21. Funeral Pyre

I dug Brecan a grave, deeper than that of the nameless thousands whom I had buried in the Noa Lokul. I even chiselled his name into a slab of marble as a head stone. I stood beside the grave, his body stiff on the ground beside me, a shroud around him. I stood there a long time, but I couldn’t put him in that cold, dead ground. I couldn’t burry him. I knew he was dead. I knew it from his dull eyes and stiff form. I knew it because he hadn’t pulse in his veins and he hadn’t breath in his lungs. I knew it because there were no words on his tongue.

I knew he was dead, but it was just a lie to me somehow. Every sign of life had left the unicorn, but something inside of me still believed he was alive. If I put him in the ground, I knew that would be the end of my internal protest. And I didn’t think I could go on like that.

So I sat down with my legs dangling over the edge of the hard earth, into the grave and I laid a hand upon Brecan’s folded wing. I had taken the arrow—that cursed thing that had ended that innocent life—out of his eye.

“Brecan,” I said and he was still. “I’m… I’m sorry in so many ways that neither my tongue nor my mind can shape them…”

Silent and stiff, still.

“I… …I was horrible to you again and again,” I said and my voice echoed in the brisk, empty air. “I’ll never understand, Brecan, why you took it. I don’t know why I said those things I said to you… You… I… I wish I hadn’t been such a bastard, I really do…”

I rubbed his fur. It was cold, matted with long dried blood. His horn, which once shone like polished glass, no longer had any glimmer in it.

I wanted to say more. He was past hearing, I knew, but I wanted to say it. I wanted to apologize for everything I had done, every thing I had put him through. But the words wouldn’t come. I stood staring out across the icy landscape. I had looked at it thousands of times, this foggy wasteland, but I really hadn’t looked closely at it. There was some sort of sad beauty in the swirling forms of the frozen hills. Like ghosts milling about, fog rolled up and down the hills, settling in the little valleys that separated the undulations.

A light blue sky stretched itself over the light blue mountains, but there was a definite horizon that separated them, a different shade of blue for each that had never registered in my mind. The sky was the sort of blue that all sky was and the land was a like a diluted form of teal that, sad and forsaken, had never been given a name. Thin, evanescent clouds hovered way up in the sky, far from where men such as me could reach them… Oh, but I had passed through those clouds a thousand times on the back of my dead steed—no, my dead friend. The only friend that a knavish, arrogant, ruthless prick like me would ever have, even if I lived forever in crowded places.

It was cold, I realized as a puff of icy breath came from my mouth in a sigh that snuck from my lungs without my knowledge. I hadn’t ever really paid attention to the cold, either, if it had always been there. Usually I was burning up, even when I was covered with frost. Today, however, not even the flame in my veins had will enough to burn. I continued to absently stroke the dead flesh of the unicorn.

…dead flesh, but what of his soul?

It had worried him before he died, hadn’t it? He was afraid to die… But he hadn’t been afraid to fight for the kingdom that was his home. He had been the one who had chosen to go to Kyrx and to fight for Zylx, I reminded myself. There had been courage in that act which I had seldom seen in him… He had died fighting for a cause that was greater than his fear of dieing. If he had been stripped of his soul for cowardice and dimwittedness, then surely he had regained it with his final acts. I smiled despite the crushing sorrow in my chest. He had his soul fully back to him before the arrow pierced his brain, I knew.

The cold stung the tears which clung in the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t remember being this cold. Not in all the years between that moment and the day when Master Slade had made me his apprentice…

…it was so long ago, but the memories were still so vivid. Master Slade’s sad smiles and his kindness.

“You were alike, you and him,” I told Brecan’s still body. And they were… Except… Brecan had really been happy. He had been happy to be around me, happy to be my steed or my errand boy or to talk to me even when I refused to carry the conversation. Master Slade had just wanted to be happy, but, really, he had been the saddest person I had ever come in contact with. He smiled because he wanted to be happy and because, I think, he wanted that I shouldn’t become as sad as he with the way people treated us.

In that last respect, he was successful. The foul treatment that peasants and the like gave me had never made me sad. It did however make me angry and, yet, eager to disprove what they believed me to be. But that had only led to worse things…

“I should have died long before I met you, Brecan ,” I said. “I should have died a child, starving on the street. Then I wouldn’t have ruined your life… or his…”

I tried to push the memories of killing Master Slade out of my mind, but they wouldn’t go. I could remember most vividly that look he gave me before I put the dagger in his chest. He hadn’t recognized me then, because of the potion. It had been the part which brought me the most heartache. I realized now, though, why he had forgotten me. He had been pained by his decision to make me his apprentice because he believed it ruined my life and ruined me as a person. This epiphany I thought about for a couple moments while the sun rose or fell—it was hard to tell anymore—some where beyond the frozen valley.

“You’re in heaven together, now, aren’t you?” I said and the corner of my mouth twitched into a smile made out of place by both the moment and the tears on my cheeks. “You and Slade are in heaven together… I’m stuck here, though. And if I ever manage to leave I’ll be gone another way, I know… But… That’s it, isn’t it? You both would have gotten along better without me… You’ll get along better without me…”

I sat there for a while longer. I couldn’t get up. I didn’t want to. There was nothing to get up for. Every thing I had spent my life doing was futile and pointless. I could not reverse death. It was beyond my power. I was a terrible necromancer, anyway. Even if I hadn’t been, I still could not do it. Death was not a gate that opened and closed again and again and could be passed through with the right key. It was a series of cells that locked closed forever behind the dead.

And every thing else, all the corpses I buried, all the realms I charted, they were just as pointless as trying to give life to the dead. They had only been there to pass the time away while I waited in this living purgatory until either my soul returned or creation imploded in on itself—as in Zylx it sometimes does. There was no point now, nor had there ever been.

I could have gone on doing it, though, as I had been for a millennium before. But, without Brecan, it seemed empty. This place was quiet, more than any graveyard should ever be. He had always hung around, talking and asking questions until I snapped at him to shut up. Then he’d bow his head with a sincere apology and, after a moment or two, would continue at it, having forgotten my annoyance with him. I had always said I couldn’t think with him around, that he was ruining any bit of progress I might have managed and it had hurt him, I knew. But he never remembered his hurt for long. He did, however, have an everlasting sense of friendship.

…how could I have not realized that all his talking was just him wanting to know me better? A thousand years, more or less, I had known Brecan, and yet I never volunteered anything about my past…

Rhodes approached quietly and I looked over my shoulder at him, my cheeks stinging cold from the air that blew on my tears. I got slowly to my feet after a moment and pulled Brecan’s corpse up. I pushed the fallen unicorn against his chest and, forcing all emotion out of my voice I instructed him, “Take Brecan’s body to Ti Tunfa. Take it to the elven graveyard and start digging a grave for him. Can you do that, Rhodes?”

Rhodes nodded and his old bones creaked.

“Get going,” I said coldly and watched him drag the shrouded form west as fast as his worn skeleton would allow. When I could no longer see him, I started towards the cave. I didn’t know what would happen to him when I died, and—true to the qualities that Kimohr Raulinn had identified made me a villain—I didn’t care. I hated Rhodes and I would hate him even as I sat in Hell being punished for that hate.

I walked swiftly through the Noa Lokul’s twisting tunnels to my room and picked up a dagger from beside my bed. Knowing before I did it what would happen, I jammed the dagger into my chest. The blade melted before it even touched the skin, making the weapon useless. I threw it down and grabbed another. This time I slashed it quickly across my wrist but before the motion was even complete, the wound was already bubbling closed. I pulled my tunic and belt off, stripping the tunic and combining it with the belt to create a makeshift noose. But, alas, the Noa Lokul had no support beams and so I had nothing to hang from.

Frustrated I headed out of my room and went a bit deeper into the caves, to one of the rooms where I had been conducting experiments of various sorts with various purposes, most of which connected to the relationship of life and death. A couple of caged Zylxian rats—huge creatures, nearly the size of dogs, with beady eyes and tusks—looked up as I entered, fearful of the tests that they had seen give death to their brethren. I walked to a shelf and pulled from it the most poisonous chemicals and plants I kept on it. These, one after another, I poured into my mouth.

Flames burst out on my shoulders and I could feel the blood boil within my veins, stopping the poisons before anything was accomplished. I slammed my fist against a stone wall and cursed. Leaning against the wall I let some more tears slide down my cheeks as frustration made the fire grow larger on my shoulders and back. I was fire. I was so much fire that I could no longer be killed…

Suddenly it occurred to me that fire could burn itself out. I looked around and, deciding I didn’t have enough oxygen in the cave, headed back out to the graveyard. With a deep breath, I burst into flame all along my body. The flame, reacting to my will, grew. Larger and larger the flames grew, reaching towards the periwinkle sky. I forced the heat to grow greater but, still, I could barely feel it.

“Damn this life!” I screamed and forced the fire hotter. It flickered and began to change colour, to get lighter. “Damn this life of mine! I am not worth the flesh I wish to burn!”

My words echoed around for half a second and then were lost in the cackling of the fire around my ears.

It was hot, and getting hotter. First it started off as an uncomfortable tingle, then it became the sort of annoying heat one gets wearing all black on a clear, sun-drenched day. The ice and snow around me began to melt away, to become mud and stone. Still it was not enough.

With a burst of will which hurt me more than the fire that could not consume me, I poured more energy into the fire, out of the very pores of my skin. The effort made the Double Omega on my forehead spontaneously gush blood. The red fluid drizzled down my face from the mark, and it was hot like something boiled. The sweat which now was coming from my arms and chest and thighs was just as hot.

“Hell, I come to greet you at last,” I said and steam came from my mouth. Steam came from my eyes, replacing the tears before they could even come off my eye lashes.

Splotches of red began to appear on my pale skin where the fire was most intense. The flesh reddened and swelled and blistered. Then, painful and hideous, it changed to hues most unnatural and burned away, down to the bone, leaving the colder spots edged with black. My hands went first, the flesh seared to blackened bone. I wanted to scream, but I hadn’t the energy to waste for the effort, so I bit my lip and cried some more silent, steamy tears.

My right leg had the flesh burned from it by the white hot fire and I staggered a little, but the fire continued to roar, gripping me with its glorious killing hand. My life, my saviour, my destroyer…

Most painful the fire was when it burned across my hips. Here I could not help it, and I screamed out. There was no echo now, for the fire swallowed it just as it swallowed me. It was painful, too, when it tore at my ribs and began at my organs, but I could not scream for that one.

The flames consumed me and when I was dead, they went out suddenly, like a candle in the wind. I was at first confused by it, for I could see perfectly well the valley. And then I could see it… My corpse lay at my own feet, no more than an ash covered skeleton, the Double Omega faintly visible on the skull. I feared, then, that I might have become a ghost. A fate even worse than living…

“Raettonus…” a voice said. I turned to look and saw an armour clad creature watching me.

He was humanoid, but black wings stretched out on his back, half open, their flesh like the night sky. The strange man was of a large build, all in bulky iron armour, the inky shade of midnight. Beneath his helm, shadows clung to his face, hiding it from my view, but out of that swirling darkness two red eyes, shining like jewels and coloured like blood, glinted, fixed upon me.

“…death,” I said and I was certain it was so, for though his countenance I had never seen, his presence was unmistakably the same.

He nodded, “They call me Black Winged Cykkus, God of Death and Pain.”

“I’ve certainly seen my share of both of those,” I remarked. “You’ve come for me, then, have you?”

“I have, Necromancer,” Cykkus said and moved towards me. His heavy armour made not a sound. It was like watching black fog drift towards me.

“You should have come sooner, then,” I said and crossed my arms. “I was ready to leave about nine fucking centuries ago.”

“You were not, Necromancer,” Cykkus said and stood close beside me. I still could not see through the shadows which shrouded his face. “Those without souls do not get to cross the threshold into my world.”

I asked him, curious, “Where do they go if their body is torn apart, then?”

“They go no where,” Death answered me. “They become ghosts, chained to the spot until they learn…”

“Learn what?”

“Whatever it was that the Council decided they needed to pass into my world,” Cykkus answered.

“Council…? You mean, those bastards that—“

“The Council of Balance, yes,” Black Winged Death said. He looked over my shoulder towards the cave of Noa Lokul, as though making sure no one was there listening. “They are a powerful force that few are aware of. Not even the Creator Kraah Shohk knew of them, nor do most other gods. I, myself, came into existence with a knowledge of their presence and their workings…”

“Who are they?” I asked him. “And who told them it was their god damned right to start taking souls away from young men trying to fucking save people from a horrible death?”
“It is there right, as unjust as it may seem to you,” the god said coldly. “They are permanent, in their unchanging court of divine justice. They are impartial judges of character and they judge the character of those who attempt to change the course of any world by fantastic means. You were foolish, Raettonus, as most who attempt those things are. You did not pass their trial, then, and so you were punished as they saw fit.”

“…but, now, is my soul…?”

“Yes,” Cykkus said and he took my shoulders and began to lead me away from my bones. The air thickened and changed into an ashen grey as we walked. Soon, we stood before a gate, rusted and imposing that made me shiver. “You finally knew what compassion was. You are genuinely regretting of you actions. That earns you your soul back, according to the Council.”

“This… this is Hell then?” I asked and looked at Cykkus. He nodded. “May I… I have a moment?” He nodded again.

I write these words, now, from the very gates of Hell. I write because I want to be understood. I want to show those who hated me that there was a justification in my own thoughts. I write these, as well, to understand it better myself. Mine was a life that was complex and not easy to understand, even for me.

I want to tell. I need to tell. So I write these words and hand them to a messenger that will pass between Hell and earth, so that he might pass them on. I told him to give them to Kantraesia, for she still lives. I told him to give them to Rhodes, and to Trethlau and to the King. I told him, as well, to make his way to heaven, to give my words, and my apologies with them, to Brecan.

I love you, Brecan. If I could have taken that arrow, I would gladly have done so. But it is in the past. I must move forward, into Hell, and you must move forward, too. Be happy, Brecan. You always knew how to be happy. Please, teach Sir Slade to be happy too. You’ll get along well, you too, I hope. I love you both.

After everything, this is what I deserve, but my heart is light with these things said. Villains such as I get what they deserve, though the innocents like you and Slade, Brecan, get the same cruel fates, too, I guess. I wish it weren’t so, and I’d do anything to make it so, at least in your cases. But, alas, I know now that it is not entirely the fault of villains such as I.

To my eternal damnation, to my endless pain and torture, I walk with a smile as the gate creaks open.