119. The Graveyard

Isaac heaved himself up onto the flat grey stone and promptly collapsed with a huff. He wiped his forehead, and it came away an odd combination of sticky and dusty. It seemed that, after long enough time spent in the Graveyard, the realm left a permanent layer of chalkiness over a person’s skin. Isaac turned and stared out into the landscape, groaning when he saw even more stones and cliffs.

“You know, when you said it was far, I didn’t think you meant this far.” His voice sounded a good deal more ragged than he would’ve liked. The unfortunate part about the Graveyard’s dry air was that, no matter how deeply he inhaled, the air was never quite fresh or crisp enough for it to feel like it was doing anything. He was pretty sure his lungs were at least a quarter dust particles by now.

Mortimer, by contrast, looked completely unperturbed. He frowned a little.

“I didn’t realize the journey would be so taxing.” If anyone else had said it, it would’ve sounded like an insult. As it was, the half-undead man seemed like he was genuinely rethinking his knowledge of the world. “I forgot you were an ordinary human.”

Isaac huffed at that. “Yeah? I thought it was kind of obvious.” He waved vaguely at himself. The people of Solonell City usually looked obviously “superpowered” in some way or just dressed weirdly like Igor did, with rare exceptions.

“You’re a Traveler,” Mortimer said by way of explanation. Somehow this had circled back to being Fable’s fault by association.

The man continued, words a little slower. “If you’d like, we could return to the station. I don’t want to risk your health.”

Isaac waved dismissively, forcing himself back up to his feet now that he’d caught his breath again. “It’s fine, it’s not that serious.” He paused. “Besides, this ceremony’s important to you, right?

Mortimer nodded slowly. “It shouldn’t be too much further,” he said. He pointed behind them, and Isaac turned.

Situated atop the cliff was a tall, barren tree, but this one stood out for its size. Most other plants in the area were relatively small, unable to grow larger due to the climate, but this one, it seemed, had beaten the odds. A weathered, ash brown trunk curved in a smooth crescent, and its branches drooped down, forming a curtain around its top.

“This is a good place to sleep,” Mortimer explained. He shifted, now directing his attention to the ground far below the clifftop, where the earth dipped slightly in a long, snaking line. “That’s the dry river. It runs through the entire realm.”

As they’d traveled, Mortimer had repeatedly stopped to point out these sorts of locations. It was the closest to excitement that Isaac had ever seen on the half-undead man, which was perhaps why he paid such close attention whenever he gave a new detail like this.

“The ceremony’s past that cliff.” Mortimer gestured across a deep, sheer ravine. Isaac squinted at the gap.

“Ladder again?”

The half-undead shook his head. “Not this time.” He turned to Isaac. “Please hold on,” he said, extending a hand. Raising an eyebrow, the Traveler grabbed on.

The second he did, a sharp yank caused him to lurch forward. White bones shot out from Mortimer’s back, propelling them over the ravine. There was a second, the wind stinging in his eyes, where Isaac could swear that they were falling. But in the next moment, they landed hard on the other side.

The bones retracted, a cloud of grey dust rising around them and a faint indent now marring the cliff top’s surface. Isaac groaned, forcing himself up very slowly. He could feel bruises forming across his back. He preferred the ladder method.

“Ah, that was much faster,” Mortimer remarked. He was unscathed, and Isaac found himself slightly envious of his high defense stat. The half-undead turned, nodding.

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“We’re here,” he said.

From their current position, the cliff overlooked a wide, flat expanse of ground uninterrupted by hills or stones. Isaac’s eyes widened, and he moved a little closer to get a better view.

The land itself wasn’t much different from the rest of the Graveyard in scenery, but there, in the distance, he could make out a few distinct, moving figures.

It was hard to put them into words. Some were easier, appearing like moving skeletons, while others were more difficult. Most fell somewhere in the middle, a mishmash of bones and amorphous, constantly moving masses that rippled and waved in the wind. Not quite flesh, not quite liquid.

Isaac’s eyes fell on one of the beings, staring at the way it trudged forward, how its body shifted with an alien rhythm unlike any regular gait he’d ever seen. Isaac swallowed. There was a wrongness to them, though it wasn’t quite the same as the wrongness he felt around the Abyss’s Aberrations. Those were solid and terrifying in their presence. But for the residents of the Graveyard, he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that, even when he was staring directly at them, in truth there was nothing there at all.

“Are those…?”

Mortimer nodded in confirmation. “They’re the undead.” He paused, frowning a little. “Though, I suppose that word may not be accurate. I believe some refer to them as remnants.”

Isaac turned to him, listening closely as the man continued.

“Every realm has its own beliefs,” he explained. “I don’t think there’s any true agreement on the nature of the Graveyard and what it represents.” He was quiet for a few moments, shifting his weight. “Personally I’ve always thought of it as a transitional place.”

“Not a set afterlife, then?”

Mortimer shook his head. “The Graveyard exists between all the realms. Souls come here and transform, losing their memories and living new lives before leaving the realm. I assume, after passing, they must return to their realm of origin, or perhaps they move on to their realm’s afterlife.”

Isaac stared down at the figures. “Transitional” seemed like a good word for them. They couldn’t be described precisely because they were midway between one point and another, and perhaps that, too, was why they were so difficult to place.

His mind focused in on a particular part of what Mortimer had said. “They lose their memories.” It was less of a question than it was a confirmation.

“Yes. The beings here are completely detached from their living selves.”

Maybe it was Isaac’s imagination, but the man’s voice sounded a little more distant when he said that. He turned, and Mortimer’s eyes were staring below them. Isaac wondered, for a moment, if perhaps Mortimer had returned to the Graveyard at some point, seeking a soul that had died after Solonell City’s coup or perhaps after the Collapse and creation of the Underside. If he’d found them, unrecognizable, with no recollection or recognition of him.

Isaac turned away. If Mortimer’s theory was true, then the souls of the victims would also be here. Olzu too, albeit in an unrecognizable form.

But then, Isaac thought, perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing. The beings below looked peaceful, at least to him. Perhaps there was a freedom in the blank slate that the Graveyard provided.

Even so, a part of Isaac’s chest clenched at the idea of losing every memory, every part of your life until you were an entirely different person. At that point, he wondered how much similarity was left between the remnant and the person they once were. Where was the line drawn between a remnant and something entirely new and separate?

A sudden thought rose, and Isaac blurted it out before he could think better of it.

“Do you think humans go here too? I mean the ones from above.”

Despite the abruptness of the question, Mortimer’s eyes were knowing. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “They might, they might not.”

Isaac tried to picture a remnant of Lloyd here. He didn’t know how to describe the feeling that rose at the thought, and he elected to shove it down instead.

Below them, a few more remnants appeared from the edges of the field, joining the ones already waiting on the plains. They were forming a line, Isaac realized as more and more gathered together.

A piercing crack rang out across the realm. Isaac jolted, jerking his head around, but he couldn’t find the source. Everything was the same, and Mortimer’s expression, too, was unchanged.

“The procession must be starting soon,” the half-undead man observed.

Isaac nodded slowly. Mortimer made no move to leave the area, so he assumed they would watch from here.

The Traveler sat back, attempting to get as comfortable as he could on the hard stone. At this point, so many remnants had gathered that they covered half the barren field, forming a long, wide line.

He watched in nervous anticipation as the figures stilled. A brief silence cloaked the grey landscape, as if the scene were being caught in a photograph.

And then, all at once, the remnants moved.

The procession had begun.