.

  His forward advance was halted by an invisible hand yanking him back, below him was a barren, molten rock. The presence turned him around gently to face the burning eyes of the sun. The being was bright yet formless, burning wheels within wheels and thousands of eyes, each ring rotating against the others axis, scrutinizing him. Aichlan gushed out a prayer, certain he had finally died for good, for all that was worth. Without lips or a mouth, the rotating entity spun as if to ask What have you done?

  Aichlan exhaled the breath he didn’t know he had held and watched the stars and spheres shoot past him from behind. Another green and blue orb, the sister of spring. A larger orb the color of rust blanketed tumultuous clouds, the sister of summer. A field of ice and rock separated her from the yellowy giant that was the sister of autumn, and the fourth was not to be found as the darkness enveloped him.

* * *

  “What was he doing there?” a little girl asked with a youthful voice marked by scorn beyond her age.

  “I don’t know,” a young boy replied, “You know how unpredictable they are.”

  “Uriel save you if he did anything to Nyrtia’s loom.” The girl pouted. “You know how fussy she gets if even the tiniest fiber is out of place.”

  Aichlan heard the sound of singing in the distances, though he still saw and felt nothing. It was a chorus of children, soft and sweet like fresh picked berries on a bed of wildflowers in springtime. It was so sweet as to be almost sickening.

  “Cover his eyes.” The girl snapped. “We don’t need the fool turning to a blind, raving lunatic at this stage, do we?”

  “No, I suppose not…” The boy grumbled.

  Aichlan felt a soft cloth being applied by small hands as his body felt a warmth emanating from all around him. It was a warmth he had never felt, all-encompassing yet not smothering. It was the perfect temperature, A warmth just below the point where he would sweat, his whole body felt like one does when they bask under the sun on a chilly day. Yet it was all he felt, he could not tell if he was standing or laying, there was neither wind nor sound of anything but the singing and the two child speakers.

  He opened his mouth, or rather, thought of opening his mouth but got no feedback of any kind. For all he knew, his jaw could have been severed and on the floor. In an instant he felt a searing brightness surrounding him, permeating his very being. While the warmth remained constant, he felt as if he should be incinerated under the brilliance of the light, and the thought brought with it the pain of searing flesh.

  “You have to layer it, you idiot!” The girl chastised.

  The boy mumbled something in response, and thankfully, the light abated. If only slightly. Aichlan’s eyes were closed but it was still as if he were staring into the sun through a telescope. The boy made several more passes with the fabric, and the light was now being filtered through a black veil. Still, absurdly bright, but he no longer felt like his eyes were going to melt from his skull.

  “Why is he naked?” an older woman, her voice gruff, a soldier?

  The girl sighed. “He decided to go swimming through time and did a swan dive into the atmosphere.”

  The older woman giggled. “That’s fairly silly of you, Sir Aichlan.”

  “Do you know where you are?” a familiar voice of a young boy asked.

  “Of course he doesn’t.” the little girl scoffed. “I swear, you overestimate their sentience and ability to comprehend.”

  Aichlan was beginning to dislike this girl. Her haughty, arrogant attitude reminded him of the worst parts about Alice. He certainly wasn’t of a mind to take that kind of lip from some punk kid.

  “How dare you?” the girl snapped as the young boy laughed aloud. “This is not funny. Such impudence is unacceptable!”

  “It’s in his nature.” The boy said merrily. “Most people describe him as ‘kind of an asshole’ where he’s from.”

  Aichlan was finally able to recognize where he had heard the voice before, and with it dawned the reality of where he was. He began to laugh hysterically as the pieces fell into place. Children, a backdrop of brilliant light and an otherworldly choir. As surprised as he was to find himself in that sacred realm, he was more shocked such a place even existed.

  The girl sucked her teeth, audible contempt in her voice. “He’s mad.”

  “No,” the older woman said, “he knows where he is. But hear this Sir Knight, this realm is not the place of final respite.”

  Aichlan swatted at her and reached for the cloth about his face.

  “I wouldn’t Aichlan,” the boy he knew warned, “lest you be consumed by the light and spend an eternity with the true god’s brilliance erupting from your every orifice.”

  Aichlan quickly dropped his hands and turned his attention to the boy. “We’ve met before, haven’t we boy?”

  “Indeed we have, and I informed you then that I am no mortal child.”

  Aichlan gingerly touched the icy fabric over his eyes. “What’s this on my face?”

  “My scarf.” The older woman replied. “Woven from the void between stars.”

  “And you are?”

  “Cecily.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Cecily chuckled. “You’ve heard of me I take it?”

  “You’re a goddamn Saint.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Aichlan paused, unsure if such language would offend his hosts and get him flung from Elysium to the realm of dusk.

  “It’s called Hel, the place you call dusk.” The girl said matter-of-factly. “Niflhel to be exact, but you people can’t be bothered to remember anything past a couple dozen generations.”

  “No,” Cecily said cautiously, “She is not reading your mind, and we aren’t exactly speaking, as you don’t necessarily have a body here. You just think you do, and the thought alone is enough to condemn you here should you insist on fiddling with the blindfold.”

  Aichlan held his hands out at his sides, or whatever it was he had. “How did you not know you were a saint?”

  He had other questions, but his head hurt enough as is. If his thoughts were truly that powerful, he did not want to risk being side tracked and think himself out of existence. However, the thought of trying not to think himself out of existence got him thinking about thinking himself out of existence.

  As he felt himself fading, Cecily cradled him in her hands, completely destroying whatever sense of size and scale he previously held. In an instant, he was as an infant against her bosom, he felt warm and secure, thoughts of Eloi and existence gone from his mind. All thoughts were gone, all cares, only the desire to sink further into her remained. The desire to be consumed by her embrace was all encompasing. Just as quickly as the feeling came, she shrank before him into a woman of just over five feet tall, her silken hair the color of wheat under dawn's light, eyes as black as the void with pupils like brilliant stars in a distant constellation, in addition to a rather large chest. She laughed and knelt before him. He was perplexed at how he could simultaneously see her and not see her, both silhouetted by dawn and obscured by its blinding glare.

  “This is some fucked up shit…” Aichlan breathed.

  “Time….” Cecily paused and tapped her lips with her thumb in thought. “Time flows differently here, so much so that from my perspective, I arrived from Silex just a few moments before you did.”

  “You died, or ascended, whatever, two-thousand years ago, how has it only been moments?” Aichlan demanded, frustration beginning to set in.

  “Time doesn’t exist here.” The girl said defiantly, contradicting Saint Cecily.

  Aichlan did not really like that little girl, he did not like any of them honestly, but her least of all.

  “Linear time does not exist in this realm, all things are cyclical, yours was not even the first to spawn on the implement of Abigor’s wrath. And when Uriel sets here and causes dawn to rise in Niflhel, the cycle will start anew.”

  “Who is Uriel?”

  “Insolence!” the girl snapped.

  “Behind you,” Cecily clarified. “he is the being they pray too, with each passing age in the mortal realm, he grows closer to his zenith, and these children turn to adolescents. When Uriel sinks below the opposite horizon, they will wither into old age.”

  As Aichlan turned his head to see the brilliance of the dawn, Cecily clamped both hands on his face to keep him from doing so. Before she managed to obscure his sight, he swore he caught a glimpse of a thousand eyed serpent swallowing its tail, encircled by others, like wheels within wheels. His head burned and his eyes seemed to melt, he heard them sizzle felt his brain drip through his nose. Cecily pulled him back close to her chest, and he felt the weight of life and death lift from his imagined shoulders, the fires extinguished within.

  “You mustn’t look, or you’ll be trapped here as I was. While it will take Lior- the guiding star of Silex- ten billion lifetimes for Uriel to mark one degree on his march across Elysium, my time is more finite. For when Lior fades and Silex is little more than a field of debris, I will be consumed by Dawn’s brilliance and fade for eternity.”

  Aichlan nodded slowly, his face buried in cleavage that felt like the chasm of space and time. “Noted.”

  “Now,” Cecily pushed him away, he felt like he traveled miles in seconds, “as to why you are here.”

  “Where’s Garrick?” Aichlan blurted, disoriented, but keen on keeping the light at his back. “The real one, not that copy you tried earlier.”

  The girl cackled, sending shivers down Aichlan’s spine. “They were both copies.”

  Aichlan flinched as a small hand clasped his shoulder. “What do you mean? Where is Garrick?”

  “We thought it would be easier to gain your compliance if it were an edict from a familiar and respected person from your past.” The little boy said.

  Aichlan shook his head in disbelief. “No, my father is not a man to be bought. Let me speak to him.”

  “Garrick is dead, fool.” The girl hissed. “his body decayed, his soul already transferred to the next vessel.”

  Aichlan opened his mouth to protest, or perhaps to scream and curse, he was not sure. His voice, however, was gone. In an instant he was on a farm watching a man repairing a large hole in his roof. The architecture and manner of dress was Elysian, a northern province if he recalled. At the foot of the ladder, a boy of about six watched intently. His skin was olive from time in the sun, his face dirty and his black hair covered in dust. Something about his sharp blue eyes was familiar to Aichlan, but he knew not why. The man barked an order to the child, who in turn used a nearby rope and bucket to send up more supplies. As quickly and as clearly as the vision had come, it vanished. It was the same boy he had seen in the vision Senka had given him so many months ago now.

  “His village was hit by Xanavene, he lost his mother in the attack.” The girl explained.

  “Who…?”

  “Garrick, well, Anthony now.” The girl laughed, the sound like glass shards against his heart. “What, did you really think the dead just linger around or come here?”

  “This place is not for the dead.” The boy clarified. “But it gives your kind comfort to think they will be rewarded after death instead of facing the horrors of mortality ad infinitum.”

  “Where is my father….”

  The girl huffed, exasperated by his questioning and continued presence in the realm. “You just saw him. Now pay attention, there is more to discuss.”

  “How could you do this to me?”

  “Only in rare instances can mortals come to our realm,” the boy said, ignoring Aichlan entirely, “and your kind have tried often enough that we saw fit to emplace safeguards.”

  “You mortals are so easily corrupted by the beast’s influence.” The girl snarled.

  “How could you just dangle a man’s dead father in front of him like a carrot on a bloody stick?” If Aichlan had eyes to cry from, and a cheek to catch them, there would have been tears..

  “There were once four, but they were forgotten and faded. All that remains are two of their disciples. Enyo’s champion and Linh’s first maiden.” The boy continued. “Two mortals, cycled and recycled since the end of the first age to stand against the forces of Niflhel.”

  “An imperfect solution,” The girl added with her usual condescension, “but after Cecily banished Abigor’s children from the mortal realm, we concluded the problem had been sufficiently remedied.”

  “The portal to our realm was buried under a tree in an impenetrable forest and the gateway to Niflhel was forgotten and isolated on a sea guarded by your forebearers mechanical monstrosities.”

  Aichlan turned to Cecily, who had remained silent. “And you were party to this? This is just to you? Using men as pawns and little more than a means to an end?”

  “To maintain order, to give hope, yes.” The Saint dipped her head, her eyes like a vacuous abyss. “I served party to this deception, because mortal men are notorious for acting against their best interest.”

  “You’re no better than they are! You lived! You know the value of autonomy and self-determinism! If we are little more than puppets or pieces on some cosmic game board-!”

  “You don’t know!” Cecily’s thundering timbre caused the words to catch in Aichlan’s throat. “You did not live through the horrors of a world ravaged by demons and war! You did not see children born lifeless and deformed, or suffered the agony of a slow death because the only sources of water were poisoned by fallout or polluted by unchecked greed!

  “The first Renata told this lie to a world devastated by war, famine and disease. Nearly ninety percent of the population on Silex was killed in the folly of our ancestor’s arrogance towards the gods. They destroyed themselves with the very energy that the sun uses to give us life. Hopelessness and lawlessness reigned.” Cecily shook her head obstinately. “So yes, sir Aichlan, I played part in the deception, and would do so again.”

  “In modern parlance, you’ve had your chance, and you blew it.” The girl said with an audible sneer.

  “Oi! Shut the fuck up!” Aichlan aimed a finger at Cecily “We can, have learned from our mistakes, who are you to cast so harsh a judgement and call it fate. Being spoon-fed lies and outright falsehoods disguised as hope does nothing but leave us stagnated and susceptible to repeating the mistakes of the past!”

  “Listen to yourself!” The girl shrilled. “You sound like that heretic Osric!”

  “Well maybe he has the right fucking idea!” Aichlan snapped, his face and body that was not there felt hot. “You people are evil! You don’t give a fuck about us mortals!”

  “And why should we?” the boy asked calmly. “While we often amuse ourselves with your antics, you offer nothing to us, so why should we devote anything to you? Look to your own world, what thought do you give to the minnow? Do you fret over the comfort of the shrew? The spider? Do you care about the arachnid when it is not making its home in the corner of yours?”

  “So we are little more than insects and rodents to you?”

  “No, of course not.” The girl said. “You’re so much less.”

  Aichlan jerked his head in Cecily’s direction. “So why bring her then? Why bother with me? Why not just let me die in peace?”

  Cecily laughed to herself.

  Aichlan suddenly felt outnumbered, realizing the futility. “If there is humor to be found in this situation, by all means share the joke. From my point of view, it’s all bloody dismal.”

  “I was brought to obtain the means to eradicate the Dusks children. I planted the seeds of the true Dawn so that all may draw from it.”

  Aichlan scoffed. “You brought the light, and with it the lies. What was the point? You forsook your sight and your life for nothing. It was meaningless.”

  “No, it serves a purpose. If men were to believe there was nothing to strive for, that death brought nothingness, how do you think they would act? Would we see more of the same? Or would the depravity that marrs our species reach levels unprecedented, and bring about the end of yet another civilization?”

  “Enough!” Aichlan shouted, his head hurt listening to them justify atrocity through confusing rhetoric. “Why am I here?”

  He felt the eyes of the children upon him, the choir rang out sweetly all around him. It made him sick and disoriented. He felt lost and in a dream, he felt as if he had been talking for years, and had received the totality of the conversations in a matter of seconds. He could not make heads or tails of what he had heard, only that it offended him to his very core. He felt his soul darken and wither as the scaffolds that barely held his life together were revealed to be little more than rotted twigs.

  “She, like you, is undying.” The boy explained. “Renata, Cecily; you are all chosen to guard the world from the dusk.”

  Aichlan remained silent, staring at the dark silhouettes of children with their golden manes billowing in a nonexistent breeze. Their black skin like polished ebony, even from under the blindfolds, they shone like jewels in the night sky. The girl looked at him, her eyes were piercing ovals of pure lights, burning through his very essence, laying to bare all that he was. She left him in awe, he could cry at her beauty and felt the song form on his lips, though knew it would fail to truly capture all that she was. He hated her all the more.

  “Cecily drove the Dusks children from your world, with no further use, she ascended.” The girl approached. “But now, it seems another must be designated.”

  “What?” Aichlan stammered, overwhelmed by recent events. “What of Renata? And me? what are you trying to say?”

  Aichlan began to squirm and turn towards the sun. He was overcome by a sudden urge to witness its magnificence, if only to temper the perfection of the beings before him. Cecily roughly grabbed him by the face and forced him to look upon the child gods once more.

  “She will be reborn until the end of time.” The girl continued, slightly irritated. “The spirit of her protector will also live on. It is your fate.”

  “I don’t believe in fate or pre destiny. There is no guiding light, no heaven; just a life of hell according to you. Now send me back. I want no more of this.”

  Aichlan collapsed onto nothing, floating as if upon a gentle river.

  “I do not understand, does your kind not value life?” The boy asked, genuinely confused. “At least that of the individual. Why do you seek death? Are you defective?”

  “I am tired. I want nothing more to do with your schemes; I can longer abide being a pawn. I choose my own fate, no matter the circumstance; an option is always available for me to take other than the one you set before me.”

  “You claim principal, but your words are no more than a child's stubborn angst.” Cecily chastised.

  “We are offering you a second in our realm, and the chance to glimpse the true dawn, would you truly let something as inconsequential as a bruised ego stand in the way of that?”

  “With the power they are offering, you could put an end to Osric and rid the world of the dusk.” Cecily pleaded. “You may even come to find out that they named you Saint Aichlan.”

  “I don’t fucking want it!” Aichlan spat. “Not at your price.”

  “Well then, it seems this one is lost. A pity.” The little boy turned his back on Aichlan and walked away, singing a joyful song in reverence to the rising sun.

  “Cecily, please dispose of him, it seems we must start anew.” The young girl sighed as she also turned away and took up the tune.

  Cecily turned away from Aichlan and followed the child. “But what of Osric? He has the ability to destroy our realm, surely we will not allow him to—“

  “Yes, I am aware of this Cecily, but we can do nothing with this Aichlan.” She spat contemptuously. “It will take Osric several years to discover a way into our realm. And he has not yet defeated the armies of all of Silex.”

  The girl flicked back her hair and contemplated Aichlan with eyes that held infinity and endless scorn. He shuddered and felt himself sink deeper into the water he was inexplicably floating in. His body was torn, half in the warmth of the dawn, the other in the frigid waters.

  “If we start now, we should have a Renata and guardian in their early teens by the time he discovers a method to enter Elysium. Hopefully this next one won’t deflower the maiden.”

  “Will that be old enough?” Cecily asked. “Can we entrust this task to children?”

  “It shall have to be…” the young girl walked away and joined in the choir.

  Cecily sighed and turned a mournful gaze to Aichlan. “I had such high hopes for you too… a pity.”

  Aichlan closed his eyes as he fell through the ebbing current into the vacuity beneath.