Chapter 43

43.

         He was taking too long to heal. How much time had passed? It was impossible to tell. He wasn’t on speaking terms with his biological clock anymore. Once he had defused its bomb, it really had no reason to talk to him.
         In another room they had found a couch, dragged it in so he had somewhere to sit, so he didn’t have to lay on the floor. At this point he really didn’t care all that much. But it was nice of them. His arms felt so heavy, like if he quit lifting they might pull him right through the floor. For some reason he kept thinking that he had lost his eyesight but it was only because his gaze kept drifting into the shrouded oblivion that lurked near the ceiling. For some reason he thought there should have been a skylight, that there once was. But that wasn’t possible, he couldn’t see the stars. It wasn’t that dark. He’d been through a deeper blackness before and survived.
         But he was taking too long to heal. His cells were trapped in a sort of paralysis, the drumbeats of their division and maturation, the graceful dance of mitosis and regeneration, he had gone deaf to it. And it was not happening. He was not healing.
         At least they were all back together.
         The thought was too simple for his brain, but in the sedate fever that gripped him it was all he could manage. Voices spinning sentences too complex for him to properly process spun past him, becoming dizzying if he tried to focus, instead of letting it all slide by.
         Through the narrowed slit of his vision he saw them both, lone trees in a wrecked landscape, striding amongst desolation without a passing glance. Tristian still had the sword unsheathed and its glimmer was a cut vein and the only true light the room had. Ranos stood some distance away, barely revealed by the sword’s glare. He had survived, of course, somehow, but it had not been without cost, a price that showed in the rigid emotion of his taut face.
         Tristian and Ranos were arguing. Just like old times. They were not shouting yet, but he suspected they would be. Soon. It was almost expected. His eyes kept focusing on the sword, a candle that didn’t flicker. It hurt to stare. He had no energy for anything else.
         “Where is she, Ranos?” That was Tristian, his voice a knife-edged bark. “What the hell happened here?”
         Hands clasped behind his back, Ranos was facing the couch, sideways from Tristian. The jagged wreckage of the fight loomed behind him, a slain monster just barely dormant.
         “Events proceeded as they had to.” Ranos’ words were tight, cold. “Though, unfortunately, not as smoothly as I had hoped.”
         “I’ll say,” Tristian noted archly. The sword swept around, forming a weak cone of crimson light. “You said you had a plan, Ranos. You told me to wait, because you had it under control.”
         “And I did.”
         “Is this control?” Tristian snapped, his voice rising. The sword created crazy patterns on the air. “This place almost fell down, by the looks of it. I break in to find you nearly in a coma, Joe looking like he went through hell and . . .” he paused, voice shaking and it took him a moment before he was able to continue, “And where the hell is Kara, you haven’t answered that question yet.          Where did she go?”
         “Away,” was all Ranos said. “It was-“
         ”I know that part already,” Tristian interrupted. “The lunatic I ran into outside told me as much. I know she’s not here, Ranos, I’m not blind. My question is, where did she go and why did she have to leave?” The statement was thrown out as near-challenge, with the blade measuring the distance between them.
         Ranos stared at Tristian for a drawn out moment before answering. “It was necessary to send her away. To do so, I had to trick the owner of this house into using Kara to solve a problem of hers.” Even speaking plainly, Ranos was evasive. With the sword splitting molecules in the air before his eyes, it was possible he had no real choice.
         “And what was the problem, Ranos,” Tristian asked warningly. “Stop dancing around my questions and just tell me. I don’t want to waste anymore time here if Kara isn’t around.”
         “Very well,” Ranos said quietly, his stance ramrod straight. He paced a few steps back. “She was to kill one of the other mindbenders.”
         “To kill him?” Tristian shot back, taking a half stride forward. Ranos didn’t budge. The tip created circles inches from his chest. But Tristian would never strike him. Ranos knew that and stated it with his very posture. “Are you mad, Ranos, what the hell were you thinking.” Tristian turned away sharply, holding the sword close to the ground. “That was your plan, I can’t believe . . .” he broke off, his breathing suddenly fast. The point of the sword quivered, blurred. “She is not a pawn,” he said coldly. “I trusted you,” he added, softly. “I could have just come in and-“
         ”And she would have killed you,” Ranos barked out harshly, causing Tristian to spin swiftly halfway back. “She was being controlled, Tristian, do you understand? It was not simply a matter of coming in and walking out with her. Her mind was not completely her own.”
         Tristian leaned back a step, stared at Ranos. Somehow there was less color in his face. “Controlled?” he whispered. “How do you-“
         ”If it was so simple,” Ranos continued in a level tone, “why wouldn’t I just have teleported her out at the first opportunity? I am not so in love with manipulation that I involve people purely out of whim, Tristian, I want you to know that.” He emphasized the last six words in such a way that in the crystalline quiet of the vaulted room, it took on an unearthly echo. “The woman’s hold on her was near complete. If events didn’t intervene and present me with the opportunity, she would have read the Commander’s mind and tore it apart. She would have killed me without a pause and if you had broken in, yes, she would have killed you as well, had the woman willed it.” He stopped to let the words sink in. “That is the situation I was presented with. Kara was preventing me from acting against either her or Maleth. In order to break that, I had to send her away.”
         “To kill someone,” Tristian said in a deadened voice.
         “The chance of Kara actually killing someone, especially a trained mindbender, even with her greater power, was still fairly low. And she herself cannot be truly hurt.”
         “But she could have killed someone,” Tristian pointed out. “She could have.” His voice had a lonely poignancy in the too empty room.
         “And the person she might have killed has been trying to slay us since we landed on this world,” Ranos countered with eerie certainty. “I cannot see why this might be a bad thing at all.”
         “She shouldn’t be getting involved!” Tristian retorted, his voice leaping into a brutal shout. Ranos blinked at the force of his phrase but was not swayed at all. “Dammit, Ranos, she’s only a kid, I wanted to keep her away from this stuff, I wanted-“
         ”In case you missed it, Tristian, we are caught in a war,” Ranos snapped in response, his voice briefly losing its chilled edge. “Whether we wished it to be or not, that is what happened. And to survive in a war, you must be a soldier. It is the only way.” He fixed Tristian with a smoldering gaze. “Soldiers fight, Tristian. It is what they do. Here, Kara is no different.”
         Seeking to bridge the distance between them, the sword shivered, slicing away flakes of the dark air. Tristian stared at Ranos for nearly half a minute without speaking. And then, suddenly, abruptly, with a sharp expulsion of angry breath, he spun away, thrusting the blade down, nearly cutting into the floor.
         “All right,” he said thickly. “Okay,” he added. “All right,” he said again, bowing his head, not looking at Ranos. “We have to end this, Ranos,” he said in a soft voice. “Before it gets any worse.” It was impossible to gauge his expression.
         “Aye,” Ranos answered, staring at his old friend, his face tinged with a degree of sympathy. “It needs to end.”
         “Is . . . is Kara still being controlled?” Tristian asked, his voice slightly stronger, although he still wasn’t looking at Ranos.
         “Not to the degree she was before,” Ranos replied. “Maleth’s grip was always tenuous at best. It was her abilities filtered through Kara that trapped me here. Once Kara departed, I found myself once again free to move. I suspect her control over Kara suffered the same loss of potency.”
         “But it was this . . . Maleth that caused all this?” Tristian asked, indicating the broken ruin of the house. “Without Kara’s help.”
         “She did,” Ranos said simply. “Most was done through desperation, in a panicked effort to kill me. My intent was to frighten her into submission before subduing her.” Glancing around, he added, “It appears I only partially succeeded.”
         “You think?” Tristian responded but there was a ghostly smile drawn from old paint on his face. “Do you know what happened to her after the fight, did she . . .”
         “I do not sense her presence nearby anymore,” Ranos said. “No doubt she fled, thinking me dead.” There was an odd slur to his voice and there was a pattern of darkness on his face that looked very much like dried blood. Those believing him dead may have had good reason to make such an assumption. “But she expended much energy in the fight, I do not think she is capable of a repeat performance.”
         “We’ll find her then, eventually,” Tristian stated bluntly. He ducked his head, cupped his chin with one hand in thought. “How much do we know about them, Ranos? Were you able to find out anything that we can use.”
         “I believe there are only five,” came the reply. “They are clearly from Mandras’ camp, but I am not certain what made them leave.”
         “It doesn’t matter,” Tristian said. The gleam of the sword was the brightness of a half open furnace door, minus the heat. “We have to deal with them now.” He turned back to Ranos, his face determined. “How about you?” he asked, unable to mask a veneer of concern. “You didn’t look good at all when I found you. Are you up to this?”
         “I am as ready as you are,” Ranos replied with an old humor. “We are . . . both still standing. That is reason enough to continue, I believe.”
         Tristian flashed him a brief grin, one that quickly faded as his eyes swept to the side. Casting a quick glance at Ranos, he strode over to the couch.
         “Still with us, Joe?” he asked the man slumped there.
         Brown blinked bloodshot eyes and lifted his head from the rear cushion, the movement clearly an effort. “More . . . or less,” he rasped, unable to avoid staring at what was left of his hands. A sheen of cold sweat gleamed on his pale forehead and thin lips kept pulling back from a wasted composure in a parody of a smile.
         “I can teleport him out the village, to where he initially landed,” Ranos said, his body out of the range of Brown’s vision, his words merely a broken voice coming from a detuned radio station. “He can wait there and we can collect him when-“
         ”No!” Brown snapped, nearly rising from the couch. Tristian stepped forward to steady him, to ease him down, but it wasn’t necessary. “No,” he said again, with more force. “This started with me and God help me I’ll see it to the end. I’m not bailing now.”
         “Joe, you’ve been through too much,” Tristian insisted. “You’re hardly in any shape to-“ Brown wanted to laugh at him. Even these days, after all this time they still forgot. It wasn’t the same for him as it was for them. There were crucial differences he could take advantage. Only a fool wouldn’t.
         “There is nothing wrong with me,” Brown said plainly, fighting to keep Tristian in focus, even as the man threatened to split and blur, as if seen underwater, “that you can’t fix with that.”
         And with one stunted hand, he pointed to the angry glow of the blade.
         Tristian said nothing immediately, but Brown knew just by staring at his friend’s face that he understood. You remember, finally.
         “I can’t guarantee it won’t hurt,” was all Tristian said after a long moment. He angled the sword away from Brown, as if the blade might leap from his hand and strike the other man purely by the faintest wisp of intent.
         Ranos merely watched, content to silently witness.
         “The trauma will force the regeneration,” Brown said, telling Tristian what he already knew. “I’m not healing now. We have to do this. You’d have to do it eventually.” There was an infection snaking through him, setting fire to his blood. When it touched his brain, all the lights would go out entirely. It wouldn’t be permanent but it would take far too long. If his voice had the strength he would tell Tristian that, explain in all the garish details he could muster. But he didn’t need to speak anymore. If there was a debate here, he had won. But there never had been one, truly.
         “I know,” came the quiet response and Tristian wouldn’t look directly at him. His eyes peered sideways, to the other man. “Can you numb it or . . .”
         Ranos must have shaken his head. It was hard to see, now. “No,” said the solemn voice, “not on him. I’m sorry.”
         “I’m sure it’ll only hurt for a minute,” Brown said with dark cheer, moving his hands into position.
         “I hope so,” Tristian might have said. Brown focused his gaze straight ahead, trying not to pay attention to the sword he saw lurking at the bottom of his gaze, just above his wrist, its glow a fire he could no longer feel.
         “Ready when you are,” he thought he murmured, just before it slipped down and his world collapsed to a single infinitely dark point.

* * * * *

         Killing herself would mean that he had won.
         But at this point, it was a victory she would gladly let him have.
         Sitting slumped on the edge of the bed, she tried to look for her reflection in the tarnished blade of the knife, seeing it as only a blurred, misshapen thing, hardly a human face at all. The blade was cool against her wrist, but she barely noticed it there anymore. All she could think about was how pale her skin was, how thin the bones felt.
         And how red the blood would be, when it welled up like tar from the fault line carved into her arm. Vaguely, she wondered if it would hurt. She was surprised that she still even cared as much anymore.
         It was the baby that did it, she knew now. The baby that had removed the final strut of her foundation.
         Even now the smell threatened to seep through the door, a cloying, foul thing, not at all something that might come from an infant. It occurred to her that if she stopped breathing, she would no longer be able to smell it. Or anything at all. It was so tempting now, unbearably so. Almost giggling, she stroked her naked wrist with the knife, feeling its sharp tickle cutting at the fine hairs on her skin.
         She had found the baby in his room. Her husband had asked her to check on it and the simpler the request the harder it was to deny him. At the time his gender hadn’t rotted away and it was still clearly a he. The smell had not been as strong either. But the basic fact had not changed, now or then.
         The baby was dead, and had been so for several days. In its crib it lay, on its back, tiny hands curled into fists, as if to ward off the death it knew had to be coming. Eyes like dark marbles stared at her, all emotion having fled already. It might have starved to death. But it was impossible to tell.
         The baby was dead. Not her baby, but the baby. And that was insane. She remembered clearly going into labor, the long months of longing and waiting, the frustration at her swelling abdomen and increasingly gracelessness, the unbridled joy at finally bringing it into the world. The baby. The dead baby. Sometimes she could still feel its weight in her arms, its bright warmth, the sound of its cooing and crying. But it was wrong. Something was missing.
         A muscle trembled in her face now, and she blinked, keeping the focus on her arm. A sideways cut would probably do best, as deep as she could manage. If she gouged far enough, the sudden outrush of blood and shock would erase her consciousness and she would barely suffer. It would be so easy.
         Because something was missing.
         “What was your name?” she whispered, the leaden cadence of her voice barely reaching her hearing. Was it even her voice anymore? Or did it belong to someone else? Names were meaningless these days, loosely applied signs that were strangely interchangeable and forever transient.
         After her husband had left before, she had tried to go to sleep. This was before she had found the baby. All she had wanted to do was close her eyes for a few minutes and eject the debris of the day from her mind.
         Her brain had other ideas.
         Hazy memories darted in an incomprehensible stream underneath the dreams of her brain, too clouded to make out properly, striking a pitch that she couldn’t ignore. Indistinct figures strode across a landscape that may not have existed, speaking in blurred phrases that only hinted at meaning. Occasionally she heard her own voice, garbled snatches, fragments of situations that could never have happened. It was nonsense, she tried to tell herself upon waking. Her strained mind trying to pull itself back into shape. That’s what she told herself. That’s what she said.
         But that’s not what she believed.
         Something was missing.
         Outside, she had once seen children writing with sticks in the dirt, using the long branches like awkward fingers to make their simplistic mark on the ground. When they were done the children had stomped across it and tried to write again. And when she had walked past the second time, she saw new phrases taking the place of the old ones. But the previous set hadn’t gone away completely and she could see their vague mark still written in the dirt, smeared but still present, exerting a palpable influence still.
         Now, she wasn’t exactly sure if that had ever happened. But the message was clear. I think that’s my mind. I think it is.
         The hand holding the knife shook slightly and the blade nicked the edge of her skin, not drawing any blood but causing a sharp pain to stab at her, forcing her to flinch. Staring anew at the knife, she reflected on how many times she had prepared dinner with it, skinning animals, chopping vegetables, so many purposes. So many things that had never occurred to her.
         But she wasn’t sure any of that had ever happened. This house was intimate to her, every detail was memorized to the point where she could navigate the place with blinded eyes. None of it felt real to her. The mattress on this bed knew a shape and it was supposed to be hers, but she couldn’t convince herself of that. In her mind she could picture their softness as she drifted up from sleep, the warmth of her husband nearby, the cool light shining from the lone window.
         It never happened. Oh, I don’t think it ever happened.
         Shuddering, she closed her eyes tightly and let the knife rest against her chest, the point touching a spot directly above her heart. An emotion was threatening to break inside of her that she couldn’t allow herself to give into. What would he think . . . the thought began before she forcefully stopped herself, the blade pricking her chest.
         But why do I remember it? Why?
         Her name was useless now. Everything in her life was somehow suspect. The baby had only been the latest symptom. She was waking from a nightmare only to find that it was only a smaller dream nestled within a larger, darker shell. And beyond that, who could say? It might never end. Not unless she did something. And there was nothing left for her to truly do, other than seemingly obvious.
         He could be home soon. She would have to tell him about the baby. She could picture his face now, the face she loved, picture it anguished but concerned. And he would take her into his strong arms and try to smooth the pain away, like so many times before, like he had vowed to do for as long as they were alive.
         And she would look into that face, the face that was the last thing she saw every night before she went to sleep, and it would be the face of a total stranger.
         What’s happening to me?
         The strange man had said her name was not what she had always known it to be. She had watched people step from nowhere and do terrible things. She had seen her husband act like a different species. But he had reassured her that the world was as it would always be. Now she believed neither him nor the stranger. I think everything in my life is a lie. But that might be a lie too. Her life was the product of two people now, the addition of a love between a husband and his wife. But the equation was corroded and it needed to be fixed and the only way she could think of to do so was to remove herself from it entirely.
         I don’t want to be like this anymore, came the simple, somber plea. I want my life back.
         But I don’t know what that was, if it ever existed.
         A flush of heat entered her eyes and she closed them tighter, unwilling to let it escape. I’m sorry, she said to herself, to no one. With a sudden decisive motion, she pressed the blade into her wrist again, feeling its sharp pressure, not allowing it to sway her. She took a sharp, shuddering breath, promised herself that would do it in one short, sharp tug. One shot. That’s all she needed. She couldn’t go on like this. Just one shot. I’m so sorry.
         Her hand tensed, twitched.
         It began to cut.
         And then a bright pain exploded in her mind, forcing her eyes open wide, the room looking even more alien than ever, her hand convulsing and the knife abruptly clattering to the floor, marked with a thin streak of her blood, the noise of its descent reaching her from another life, her mouth opening in a scream that was completely trapped in her head, a thousand needles giving way to form one large shaft that plunged deep into her brain.
         Unable to speak, she slid off the bed, all her muscles taking on a rubbery loose quality, all control lost. The jarring impact of her knees hitting the floor first was no worse than she expected. Her head hit the wall a second later, her body arcing forward and it briefly scattered the milling lights clustered in her brain but did not disperse them.
         What’s going on, what’s-
         Hands and arms seeking a futile balance, she hit the floor heavily, landing on her arms, cradling her face in her hands. At some point she had started crying, if the wetness on her face was any indication. A storm surged in her head, tearing all her thoughts like so much paper. What’s happening to me, what’s happening-
         Out of the corner of her eye she spied the knife lying not too far away. There was still a chance. A chance to end this. Gritting her teeth, she went to reach for it, and as she did another spasm of pain laced across her forehead, causing her to draw her hand back. She was coughing now and crying harder, hot tears streaking her face like liquid claws, trying to ignore them and finding that she couldn’t, the pain shoving itself to the forefront of everything. Gagging slightly, she reached for the knife again, her fingers only inches away when the pain struck again.
         “Dammit!” she yelled, nearly throwing herself toward it, her body not responding. “Dammit, why can’t I . . .” and she gathered herself up, got to her knees, the pain almost crippling now, making it impossible to even think straight. “Don’t do this to me!” she almost shouted, her voice an unfamiliar rasp. That’s not me. That’s not me at all. “Stop it, stop this!” But her hands wouldn’t respond and the knife became no closer. Angrily, she sat up straight, her back taut, not even thrusting her disheveled hair out of her face and tried to scratch at her wrist herself, hoping that maybe she could cut it with her own fingers, frantic to succeed in something, all too willing to hurt herself to prove the point.
         But pain exploded like miniature suns deep within her, causing the world to rear and jerk. “Ah, dammit!” she screamed, hiccuping as she did so, falling against the wall to her left, her hands intertwined, clutched to her chest, her head resting against the wall. “Make it stop,” she sobbed quietly. “Please. I just want it to stop.”
         One hand pressed against the wall, sliding down until she was sitting on her legs, she cried softly for some time, the effort merely poisoning her further instead of purging as it should have.
         So caught up her in own angular misery, she didn’t even notice the brief brush of stale air that passed over her face, nor the soft sound in the far corner of the room that might have been a dying sigh.
         Even the quiet rustle of footsteps didn’t cause her to look up, although the tension inside her began to tighten further. If it’s him, I’ll-
         But the knife was too far away and she would do nothing and she knew that. Tears threatened to overwhelm again, but inside her was a desert, all of it drained. There was nothing inside, nothing left.
         She felt more than saw the shadow pass near her as well as the crinkle of fine leather as someone knelt down beside her.
         “Can’t bring yourself to do it, can you?” a voice said quietly. “Don’t feel bad, it’s not because of you. He did it to all of them, made it so you couldn’t go through with it, no matter how much you wanted to.” A grim chuckle caressed her ears. “Of course, since you’re supposed to be so deliriously happy, I’m not sure exactly what the problem is . . .”
         She flinched away from his words, turning her face closer to the wall. She didn’t recognize the voice at all. The presence drew away from slightly, she heard a brief shuffling noise before it came closer again.
         Suddenly, the knife was at her wrist again. This time, she wasn’t holding it.
         “You picked a good way,” the voice told her seriously and the blade was somehow colder now that she was no longer grasping it. “One poor girl, she tried to throw herself off the roof. Thing was, she didn’t die, she was just paralyzed. But she was dead to him and while he went and found someone else, she laid there for a whole week, unable to move, calling out to people who couldn’t notice her, eventually starving. By the time I found her, she was just bones. I buried her myself, out in the forest. But she deserved better, I think.” The knife pressed harder into her wrist. “So you can’t do it to yourself, but I can do it for you. I’d have no problem helping you out, it’s the least I can do. The very least.”
         The knife dug into her skin, all too willing to lay her open to the air. Her breath caught, she bit her lip, said nothing at all.
         A moment passed, joined quickly by another.
         And in a hushed voice, the man with her said in her ear, “But that’s not what you really want, is it?”
         There was some hair in her face, almost glued in place by her tears. She couldn’t bear to move it. All she could see was the featureless plane of the wall before her eyes. Swallowing was so difficult now. In another life, she felt her lips move, the brief expulsion of breath that might have formed a word, that might have been the word, “No.”
         “I didn’t think so,” the man said with an odd kind of cheer. The knife was suddenly removed from her wrist, its absence leaving a peculiar kind of chill on her skin. Distantly she wondered if he was merely teasing and was going to kill her anyway. She was still unable to determine if this was a bad thing or not. It just took so much effort to care.
         “You’re the fifth that I know of,” the man said conversationally and his voice sounded farther away now. “Though I’m pretty sure that there were some whose tenure was so short that none of us ever noticed the switch.” It struck her that she had no idea what he was talking about. Was it about her? It was hard to say. But she caught a hint of small comfort in his tone and that reassured her somewhat.
         While still speaking, his footsteps grew closer. “It was all so utterly seamless, he just moved from one to the next. Sometimes I wonder if he even noticed the differences. But it was harder each time to pretend that we didn’t notice that something unpleasant would happen to each one all too soon. We knew more or less what was going on, but for one reason or another we all turned a blind eye, purely for the selfish reason that the one thing he’s good at could save us all.” A quiet chuckle stole his words for a moment but she wasn’t sure exactly what the joke was. “That’s all over with now, I’m afraid. I did what I could to rein him in, but the old rules are torn to shreds and I think for the first time I feel a sense of total freedom, even if there’s only one action I can truly take.” The jagged humor entered his voice again. “Ironically, I’m not sure who this proves right or wrong. Maybe in the end it didn’t really matter. Not in any way that counted.” The humor in his words was tinged with a thin melancholy.
         “I don’t know,” he admitted matter of factly, although she wasn’t sure what he was admitting to. The somber finality of his tone snagged on a ragged emotion within her and the orchestral tragedy of the day swelled in her chest again. She closed her eyes and bit her lip hard, nearly drawing blood, feeling the strange pressure in her head again. I want it all back, not sure what she was even asking for. I want it back. Please.
         Footsteps drew closer again, new leather squeaking in the silence. A hand ran smooth fingers through her hair with a tenderness that surprised her. “Look at you,” the man muttered to himself, his voice soft. “Just look what he’s done to you.”
         She kept still, eyes half closed, feeling salted fluid forming a liquid barrier, ready to break free and escape. Thoughts swirled in her head, sharp edges threatening to cut her if she dared focus on any single one of them. The curious tension entered her chest again.
         “You can have it all back,” the man promised with quiet insistence. “There’s nothing to tie you here.” A thought ricocheted off the inside of her skull, leaving a mark that nearly broke through to daylight. He laughed suddenly, as if he could read the story lodged in her brain. “Don’t you understand?” he asked, still frustratingly vague. “You don’t have to worry. It was never yours.” A certain grim glee hissed into his words. “You’re still a virgin, my dear, in body at least. Just think, all of the experience with none of the nasty side effects. Soon enough you’ll be the envy of all the girls.”
         Unable to speak, to even form words, she sniffed, not even feeling his touch anymore.
         “But that’s not what you care about right now, is it?” He paused, as if plucking the answer from her. “No, it’s not. I can understand that, perhaps even sympathize.” His breath brushed past her ear again, closer than she realized. “What can we do about that, then?”
         Another brief stretch of silence. Then, his hands gripped one of hers, seeming no larger than a child’s, and squeezed with subtle force. “I can’t undo what we did, but time might unravel it, eventually. Perhaps.” His voice was uncertain, brooding. “I can promise, I think, a more immediate satisfaction, if you’re open to it.”
         Her mind was open, blank. She said nothing outloud, but he gave a short laugh and squeezed her hands one more time before releasing them entirely. Her hand was utterly empty. “Good, good, I thought you were.” A breeze brushed her brain, chilled her to the base of the spine. “And I think when the times comes, you’ll know exactly what to do.” She couldn’t, didn’t, move. His shadow moved further away, his footsteps lightly tapping a cadence in tine with her erratic pulse. “It’s the least I can do,” he said, his voice somehow near her ear again, “especially since in a way, we’re all to blame. Accept it then, with my apologies.”
         From not too distant a brief clatter reached her ears.
         Then came the light kiss of stale air once more and a stagnant silence filled the room.
         It was some time before she could unwrap herself from her gnarled position and fully perceive the darkened room, with only the faintest finger of dawn beginning to touch the window. In the darkness all familiarity seemed drained from the room. She realized now that she had never belonged here.
         Some time later she was able to focus properly on her surroundings.
         The man, of course, was nowhere to be found.
         But, he had left something behind.

* * * * *

         For one of the few times in his life, Prescotte wasn’t sure what to do.
         He was unable to figure out whether what he possessed was a surplus of targets or none at all. The village was still maddeningly empty and his quarry was vanished, his trail of blood leading to absolutely nowhere. Either he had stopped bleeding completely or he had simply disintegrated. Prescotte knew neither one of those answers was the right one. He knew exactly where Tolin had gone, or at least exactly how he had gone there. But unable to trace the man properly or follow him in his own fashion, Prescotte was at a loss as to what his next action could be. Every inch of his aching body wanted to pursue the battle and finish what the other man had started what felt like years ago.
         But Tritan was hurt, maybe severely so. He had no idea how much damage the Slashtir could sustain or how fast he healed, but the alien’s wounds had certainly not looked minor. In any event they appeared to be beyond any sort of battlefield assistance that Prescotte could provide. It was possibly that Ranos might have been able to accelerate his metabolism and thus his healing but Ranos was nowhere in sight. He would have to make do with others plans, then, and see how far it took him.
         Worry tugged at him but was unable to find a purchase to gain hold. The boy and his father were still missing as well, he could only do so much. They would have to take care of themselves for the time being, until he could get a better grip on this situation. Striding through the shortening night, past empty houses and other discarded memories of people, it struck him again how unreal his life had become. Traveling with aliens, fighting men with strange powers, it was a story that would have kept him riveted as a child. But his parents, being plain folk, had never told such tales, and the stories swapped over meals during encampments in his later days as a soldier were lacking a certain purity, steeped in violence and sexual mischief, the only outlets for men only able to count their remaining time in potential minutes, hoarding all the possible moments, knowing they had to spend them but unwilling to waste them entirely. Many of them hadn’t survived, but he had. Many of those that did survived could only look forward to more of the same, until the time overcame them or they became too old to do the only thing they ever found worthwhile. Prescotte had spent his days wondering which fate would claim him first, only to find that it turned out to be neither. He was living a story now, and the surreal pallor of his life gave him a certain sense of invincibility. It was mad and irrational, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. So this is what a legend looks like from the inside, he marveled and it was not the first time the thought had occurred to him. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
         He had roved farther than he had intended in his efforts to find Tolin and the path back was taking him far longer than he would have liked. His injuries prevented him from moving any faster than a brisk walk, and even then he had to constantly slow down to avoid overtiring himself. He had tried to carry his sword for a while but it was too heavy now and the point kept dipping into the dirt, nearly tripping him up when it caught in the ground. It was resheathed now and at the very least the extra weight prevented him from toppling forwards. If anything attacked him, it would best announce itself loudly and give him time to respond or else he’d wind up witnessing a legend from the wrong angle entirely.
         As it often did at night these days, his eyes kept moving to the stars, drinking in their meager light in the otherwise featureless sky. Their small size was deceptive, he knew, as Brown had shown him photographs of what they truly looked like close up. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of something so large, that ensured that life continued for all of them. That night he had stood near one in his dream, its massive expanse and bulk filling his vision from end to end and top to bottom, its primal engine churning before him, spitting out heat as an almost physical object. He held some of it in his hands, its glow threatening to blind him, what he grasped in his palm enough to strip the flesh from his bones and vaporize him entirely. When the prominence arced through him, that’s when he woke up. The next morning he found his hands red and blistered, almost peeling. He never figured out how much of a dream it had been.
         That heat was totally absent now, in this chilled night, the warmth of his body dissipating into the dark air. In this vacuum, it all might leave until he had nothing left. He had been walking for some time now. It hadn’t taken this long before. Had he gotten lost? He hoped not. That was the last thing he needed, on top of everything else.
         Prescotte tried to use the stars as some sort of navigational guide, like some sailors and soldiers could, but he had never learned the skill properly and besides, it would have been under a completely different sky. Brown had once told him that there was a trick to it so you could adjust to practically any sky, but he suspected it involved a system of numbers beyond what he could work with.
         Stopping for a moment to gather his bearings, he stared up in the sky for a few seconds longer, thinking the Universe looked like nothing more than a giant shadow, cast by the combined illumination of all the stars around. Sardonically, he wondered what the hell was large enough to cast that kind of a shadow, and whether he really wanted to find out.
         A movement in the sky caught his gaze, an anomaly in the backdrop. Squinting, he saw that it was a darker spot moving amidst the stars, Occasionally covering one of them and blotting it out momentarily. A satellite, maybe, he thought, stopping for a minute to watch it, using it as an excuse to catch his breath. A fast moving satellite by the looks of it, he thought he lost sight of it when it saw it further down the horizon, still moving apparently rapidly. Awful strange, he thought.
         Then he saw with a start that it was getting larger and with a cold realization he remembered that this world didn’t have satellites, no more than his own world had. There was no one who could put them up there. Damn. Furthermore, the blotch was clearly growing larger now, with a trajectory aimed toward the ground. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all. Some strange aspect of it clutched at him, spurred him forward. What the hell is that? he thought, breaking into a sudden run with the best of his diminished ability.
         He tried to keep it in sight as he ran, doing his best to avoid running into one of the houses, glad that the streets weren’t filled with people to interfere with his progress. It was hard to tell where it was going to come down, it seemed oddly close but Prescotte was no good at figuring out angles. All he could do was keep running, each breath a hot slice of pain in his chest. His sword was more hindrance than help now but he’d be damned if he was going to lose it here. It might be nothing coming down from the sky but the last few days had taught him otherwise. As he ran it registered what exactly had spooked him so about the object. Twisting and turning as it was, the shadow had looked vaguely person-shaped, and regardless of who it was, at the speed at which it seemed to be moving, it couldn’t be a good thing.
         It dove beneath his line of sight shortly after, but Prescotte didn’t stop running, the sword banging rhythmically against his back, sweat dripping into his eyes, his nose, his chest tight and congested from the effort.
         Even through the clamor of his own breathing, he heard it touch down. The crash was an imploding boom, a bubble of sound pierced but not broken. It seemed to go on for far longer than would be safe. Prescotte wondered if there was any reason for him to rush at all.
         A geyser of grey dust, barely contrasting against the opaque sky, spewed into the air, gave him a target to fix on. By the time he reached the spot, some time later, the dust had mostly settled, giving everything nearby a monotone tinge. From a short distance away he could see the point of impact, on top of a house, a hole punched in the room, giving it the look of a jagged maw, waiting for other morsels to be tossed down its gullet. From his vantage point, he could see that the house was completely dark inside, with no signs of movement or life. But that meant nothing. He’d been fooled before.
         Best to take this cautiously, then. He kept his sword sheathed to allow for more freedom of movement. In a situation like this, in his current state, being able to get the hell out fast was probably going to be more important than standing and fighting. And if it came to that, he still had the sword. The house lay across the way, as silent as a wounded sentinel, looking no different than the other homes, except for its recent addition. Slipping into a crouch as he crept forward, Prescotte tried to figure out what it could have been that he saw. He had no ideas if the mindbenders’ abilities included flight, although he didn’t see why not. He had never seen Ranos do anything like that, but then he and Ranos weren’t exactly close either. But what had happened to make one plunge to the earth like that? Did they die in mid-air, thus leaving nothing to stop their descent? An ignoble death, but one that Prescotte found enormously appealing. With luck it was Tolin, a thought that only made him increase his pace. The faster he confirmed that bastard dead, the better.
         Prescotte reached the house, keeping his body low to avoid being seen through the windows. The place was just as still up close. Forcing his breathing to an even rhythm, he lifted himself up so his eyes could just barely peek through glass. Moonlight pouring through the newly formed hole above did little to disrupt the folds of darkness inside, but what he did see told him much. No one was inside that he could see, although the room looked utterly wrecked, furniture and wood strewn about like a cyclone had struck indoors, tossed about by an unrepentant child, broken without a care. It was what he expected, basically, given the magnitude of the crash he had heard and the speed at which the shape had been traveling.
         He thought he spied a lighter patch of darkness toward the back of the room, but he was unable to make it out clearly. It looked like another hole, but his vision was too fuzzy to make any firm determination. He’d need a closer look, but he had to make it fast. He didn’t want to waste anymore time here, especially alone. His ears strained for any fragment of sound that the village hadn’t captured, but there was simply nothing. He might as well be deaf for all the good it would do him.
         Easing his body around the corner, Prescotte tried to keep his senses alert for anything out of the ordinary. But this whole place was weird, soaked in an eeriness that pushed all stabs of comfort far away. Even empty, this village didn’t feel safe. Prescotte doubted it ever would again. Free stuff or not, I don’t think anyone is going to be living here for a long time. Better to just level the place and start again. The hairs on the back of his neck had been raised from the moment he had entered the boundaries of this place. Now they were prickling, as if a curious electricity was running through them. His legs felt oddly weak, although his heartrate remained steady. It wasn’t the fear from before, then, and he kept his hand off his sword, determined to not lose the thin calm that had settled over him.
         Prescotte was halfway around the house when the dark shape rushed at him.
         It hit him before actually touching him, in a way that made his head go light and his vision tilt. Without moving, he felt about to hit the ground. Staggering, he fell against the wall, blinking rapidly and trying to clear the voided spots from his sight. His heart sped up, slowed down, went back to racing. Trying to reach for his sword, it became clear to him that he wasn’t exactly sure where it was, or what the word even meant. Dammit, they’re doing it to me again, he thought angrily, feeling each phrase as a separate animal, breaking off from the pack and loping away. A thousand actions screamed to him from a shattered mirror, each leading to the same shrouded end, each threatening to cut him if he dared take a step forwards. The air was weighed down with a peculiar heaviness and he felt underwater, the sodden surroundings impeding his every movement.
         Too fractured to form a plan, when the shape ran into him, Prescotte did the only thing he could think of.
         He reacted by instinct.
         Automatically he wrapped one arm around the attacking figure and pivoting, slammed them toward the ground, almost closing his eyes as he did so to avoid a crushing wave of dizziness. He caught a faceful of hair for his trouble as the figure spun and fell, landing facedown on the ground. Prescotte did his best to follow through, hoping to pin his assailant to the ground, but even as he launched himself downwards, the other flipped around, surprisingly agile. It occurred to him that his attacker wasn’t very large at all and when he grabbed the wrists that were darting toward him in what he presumed was an attempt to claw out his face, he was surprised to find how light they were.
         Still, he was pulled down anyway and he fell to the side to avoid landing on them. As he rolled to his feet, it struck him then the nature of his attacker and what had been so strange about it.
         It was clearly a girl. Ah, geez.
         When the next attack was launched at him, he gambled, met it head on and wrapped his arms around the shape, again noting how small it was compared to him, almost positive now that he knew what was going on, hoping that he could get through before she slaughtered him outright.
         “Hey-“ he started to yell, even as he was slammed bodily in the wall of the next house, ejecting nearly all the breath from his body. Hands reached for his eyes again, even as a knee tried to drive up into his stomach. Who the hell taught her that? He managed to dodge her hands and block her knee’s thrust, grabbing both of her wrists again, pulling her closer to him, taking the precious second to fill his lungs with air and gulp out the words that he thought might save him.
         “Kid, kid!” he yelled, even though she was only inches away. “Stop, it’s . . . it’s . . .” she struggled wildly and he prayed she didn’t tear his arms off. That would be awkward at least. “Kara, it’s me!” he nearly screamed, as his head smacked into the wall, forcing him to let go of her suddenly, slumping down toward the ground. “It’s me, Kara . . . Lord, don’t-“
         The air suddenly stilled and he heard a faint gasp of surprise. Hands tried to reach to halt his descent but his weight was too much and he pulled her down with him. He hit the ground hard, landing on his side, his face nearly bouncing off the dirt, doing his best to keep from landing on top of her. She offered no resistance as they fell but managed to just barely keep her balance and all he got a glimpse of was the rapid shuffling of her dust covered boots. Spying only the lower part of her body, he saw her tumble anyway, landing heavily on her rear, nearly collapsing onto her back.
         By this time Prescotte had rolled into a crouch, ignoring his body’s demands to just lay there for a while until he healed. Across the small distance the two of them eyed each other, Kara’s face strangely luminous in the dark.
         “Prescotte?” she whispered after a long moment, her voice hopeful.
         “Yeah,” he answered with an equal measure of quiet. His face broke into a grin. “But hit me like that again and I doubt I’ll even be able to tell you that much.” Shifting his weight so that he balanced on the balls of his feet, he tipped an imaginary hat to her and said, “Still, consider yourself rescued, kid.”
         She slipped forward and embraced him tightly then, with a force he didn’t expect, enough to press his back up against the wall. Briefly, it occurred to him that if the mindbenders were screwing with his perceptions again, this would be the perfect moment to kill him. He doubted that was the case though. Call it intuition.
         “Oh God,” Kara said in a strangled tone, drawing in a long, shuddering breath as she shivered against him. Prescotte was struck by how warm she was, as if there were a bonfire roaring within her. Vaguely he remembered Tristian once remarking how because of her regenerative abilities, her metabolism was always accelerated. Whatever that meant. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, the words spilling out rapidly, tumbling over each other. “It’s been . . . it’s . . .” she stopped speaking, rocked back on her heels, rubbed one eye with the heel of a hand. To his eyes, she looked fine, a little battered and covered in grime, but not particularly hurt and certainly not bleeding from anywhere visible. She’s doing better than I am, at any rate, he noted archly.
         “How’s it been?” he asked casually, trying to brighten the moment a bit. “What’s going on here?”
         Kara didn’t answer him immediately, instead bowing her head and rubbing her face tiredly, still perched on her heels. Being curled up like that only made her look even smaller, more vulnerable. To some extent, it was all illusion. Prescotte gingerly massaged the ache in his ribs where she had hit him. No, vulnerable really wasn’t the word to describe her.
         Eventually Kara lifted her head to stare at him again. There was an ashen quality to her complexion that no regeneration could correct, apparently. Wherever she had been the last few days, it hadn’t consisted of fun and games. But then, his experience hadn’t been exactly a party either.
         “It’s been . . . bad,” she finally said, her voice wavering slightly. “What’s going on it’s . . . it’s terrible what they’re doing here, Prescotte.” Shaking her head, she rose smoothly to her feet, even as Prescotte followed suit. “I don’t . . . I’m not sure where to even start. The things that have been going on here . . . they’re . . .” she broke off, shaking her head again, unable to continue.
         “I’ve been getting that impression,” Prescotte replied. “We’ve had our share of close calls here as well. Was that you I saw falling from the sky earlier?”
         “Yeah, that was me,” she said in a small voice, almost numbed. A faint smile traced the edge of her face. “You saw me, then? How’d I look?”
         “A darn sight better than I’d look if I were plummeting toward the ground.” He allowed a second to pass before venturing the question that had been pulling at him ever since they had reunited. “How’d you wind all the way up there, kid? Where’ve you been all this time?”
         The smile, tenuous to begin with, vanished from her face. She didn’t answer immediately and when she did, her tone was carefully controlled. “One of them, she . . . she tried to make me . . . kill one of the others. That was . . . that was what you saw me trying to do . . . up there. I was trying to kill him.” Even if Prescotte had been able to speak, he wouldn’t have. Better to just let her talk. “He was fighting back, that’s why we, why we fell through the house like we did, but I . . . I would have killed him, Prescotte.” Her hands clenched into fists as she whispered the last few words. Looking away, she hugged herself tightly, murmured again, “I would have.”
         “But you didn’t,” Prescotte said, not sure if he meant it as a question or not. He hadn’t seen a second person emerge from the shattered house yet. The thought of Kara being controlled, forced to try and kill someone, he didn’t think it possible. And yet, with a cold sort of logic, it made perfect sense.
         “I didn’t,” Kara agreed, though Prescotte didn’t know if she had actually heard him or not. “I wasn’t . . . I wasn’t able to, he . . . he knew . . .” she broke off, still not facing him. “Oh God,” she muttered, pressing her fingers into her face, her expression scrunched up in pain. “Oh my God.”
         She remained like that for nearly half a minute, unmoving. It was clear to Prescotte that something had happened beyond the fact that she had nearly killed someone. Taking a step closer, though still at least an arm’s length away, he said quietly, “Do you want to talk about it, what happened? I know I’m not really family, but . . .”
         A sad, small laugh emerged from her posture. Letting her hands drop, Kara faced him with a tired smile. “You’re as much family as anyone else, Prescotte.” Then, glancing away again, as if embarrassed, she added softly, “But, no, I don’t. Not now. I’m sorry.”
         “Don’t be,” Prescotte said dismissively. “I figured as much, but I had to ask anyway.” Putting a friendly hand on her shoulder, he said, “It’s going to be okay now, the home team is here. One way or another, this’ll be wrapped up soon.”
         “Yeah,” was all she said at first. Running both hands through her tangled hair, she took a few steps away from Prescotte, toward the back of the house, and said, “Where’s everyone else, Prescotte? Where’s my father?”
         “Not exactly sure,” Prescotte replied, adjusting the sword on his back. “We all arrived separately, for the most part. I haven’t seen your father or Ranos since we got here.”
         “I know where Ranos is,” Kara told him, “and Uncle Joe, too. I thought my father was near us, but . . . it was so hard to tell, my head was so screwed up . . .” she shook herself, blinking hard. Recovering, she added in a stronger voice, “Was Tritan with you, too? I didn’t think he would stay behind.”
         “He didn’t,” Prescotte said somberly, glancing back in the direction he had originally been traveling towards. “He came with me . . . but he’s been hurt.”
         “Hurt?” she asked sharply, her eyes wide. “Is he . . .”
         Prescotte shook his head. “No, but it’s pretty bad. Tritan held his own but the fight got pretty rough and he’s not doing so well at the moment.” Pivoting slightly, he added, “I was just getting back to him now, I want to get him someplace safe before we finish this up.” Pausing, he looked at her and said, “Think you can give me a hand in moving him? Mindbenders have been throwing me around all night, so it doesn’t seem like a very taxing thing to do.”
         Kara smiled at that. “No, no, it’s not. I can help. I just . . .” her face turned abruptly serious as she stared at the house, her eyes narrowing as if staring through the walls.
         Prescotte followed her gaze but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Oh please, not you too, with the weird stuff. “What is it, Kara? Something wrong?”
         “I think he’s still in there,” she said, not taking her eyes off the wall, and whatever lay beyond it. “The guy I was supposed to kill. I . . .” she bit her lip, clearly debating how to proceed.
         “Do we need to finish the job?” he asked, his voice cold.
         Shivering slightly at his words, she said quickly, “No, it’s not like that, it’s . . . not yet.” It was so hard to figure out which words to use. Her choices felt so limited. “I need to talk to him, Prescotte. There’s . . . stuff I need to ask him. I’m sorry, I-“
         The sound of metal against leather caused her to turn swiftly. “Don’t be,” Prescotte said, the blade of his sword shining dully in the meager moonlight. Gesturing with the weapon, he said to Kara, “Lead the way.” The tone of his voice indicated that this wasn’t a negotiable offer and his meaning was clear. If you go in, you’re not going in alone.
         Kara looked about to open her mouth to protest, but instead it formed a tight line and her eyes became unreadable. Without another word, she turned and stalked toward the back of the house, Prescotte following a short distance behind.

* * * * *

         The teleport was like tearing a hole through the skin of the world, a membrane gone leathery and coarse. He materialized while falling forward, expecting his hands to be bloody from the effort of clawing his way through. Every atom in his body somehow hurt, but pain was a foreign country to him now. He had managed to cut off nearly all sensation in his limbs, in his entire body. If he stopped breathing now, he would probably be the last to know. It hamstrung him, but it was absolutely necessary. If he let himself feel it all, then he would drop dead right here. As it was, he could barely stand, he was sure that one of his legs was fractured. The night was blurry, off kilter, seen through a cracked lens, all the colors drained of vibrancy, all perspective skewed. Every so often time seemed to skip and he wondered if he was blacking out.
         He should have gone home. But there was no help there, only comfort and it was the former he needed now. The latter he could take at his leisure, when there was time. The ground, grainy as it was, still felt slippery, ready to give way at any second. Only illusion, that’s all it was. All his adversity was transient, not any kind of serious obstacle.
         Still, he wished he’d be able to teleport into the house itself. She never allowed it though and he didn’t think know was a time to be flaunting her rules. Stumbling forward, he felt like he was leaving pieces of himself behind. Dark spots marked his trail, although he did his best to stir up the dirt. It pulled at his mind, all his energy seemed to be pouring into a negative space in the center of his head. He needed to recover. He’d never been pushed this far before and another inch might send him to a place that he wasn’t prepared to enter.
         She could help him. It was the least she could do for him, a small step toward paying off the debt that was owed to him. Didn’t he once help her? Didn’t he once coax them all through a desperate time? And even if the details were fuzzy now, the imprint it left behind was a reverberation that could rattle them all. So she had to help. There really wasn’t any other option. Their survival depended on him, now and always.
         Eyes watched him from hidden windows on all sides as he approached the house. Yet not one came out to assist. She knew he was here, that he was coming. This whole village was like an extension of her body, little by little she had seeped into these people until they had become no more than her appendages. It was insulting, in a way, to treat people like nothing more than tools. He liked to think that his track record proved otherwise, that in the end, the record would show that he had nothing but respect for those he considered allies. Even to his enemies he practiced a precise brutality. That was the way of things. That was the way it had to be. Otherwise, it was chaos.
         The house loomed ahead now, strangle tilted, at least to his striped vision. Something was different about it, something fundamental had changed. Invisibles wires tangled his legs and sent him spinning to the dirt. Getting to his knees, he coughed hard, heard something heavy and wet strike the ground, found it slightly easier to breathe. As he fumbled his way to his feet, his fingers brushed against the thing now half buried in the dirt, found the texture gelatinous and somewhat grainy. Then he was on his feet and it was out of his mind. None of his limbs felt attached. He wasn’t even sure he was walking anymore, his thoughts kept leaping inches ahead, leaving his fractured body behind. But no, it had to catch up, he had to enter whole, or she’d turn away from him. He had to enter with strength, or he might as well fall apart right here, before the unseen unblinking eyes, nestled in the soft lungs of the night itself.
         He didn’t remember the last few steps to the house, but all of a sudden it was there. The door was slightly ajar, jauntily tilted. His feet crunched on pieces of something he couldn’t see. Inside all was darkness but that might have been his descending vision playing more games with him. A curious lightness had entered his brain, made him feel like his body was separating into its individual components. Legs to arms to body to brain. The head tops it off. Blood to bind the lot. Blood to bind.
         Falling against the door, it gave far too easily, bringing him in at too rapid a pace. He tumbled inward, inhaling a faceful of pulverized dust. He coughed again, felt his chest twist and try to eject itself. The effort to make his eyes adjust to the dark made his head ache even more, his brain seeking to squeeze through his pores. Shapes began to resolve themselves, reluctantly, not without trepidation. The house was utterly silent, almost passive and empty. This was wrong. This was wrong. He couldn’t feel her anywhere, he was stepping through the inside of a corpse where a person used to be. Even the guts were missing, all the bones and gristle that filled a man out. Otherwise he was less than a shell. That’s what this place was. Nothing more.
         “Maleth?” he called out, his words sounding all too distorted to his throbbing ears. His voice stubbornly refused to echo or take on any other form of resonance. It landed flatly, and went no further. Standing up, he tried to will the room into sharp contrast and let all the details be revealed, but it remained maddening elusive. His surroundings consisted of no more than soft primary shapes, shying away from any kind of visual complexity. There was a smell of old death here, dispersed into the air itself. He was breathing it in, this death, just by being in this place.
         “Where are you, woman?” he said, trying to project his voice, frustrated that it refused to go anywhere at all. Maybe he wasn’t even speaking. His jaw felt misshapen, a tumor clumsily grafted onto his face. Nobody was answering him. “You can’t leave,” he told the apathetic air. “Not when I need help. You can’t leave.” He stumbled back a step, then shuffled forward, his knee hitting some furniture that he couldn’t quite make out clearly. To his right a huge spiky bulk dominated the center of the room, intimidating even in its dormancy. He paid no attention to it. “You can’t!” he attempted to shout, but it was weak and made no impression. A wave of dizziness seized him then and he leaned against the furniture, which he now realized was a couch.
         “Is . . . is this how you show your gratitude?” he said, throwing his voice at the floor. “After all I did, after what I did for you, for everyone . . .” his lip twisted into a near snarl and he raged, “I’m the reason we were able to make it here, because of what I did for you. And now . . . now you go and . . .” he turned awkwardly, trying to direct his wrath toward the distant ceiling. He slipped, started to fall to the floor, threw out his arms onto the couch to stop himself. The effort was a failure and his knees slammed viciously into the floor, rattling the whole world. One of his hands sunk into the cushion, which was strangely cold.
         “Dammit,” he whispered, searching for the energy to regain his footing again. “The hell with all of you, then,” he vowed through clenched teeth, focusing for a moment on just breathing. “The hell . . .” He had nothing left. And yet he felt so heavy. A coating of something draining was forming over his forehead and with one hand he went to wipe it away. His touch brought something wet and crusted to his face.
         “What the . . .” he muttered, putting his hand in front of his face and flexing his fingers. Even in the dark they glistened slightly. The smell hit him a second later. Blood. By now, the scent was a constant friend. He knew its stain instantly.
         Something told him to glance to his right. His narrowed vision swung, refocused, found new perspective.
         He saw it, then.
         The body.
         The shock caused him to struggle anew to his feet, a feat accomplished only by leaning heavily on the couch, almost shifting it further away in the process. He kept the body in view the entire time. It didn’t move at all, of course.
         Squinting, he shuffled closer to it, trying to get a better look. It was a man, sprawled on the cushions. His head was thrown back and his mouth was open slightly, in a sigh or perhaps an aborted scream. His eyes were closed, or so it seemed. In the dark it was hard to tell. There was some ambient warmth still radiating from the body, so it must not have been dead long. It certainly felt warmer than he did. There was a certain familiarity about it that eluded him, his porous brain refusing to find any kind of significance to its presence, even though he knew that one existed.
         But when he saw the hands, that when it came back. That’s when he was sure.
         The man’s arms were thrown out to either side of his body, lying limply on the couch. Those arms ended in severed stumps, abruptly truncated. Without really wanting to, his fingers brushed the steps, found only cooling flesh, still sticky with blood. His eyes traveling once again to the face, he found he recognized its contours. It’s him. The man from the Time Patrol. But what was he doing here, dead? Did he kill himself? Could they even truly die?
         “What happened here?” he asked the corpse, perhaps. “What did you do?” Suddenly this place seemed cursed, its emptiness not so much abandonment as the symptom of a more sinister mechanism at work. Empty except for the dead. But this dead would not remain so for long.
         “I have to get out of here,” he murmured with a sudden sense of purpose. This dead man here unnerved him more than any simple corpse had before. Someone had cut off the hands and the man had bled to death, or died from the shock, but it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. This situation wasn’t right, it had fallen into a place that he didn’t wish to inhabit. “I can’t stay here.”
         “Indeed, you can’t,” a new voice intoned from the darkness, causing him to look up sharply. “The question is, however, where will you go?”
         “Who-“ he asked, leaping back and nearly falling, stumbling to his feet more through accidental momentum than anything else. His chest felt compressed and each breath was an upward battle. His balance was precarious as he swayed, trying to find the source. The darkness remained as impassively faceless as before. Perhaps he had imagined the voice. Perhaps this was all in his head.
         “I’m afraid, alas, that’s not the case,” the voice returned, sliding smoothly, a knife through silk.
         “Who’s there?” he tried to shout, his body pressing him deeper into the floor, his legs wobbling. His mind could find nothing, but he didn’t have much to work with. “Who are you?” His words were steely and demanding but he had nothing to back it up with anymore. It all came down to the stance, in the end. It all came down to where you stood. “Who is it?”
         “I’m disappointed,” the voice said, not sounding at all sad. “It hasn’t been all that long since our last encounter, I thought.”
         And then he stepped out of the darkness, seeming to rise up from some dungeon behind the couch, his shape a negative space chiseled with unrelenting force into the shadows.
         “Isn’t that right, Tolin?” Ranos finished quietly.
         “Ranos . . .” Tolin whispered, real fear flooding his brain for the first time, a shaft of burning sunlight vaporing any other thoughts that might have been in its path. Involuntarily, he backed away, suddenly conscious of the wreckage behind him, of the great void now existing in this place. “You . . .”
         “Maleth is no longer here,” Ranos said with effortless calm. He stepped around the couch, his hands clasped casually behind his back. It was hard to look at him directly. “She has gone away from this place. Because of me.”
         “Get away from me,” Tolin hissed, his boots barely finding any purchase on the dusty floor. He had to brace himself for the assault, had to gather his strength and escape. Ranos was going to kill him. His eyes said it all. In those eyes, he was already destroyed. “Don’t come any closer. I’m warning you . . .”
         “Warn all you wish,” Ranos said cordially, his pace never slackening. “We all know you’re a man who acts on his threats. Aren’t you, Tolin?”
         “You know I am,” Tolin replied, Ranos’ presence still forcing him backwards. He was tempted to go against the grain and lunge at the man, but it would have been useless. His body was all out of synch and Ranos looked no worse for wear. He would only be promising himself a quicker death if he even attempted it. No, the best course here was defense. Defend and stall. Until escape was feasible. “You’ll learn that soon enough, I think.”
         “A lot of people have learned that particular lesson, it seems,” Ranos said dryly. His mind wove something obscure and knotted, causing Tolin to flinch, almost attacking right then. But the weave faded into nothing. A feint, then, to draw him out. No, let him try. He wouldn’t succumb. “That was your role under Mandras, wasn’t it? To make good on threats.”
         He spoke of a past that might as well have belonged to another man. You better stay the hell out of my head, he warned, but it was a futile gesture. All the whispers spoke the same. Ranos walked where Ranos willed. “It had to be done,” he answered, unwilling to justify himself before this man. “And someone had to do it. I never said I was proud.”
         “No, you never did,” Ranos said softly, almost to himself. “How many, then, Tolin? How many deaths?”
         It took him a second to realize that both of them had stopped moving. Their tortuous dance had taken them halfway across the spacious room. His mind stabbed out, searching for others, but they were alone in this house. It was mildly reassuring. “I never killed unless I had to,” he told Ranos. “And a lot of times I was able to get the point across without killing them.” Finding the strength to point, he said to the other man, “I’m no monster, no more than you are. Your hands aren’t spotless either, you’ve done your share.”
         “I have,” Ranos admitted simply. “With good reason and sometimes with no reason at all.” If that was a hint of what was to come, Tolin wasn’t pleased, or impressed. His dark eyes narrowed suddenly. “Yet the one killing that looms large in your mind has nothing to do with Mandras.”
         “We wouldn’t have come here otherwise,” Tolin panted, feeling a too sudden flush of warmth surge through his body. At some point, they had started moving again. Distantly, Tolin felt the subtle buzzing of a shield come into existence, a vibration just below his skin. Defenses locked into place in his mind, ready to keep any intruders out. “We would have died there, with everyone else, if not for me.” He knew it was true, because he had told himself that for so long now. The fact that he could say those words spoke volumes to his contribution. They all owed their lives to him. But where were they now, when his own life was in peril? Nowhere. Nowhere at all. He would remember this. When it came down to it, he would remember today and do what needed to be done. To rectify. To correct. To ensure they knew. “It needed to be done, but no one wanted to do it. We wanted to live, we all wanted to survive. There’s nothing wrong with that,” and his last words were spat directly at Ranos’ feat, laden with vitriol. “And I’d do it again, if necessary. Again and again.”
         “I have little doubt of that,” Ranos answered with a distinct dryness to his tone. To Tolin he sounded bored, almost going through the motions, stretching out time until he could get himself interested enough to strike. “You don’t especially strike me as a man who learns from his mistakes.” Tolin was past the wreckage now, and up close he realized it was a jagged mass of wood and stone, everything not nailed down in the house jammed into an invisible black hole, plugging it up but making a mess of the place nonetheless. This portion of the house was even darker than the rest, the absence of light taking on a near tangible quality, a suffocating soup that tried to filter into his lungs, to gum up the gears, render him useless.
         “Nobody objected . . . nobody stopped me,” he rasped. “They wanted it as bad as I did, but none of them had the guts. And they would have died, if not for me. I got them out, I got them here safe.” He strengthened the interlocking strands of his shields, trying to make it as impenetrable as possible, a barrier that would not fall until he did. Why couldn’t he hold his ground? Why did he keep retreating? It was only Ranos. It was only a man.
         “And yet to do so, you abandoned the man who had shown you no small amount of kindness and transferred your loyalties to another.” Ranos spoke all of this is a distracted, almost clinical manner. “Mandras didn’t subject you to the same conditioning the others had gone through. That’s why you were able to leave. He allowed you to have what he was about to deny the rest of creation . . . free will.”
         Tolin didn’t agree with Ranos’ interpretation but he didn’t have the strength or words to engage in a heated dialogue about it. He could feel Ranos’ mind, impossibly agile, probing at his defenses, thin enough to exploit the tiniest cracks. Only a man only a man.
         “Loyalty doesn’t mean sentencing yourself to death,” Tolin shot back. Their voices didn’t move beyond the bubble between them, they were caught in a sort of inward gravity, pulling everything down. He tried to be aware of all that was around him, but all that was around him was Ranos.
         “Strange, I thought that was the definition,” Ranos said with dark humor. His strides were measured and even, never seeming hurried. Perhaps he had all the time in the world. Perhaps that was just how it seemed. “Did I ever tell you what I did to Mandras, eventually?”
         The windows were strangely opaque, foreboding in their facelessness. Tolin angled away from them, closer to the nearest corner. Ranos was controlling all the paths out, all directions were blocked. Tolin wasn’t worried, however, because there was one angle Ranos couldn’t cover. One angle that went sideways and nowhere at all. He just needed strength and the time to acquire it. A ball of knotted hope began to form in the center of his mind.
         “He expected me to kill him, I think. I didn’t.” Ranos’ words were a cold recitation. “All I did was reach into him and snuff out all his abilities, wiped away everything that made him like us. I stripped it away and burned it out. It only took seconds. When I was done he was too broken to even scream.” Shadows fell across Ranos’ face now in a crisscross fashion, and his voice came from deep within some hole in the night. Tolin felt the harsh plane of old wood scrape against his shoulder blades and knew that there was nowhere else he could. Keeping his expression still, he poured more of himself into the shield, until he could almost see its thin boundaries in his peripheral vision. Behind this, he couldn’t be touched, he was inviolate. Let Ranos talk then, he would use the time to only grow stronger, and eventually escape. Distance was his ally here, and his salvation. Ranos’ reach was not infinite.
         “Mandras ran then, when I was done, with fear at his lips and terror sewn into his very posture. I don’t know what happened to him after that. I suspect he killed himself, later, once the full impact struck him, but I doubt I’ll ever know for certain.” It was difficult to see Ranos’ eyes anymore. Tolin was reminded again of just how alone the two of them were. “Mandras wanted to rewrite the Universe according to his whims. He enlisted the aid of indescribable evil to further his purpose. There was no one he crossed paths with that he did not try to corrupt or destroy in the course of fulfilling his sick dream. A number of good people died because of him, because of the ripples he created.”
         I don’t care who you are, Tolin thought fiercely. You’ll never take me. Not this way. The ball in his mind began to grow larger, soaked into his brain. When it had achieved the length and width of his mind he could leave without worry. He would be free. Safe and free. Whatever you think I did, all I want to do now is raise my family. That’s all that matters now.
         “In a way, compared to him, you’re utterly benign, your crimes nearly insignificant.” Ranos was standing about four feet away now, his hands still clasped loosely behind his back, his stance relaxed. “A death here and there, a scattering of indiscretions, all very minor things. In a way, perhaps you are correct, I am no better than you.”
         He took a deep breath and repeated for emphasis, “In a way.” Tolin wished he could see the man’s face better. The sphere in his head was brushing against the edges of his mind, there was a tingling in his fingertips. Excitement crouched in his chest, made his legs go weak. If not for the wall, he would have fallen. “But you are not Mandras and his crimes are not yours. Still, taken on their own, the deeds you have performed possess their own intrinsic evil.”
         Tolin didn’t trust himself to speak. The two of them were the last people on the planet. He was truly abandoned now. Do it then, Ranos, he snarled internally, defiantly, step forward and try, if you think it would be right. The elastic sphere in his head pulsed, paused, prepared to surge outward once more.
         Ranos seemed to sigh, the sound lost to the naked air, torn apart by motes of dust. “I never wanted the role of dispenser of justice, but more and more the task appears to fall to me.” He sighed again and looked down. “Not this time, however. Not this time.” His words were strange, almost muffled. Perhaps his hearing was going. So much was coming from a tunnel now. “My own compromised morality leaves me unfit to judge others.” A few seconds to escape now. Whatever Ranos was trying to say, it didn’t matter. Not anymore. The air between them was frozen, keeping Ranos away, his shape seeming to recede. The wall was so close and his only support. All his allies had departed and so had his enemies. All he had was inanimate objects to guide him. Was it fitting? He couldn’t say. He couldn’t know. Tolin was only left with escape now.
         “But does not mean I cannot leave the task to others who can,” Ranos said calmly, still looking down. His eyebrows were furrowed in deep thought, or so it seemed. Something in his words gave Tolin pause. A scratching appeared at the edge of his awareness, a strange irritation. He didn’t take his eyes off Ranos, waiting for the man’s feint to disappear and the real attack to be uncovered. Only moments now, he was sure. Dodge and escape. That was the goal. Dodge and escape. “I cannot touch you, Tolin,” Ranos continued, his voice matter of fact. “You are too well shielded for me to mount the effort required.”
         And then he looked up suddenly and his smile was a feral, frightening thing, tore from a legend’s ragged nightmare. “But a true judge can cut through all barriers, and render the punishment, regardless of the defenses enacted.” The smile only grew wider, more vicious. “I said I am not that man, but I know of one who is.”
         Light pierced the wall near his shoulder without even a whisper, biting and passing through his shield without impediment. There was barely any time. The scratching in his head became a roar and too late he failed to clear out the static, was unable to heed the warning. Even as he moved, he knew it was too late. No. Dammit, no. No.
         From somewhere wrapped in the battered darkness, Ranos’ voice floated to him. “I believe you already met his daughter. But I’m sure he won’t hold that against you.
         “Farewell, Tolin-“
         The light expanded, exploded, burst through the wall in a blade made of shining blood, even as he raised his hands reflexively to stop it. The light passed through his shield, arced feedback to his brain, touched his warding hands and kept going. He barely felt anything. All sound had vanished, had been stolen away. He needed a second to think, to process, but time refused to cooperate, continued to move at the same rapid pace. It was suddenly too cold in here. A shadow was passing through the hole now and the light was darting closer, far too exact, far too sharp, cutting the air, ripping it back through a rent in the empty space, stealing it away, leaving him with nothing. Tricked me, trapped me, you bastards, you . . .
         And for all his motion there was no time to move and nowhere to go and all his shields were useless and all his barriers were broken and there was just the light stabbing his eyes and trying to reach the light in his head and the light in his brain was expanding and bursting and there was no pain or less pain and he was being taken to pieces bit by bit by this man here by this man you see it’s the host his mind kept screaming into the billowing sun although it meant nothing nothing at all to him and his name his name was Tolin and it was so important to remember that his name that his name was that everything was
         The light in his brain expanded, filled the awareness, found a point, found the center and without a cause and without a sound collapsed, dwindled down to nothing, and went out and was gone.
         And was gone.

* * * * *

         Am I nuts? I’m the one with the sword.
         Watching Kara pass through the hole she had apparently created before, Prescotte wondered at the wisdom of his actions. Being the seasoned professional soldier, as well as the only person carrying a weapon and proficient in using one, he really shouldn’t be allowing a teenage girl to enter into a potentially dangerous situation without giving him a chance to check it out and secure the area first. That was just common sense.
         But common sense had departed from Prescotte’s life long ago, replaced by a new system of logic that was better suited to these bizarre times he found himself in. And right now the inescapable path of logic was reminding him that being behind Kara was probably the safest he had ever been this entire adventure.
         Kara, being at least a foot shorter than he was, passed through the gaping scar in the wall easily. Prescotte had to crouch down to enter, his knees brushing jagged debris, one hand touching the top of the hole to protect his head, the other hand still firmly clutching his sword. In the darkness he couldn’t even see the blade. He hoped they wouldn’t be here long, he didn’t know how long he had left Tritan alone and in his current state it wasn’t a good idea for the Slashtir to not have someone looking after him. Disaster only took seconds to form, and there was no telling what might have happened in his absence.
         “Tritan is just fine . . .” Kara said without turning around. Her compact form was nearly invisible, blending effortlessly with the monochrome background of their surroundings. The moon had crept behind cloud cover because the hole in the ceiling admitted only the scrawniest strands of ambient light, succeeding only in illuminating dancing patterns of dust. “I can sense him, he stands out like a letter from another language mixed in with the regular alphabet. I think he’s still in a lot of pain, but comfortable. There’s no one else around him, so he’ll be okay for a little while.”
         “Great,” Prescotte blurted out, too surprised to say anything else. Lord, I hope she can’t see everything in here. Of course trying not to think about certain things that he didn’t believe Kara needed to see only made it impossible to not think about such things. Prescotte paused in the entryway, almost paralyzed by his own looping thoughts. “That’s, ah, good to hear.”
         Before him, Kara stifled a small giggle. “I’m sorry, Prescotte,” she said, her voice hushed. Maybe she was speaking directly to his head. It was impossible to tell without her actually facing him. He wondered if it felt any different. “But the thought was so . . . loud and you were so worried . . .” she stopped, appeared to be trying not to laugh again. “It just leaked out and I couldn’t ignore it, it’s hard to explain, I guess, if you don’t already-“
         ”Nevermind, kid, I get it,” Prescotte said with a soft gruffness. “Just do your best to stay in the all ages areas, okay? I’d like to stay on your father’s good side for as long as I can.”
         “Whatever you say, Prescotte,” Kara said amiably, the kind of tone that said he had only grasped the concept partway, but she knew what he meant anyway. She had moved nearly into the center of the room and settled into a half crouch, her heels resting on the ground, with her arms wrapped around her knees. Carefully Prescotte shuffled closer until he was right up next to her, his sword held guardedly before him.
         “So why are we here again?” he asked as he sidled up to her, shifting his weight that he was resting in a more comfortable position, a stance that allowed him to leap up and strike at a moment’s notice if necessary. “You said that guy you . . . oh-“
         His eyes came to rest on the man lying sprawled in the wreckage of the room. He was face down and unmoving, his clothing streaked with all kinds of gouges and tears, his skin marked with patterns of scratches that seemed to speak a different language. Even without seeing his face, Prescotte recognized him instantly.
         “Valreck,” he whispered and began to step forward.
         “Prescotte, no,” Kara hissed and the force of her words held him in his tracks. He glanced sideways at her, but she didn’t meet his gaze. Her eyes were focused on the man before them, like she was trying to light him on fire with her vision. Even from his position he felt the heat, a discomforting sensation. But he tightened his jaw and held his ground. He definitely was not leaving her here with this nut, Child of Destiny or not.
         “Whatever you have in mind here, Kara, do it fast so we can get the hell out of here. This guy is dangerous-“
         ”I know, Prescotte, I know,” Kara said quietly. Even partially masked by the environment, she seemed oddly pale. “But he’s dying now. I . . . I think I . . .” she swallowed tightly, her next words spoken through a thick membrane, “I hurt him badly. He won’t recover. I know he won’t.”
         Good, Prescotte thought harshly, thinking of the silent village around them. Kara flinched slightly, and even though she tried to hide the sudden reaction, he knew she had somehow heard. It didn’t matter, he would state it outloud if he needed to. The bastard deserved as painful a punishment as this world could manufacture. If you had to fight, you didn’t take everyone down with you. The people here had done nothing but exist and for that they were snuffed out. It had to be addressed somehow. There had to be a reckoning. And if this was it, if this was all there was to be, then Prescotte would have to be satisfied with the outcome. But this was the very least he would accept. Any less and he would finish it himself.
         There was no sound for a long while and no exchange between Prescotte and Kara for even longer. Valreck showed no signs of life at all and Prescotte suspected that the man had already passed on, more quietly than he deserved. But wouldn’t Kara have known such a thing? She was tuned into matters like that more than any of them. He decided to wait a moment and let the situation go where it willed. Sometimes no good came of trying to warp the path of events to your needs. All it did was cause things to snap back to their proper flow, with a backlash that never spelled any good.
         He didn’t have to wait long.
         With a rattle that sounded like he was trying to eject his ribcage through his throat, Valreck shivered and stirred. His hands clutched tightly at empty air and his muscles spasmed weakly, jerking in quick, taut motions. Out of the corner of his eye, Prescotte saw Kara’s lips tighten into a thin line, but didn’t move or say anything. He followed her lead and said nothing, did less.
         “Shh . . . shh,” Kara murmured, closing her eyes lightly. “Don’t try to talk, don’t . . .” she sucked in her breath with a thin hiss, held it for a few seconds before exhaling slowly. She opened her eyes and stared straight ahead. Glancing down, Prescotte saw that Valreck had lifted his head up and was staring at the two of them. Or, more appropriately, just at Kara. He might as well have been a silent phantom witnessing this little drama for all the good it did.
         One of his eyes was swollen shut, his face consisted only of grotesque colors overlapping each other like countries fighting for the same useless territory. His cracked and bleeding lips twitched, a harsh hum weakly emerging from that shattered space. Even broken, he looked deadly and as long as he was intact Prescotte wouldn’t be convinced otherwise. But he standing next to the most powerful mindbender in all of creation. Anything Valreck might do Kara could no doubt return with ten times the pain. It almost made him wish for Valreck to try something. But the man appeared past that now.
         “No . . . you know I won’t make it less . . .” there was a darkly peevish edge to Kara’s voice. She definitely wasn’t talking to Prescotte. Answering Valreck’s thoughts, perhaps? Prescotte shivered to ward off a sudden chill. This was out of his territory, for certain. But he didn’t leave.
         “I know . . . it’ll be over soon, you’re right . . .” Kara continued, speaking in that same low voice, her words seeming to tumble to the floor and crawl over to Valreck, the man too weak to gather them himself. There was a glint of sad resignation in his good eye, although his face explained nothing. “She’ll be here in a bit, I can feel it too, she’s coming . . .” Prescotte didn’t like the sound of that but one thing he had learned was to not ask questions in moments like this. Either he would find out, or he wouldn’t. Some days it really was that simple.
         “You brought this on yourselves, you know . . . yes, we weren’t here for you, we came for a different reason and . . . no, I guess there’s no reason to really worry about now, what’s done is done . . .” she paused, her slim eyebrows bent downwards in thought. “I don’t know,” she said finally, after a drawn out moment. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you. It’s not really up to me.” There was a weary resignation infusing her voice as well. “What would I do?” She seemed irritated by the question. “Stop calling me that,” she snapped abruptly, her expression clouding. “That’s what he wanted me to be, that’s not who I am. So stop it.” Her breathing quickened, and Valreck emitted a low moan, one hand closing loosely around a small pile of broken wood. One edge had slit part of his finger open and blood was running into the debris. He didn’t notice the exodus. Still, it was flowing so slowly, like he had no more to spare.
         Kara collected herself, laced her fingers together and hugged her legs tighter. “But I don’t want to talk about that, okay? That’s not why I’m here. I don’t care about any of that anymore. Whatever you thought was going to happen, it didn’t. Okay? They all died, they . . .” she made a small noise, glanced at the ground. “But you know that already. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .” she made another wordless sound, straightened her back. “I have one question to ask you. That’s all. Just one. You probably know what it is already.” Her words came out in a flush of speech, a coherent babble. Prescotte recognized a certain quality in her voice that had been present when he had first run into her here, when she was still recovering from whatever had disturbed her. It had its roots in this room, from this man. She hadn’t wanted to speak about it then. For a moment Prescotte wondered if he should stay here. Some tangible aspect of the room begged for privacy. But no, he wasn’t leaving. It had taken too long to find Kara. Leaving her alone again wasn’t an option. If he heard something he wasn’t supposed to, then that was just how it went.
         If Kara heard any of his thoughts, as he feared she might, she gave no sign. Her attention was absolutely focused on Valreck, who eyed her without moving. Perhaps he thought she might kill him anyway, when this was all over. Or maybe he was still plotting a way to escape. It was impossible to tell. Maybe it really didn’t matter.
         “We never met before,” she said suddenly, her voice curiously emotionless. Valreck gave an brief nod, closer to an aborted seizure and Prescotte spied a strange liquid quality to his face now, an impossibly sad expression dwelling there, even though his face hadn’t really changed. “I don’t know if you were still at the camp while I was there, if you ever saw me . . .” she paused again, her nostrils briefly flaring with muted anger, “but nobody knew my name, none of the rest of them did . . . except for you . . . how . . .” her hands closed into fists and she leaned forward slightly, lips parted to speak something else. Whatever it was, she kept it to herself, rocking back onto her heels.
         “I see . . .” she murmured, for a second not sounding like Kara at all, but the far older woman she would eventually become. Prescotte remembered someone saying she was essentially immortal. He couldn’t imagine her ancient, or even old. Once the ages started gathering more than three digits, it became unreal to him. His own brief life had seen too many changes. Multiplied by a thousand times, in a hundred permutations, and he might simply go mad. “So what are you saying, what are you . . .”
         Valreck looked down sharply, his body shuddering from some trapped emotion. His breathing, already uneven and ragged, become even more sporadic, to the point where Prescotte thought he could die right in front of them. The rattle of his failing body was the only true noise in the room. If it went, there would be nothing left.
         “I see . . .” Kara said again, looking down as well. Her hands were interlocked fists and the nails on one hand were digging into the back of the other. “Okay. Okay, but can’t you just, can’t you-“ Valreck’s body gave a violent lurch, going nowhere but nearly forcing Prescotte to his feet in alarm. Kara didn’t move at all, didn’t even look up. “You’re right,” she admitted quietly, barely speaking aloud. “We can’t know for sure. You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would be this . . . I didn’t know.” Prescotte had no idea why she was apologizing so much. He stole a glance at her and saw that she had become oddly pale all of a sudden. For maybe the first time, he wished he could read minds, or become somehow partial to this conversation. What was the bastard telling her? Even a small clue could tell him all he needed to know. But he didn’t dare interrupt. This was Kara’s show, whether he liked it or not. He was just the silent witness, as impartial as he could manage.
         “But, yes, I understand now, I think I . . .” Prescotte had the feeling that half of Kara’s end of the conversation was silent as well. “But . . . but doesn’t that mean . . . isn’t it possible that . . .” her voice was trembling, the words refusing to leave her throat. Her eyes were completely closed now and there was a watery rasp to her breathing, like she was about to cry. “No, that’s . . . that . . . it makes sense, it does. It couldn’t be . . . because . . . if you’re . . . that’s right, it’s not possible. You’re right.” The last words were a bare whisper, as if she had planned on saying them silently but had changed her mind at the last moment.
         Unlacing her hands, letting them dangle to the ground, she leaned forward until her knees were nearly touching the floor. Valreck’s face was pressed to the ground again, a sharp shard of wood threatening to pierce his cheek. Reaching out, she gently moved the shard, allowing Valreck’s head to rest more comfortably. “I’m going now,” she said, her voice calmer. “Thank you for telling . . . for sharing, I . . . I never knew and I just wanted . . .” She fell silent again, head tilted in thought. “I understand, yes, I . . . I do. Thank you. I just wish I could . . . ah.” Her eyes opened wide and a curious expression descended on her face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to but . . . I just saw and I couldn’t help but . . . it wasn’t him, you know.”
         Valreck tensed again, but didn’t appear to have the strength to do anything else. His one eye was open and staring in Prescotte’s direction, but it wasn’t clear if he saw anything.
         “Tolin didn’t do it,” Kara told him, her voice oddly confident. “He didn’t kill your . . . your friend. It was . . . I just realized it now . . . I . . .” she stopped, peering intently at Valreck, waiting for him to act, to react. He did nothing, didn’t move at all. Sadly, looking somewhere far away, Kara added, “I guess it’s too late now, isn’t it.”
         And then, without warning, she hugged herself again and said, “Prescotte, look away.”
         Prescotte did, just as the room suddenly into a spasm of impossibly bright light. A thick wind tugged at his clothes, his skin, even as he closed his eyes to avoid going blood. Lord, it hurt, he could feel it even behind his eyelids. He had the impression that someone was speaking but the words weren’t anything his ears could process. Unable to see, he somehow witnessed a woman’s presence. He didn’t know what the hell was going on.
         It was over too fast. A small hand tapped him on the shoulder and said somberly, “It’s over. We can go now. It’s done.”
         Opening his eyes, he looked up to see Kara standing over him, her expression pensive. The room had been returned to its usual darkness. Getting to his feet, he saw that Valreck was gone. If he squinted he could just see an impression where the man had been lying. But even that was fading.
         “Is he . . .” he started to ask.
         “Not yet, no,” Kara replied, without looking at him.
         “Did you find out what you wanted to know?” Prescotte asked, his attempt to change the subject not really changing anything.
         “I . . . I’m not sure, I thought I . . .” her arms were crossed over her chest now and she was staring at her boots. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
         “I’m sorry,” Prescotte mumbled, not sure what else to say.
         “It’s all right,” Kara told him, with a weak smile, as she pushed some hair out of her face.
         He watched her stare at the ground for a short while, before deciding to wait outside to allow her to collect herself with some privacy. There wasn’t anything he could do here, he wasn’t her father, he wasn’t who she needed right now.
         He had started to take a step away when her voice stopped him.
         “Prescotte . . .” was all she said, and something in the way she said his name made him turn around. In the dark he could barely see her face. He could feel her eyes though along with the heavy bend of her emotions. She looked about to say something else but instead she turned her face away, one hand squeezing the bridge of her nose. Her silhouette almost blended in with the background. “Can I . . .”
         She was on him before he had even taken a step toward her, hugging him tightly, her nails digging painfully into his back, her face buried in the torn cloth of his shirt, to the point where he could feel a wetness against his skin, warm and evaporating all too quickly. She never made a sound, but when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, he could feel the violent trembling lurking just under her muscles.
         What did you tell her? he asked the now departed Valreck. What the hell did you know? he demanded of a man who couldn’t answer.
         Instead, outloud, his face close to the top of her head, he whispered, “Hey, it’s okay . . .” once, twice, maybe over and over again, on the hopes that she might believe it and perhaps in the process, he might convince himself.

* * * * *

         The sword cast a narrow slash of light onto the ground. Red blended into red.
         Tristian pressed one hand against his ear and said, “I’m beginning to see why teleporting irritates Prescotte so much. It really can be frustrating after a while.” He pumped his hand as if trying to inflate his face, grimacing as he did so. “Is that the first thing they teach at the College when people get there? Because it sure seems like all you people can do it to some extent.”
         Standing several feet away, deep enough into the room so that his shape was still drenched in shadows, Ranos answered, “It’s only taught to certain students, but most everyone else seeks to learn it within the first year or so. Many of them wind up either transporting themselves into something solid or only teleporting part of their body. Though one person I remember did manage to teleport away his fear.”
         “Oh?” Tristian asked, shaking his head one more time and bending down to examine something on the floor. “And what happened to him?”
         “He died several days later.” Ranos paused for a moment. “Apparently fear of death is what keeps the heart beating. Without no reason to continue, it simply stopped.”
         Tristian glanced up at Ranos, who was intently regarding some of the wreckage he had landed on top of before, during the fight with Maleth. He stared at his old friend for a few seconds before smiling and going back to regarding the floor. “You know, I can still never tell if you’re kidding or not.”
         Ranos sniffed. “Mm, indeed. The last time you said that to me was when I woke you up in the middle of the night to tell you that the island was sinking into the ocean.”
         “No, the first thing you said was that bandits were attacking. After I got up was when you said `Well now that I have your attention . . .’” Tristian said that last phrase in a mimicry of Ranos’ dry, flat tones, unable to conceal a brief grin.
         “Ah, yes, now I remember,” Ranos replied, the darkness perhaps hiding a small smirk of his own. “You’re quite right.”
         “Now, that’s not something I heard from you too often,” Tristian muttered, rubbing his ear again as if attempting to dislodge something.
         Ranos noticed the motion and asked, “Still experiencing feedback from the teleport?”
         “Yeah, it’s pretty annoying,” Tristian admitted, giving up on his attempt to deafen himself. “And it’s been taking longer to go away lately.” He shrugged, adding, “Not that I’m complaining, after we got separated that was the only way I had to track the mindbenders. Fortunately they seem to love it as much as you do. All I had to was wait around until I heard something, then try to track them down.” His lips formed a thin line and he ran his hands along the floor, rubbing two of fingers together. Bathed in the unrelenting light of the sword, his fingertips seemed to glisten. “For all the good it did,” he said softly, staring into space.
         Alerted by some silent signal, Ranos turned, stared at his friend, said nothing, waiting for him to speak.
         Without looking up, Tristian said, “Do you think she killed him, Ranos?”
         Ranos didn’t answer immediately, his eyes staring outward, past the walls, deeper into the village itself, as if that alone might explain a certain fate. He saw nothing of course, outside there was only darkness.
         “If she did not,” came the eventual answer, almost a distracted mumble, “then I suspect she came very, very close.”
         Tristian grunted an unintelligible word, went down on one knee to examine more of the floor, spreading his search out a little farther. He craned his neck upwards, staring into the rafters, the now battered second floor, with its missing walkway, the doors opening into empty air, rooms cut off from everything now. Islands, abandoned, detached from the world itself. No one would ever live here again.
         “I would not have done what I did unless I felt there was no other choice,” Ranos told Tristian, taking a step toward him. “It was a matter of-“
         ”Listen, Ranos . . .” Tristian interrupted, his voice a blunt razor, not cutting but warding off all approaches just the same. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter now, all right? I wasn’t here, I don’t know what was going on, and I know how . . .” he broke off, the threads of his discarded thought dangling before Ranos, disappearing into whatever voided space abandoned thoughts went before he could discover what they contained. “But we’re not . . . we aren’t caught in a normal situation here and it’s ridiculous to argue while . . . while there’s things to be done. We’ve both done things we’re not particularly proud of, both to strangers and people we know.” And each other, came the unspoken words, echoed in both their minds almost in unison. Tristian was holding the sword gripped in both hands now, the blade parallel to his body, even with the center line. He was staring into the crimson brilliance, apparently forgetting to blink.
         Then, in a quick motion, he pointed the sword at Ranos, his eyes red shadows in its glare, saying, “But when this is over, when we get back, you’re going to explain to her, what you did and why you did it. Because I think she has a right to know.”
         “Fair enough,” Ranos answered with a brief nod. The subject apparently decided to his satisfaction, he stalked over to Tristian, crouching down to see what the man was staring at.
         “It was hard to tell,” Tristian was saying, talking mostly to himself, not seeming to notice Ranos’ arrival, “everything was happening so fast I thought I . . . ah . . .” he prodded with the tip of the sword a dark, oddly shaped object that lay limply against the wall. The blade sunk into it. Ranos didn’t recognize it at all.
         “Part of his arm,” Tristian said, glancing sideways at Ranos. “I think I carved a good portion out of him in the couple of seconds that I had . . . he dropped a massive amount of blood before he got away.” Tristian exhaled softly, making a sort of whistling noise through pursed lips. “How was even able to teleport away?”
         “Adrenaline, no doubt,” Ranos said flatly. “It can push the mind into near impossible feats.”
         “He should have been dead,” Tristian countered sharply.
         “He will be,” Ranos replied calmly, “within the hour. His wounds were too grievous, he won’t recover.”
         “Do you know where he went?”
         Ranos cocked his head to the side, considered. “Back to his home, it seems. I can take us there if you-“
         ”No, don’t bother,” Tristian said tersely, rising to his feet. Also rising, Ranos noted that Tristian swayed slightly upon standing, leaning against the wall for a second for balance, although he tried to hide the motion. “If we need to, we’ll get to him later. I don’t think he’s a threat anymore.”
         “I agree. What, then, is the next step?”
         “Depends on where we stand now. We’ve got Joe, we’ll have to retrieve Kara and then we should see what the other mindbenders were up to. You said there were five?”
         “As far as I could tell,” Ranos explained, following Tristian as the other man exited the house through the rent in the wall he had made. As he passed through, limping slightly, he noted that the edges of the hole were absolutely smooth. He cast one last glance at the scene of the fight, the now darkened floor, the blood soaking into the wood, the stray masses that might have once been part of a man. Both sides of his mouth turned downwards briefly, but he made no other comment.
         “And what about the others?” Tristian asked once they were both outside. With nothing to reflect off of, the sword seemed slightly dimmer, but its radiance was still harsh and cutting. Ranos stood outside the arc of its aura, the glow barely touching his boots. “Any of them still a danger?”
         Ranos thought for a moment. “Perhaps, but it’s diminished. Valreck probably should be our first target, since he was the person Kara was sent after.”
         “We can take care of him and collect Kara while we’re at it,” Tristian noted, peering across the way at the window of a nearby house. There might have been a flicker of movement as his gaze washed over it, but when Ranos looked, all he saw was stillness. “He was the leader of this little group, right?”
         The edge of Ranos’ lip twitched. “Nominally. There were apparently some tensions involved, but I’m not sure about the details.”
         “Okay, so there’s him . . .” Tristian held up a finger as a guide, “. . . and you said an old woman kept you trapped in the house, right? Plus there was the other woman who dropped me, the one we fought back at Tolin’s house.”
         Ranos nodded. “The old woman, Maleth, escaped in the confusion of our fight, but I don’t think she went far. She may have even died since then, it’s difficult to tell. If not, she spent a lot of herself in the battle, a good portion of her was tied to the house itself and by fleeing in her weakened state, she might have doomed herself to some extent.”
         “Do you think you can find her if we have to?”
         “If necessary, I suppose.” Ranos shrugged, as if the matter was of little true importance. “I presume you were the one who hurt Junyul? Her thoughts were chaotic and colored a strange crimson color.”
         “Junyul? Was that her name?” Tristian asked blandly. “I think I stabbed her, yeah. She was hurt pretty bad, if I remember, though she was still able to teleport.” There was a wry humor to that last sentence. “Did you finish her off?” he added, more seriously.
         “More or less,” Ranos replied. “Maleth tried to goad her into attacking me, but she had very little left to fight with. I . . . persuaded her to leave, somewhat violently.” Even in a bright light, his face would have betrayed no expression. “If she recovers, I do not think we’ll have to worry about her.”
         “That’s four then,” Tristian said, pivoting on one heel in a semi-circle, his eyes skimming the darkness. “That leaves one more, then.”
         “Yes,” Ranos agreed, “that leaves Rathas.”
         “Does he have a tendency to speak through other people?” Tristian asked. “And control what they do?”
         “That is a bit of a quirk with him, if I recall-“
         ”Then I think we’ve met,” Tristian said, frowning with some distaste. “And I think he’s going to be a problem.”
         “We don’t have to kill them all,” Ranos pointed out.
         Tristian gave a brief, humorless chuckle. “Little late to mention that, wouldn’t you say, Ranos? But we need to find Rathas, at least. We may be able to let him go in the end.” His expression darkened slightly. “But what I’ve seen of this place, of what went on in these villages, I don’t think any of them are innocent. It’s just a question of extent. He has to answer some questions. We need to see what his part really was.” The upward glare of the blade cast jagged shadows on his cheeks, points stabbing his eyes. “And if we have to, take the appropriate action.”
         “Isn’t that the Time Patrol’s job?” Ranos asked mildly.
         “For all intents and purposes, we are the Time Patrol here,” Tristian said, making a sharp sideways cut with the sword. A sudden, wild grin overcame his expression. “How’s it feel, Ranos? It’s a new experience being inside the stories, isn’t it? Maybe in a hundred years they’ll be using tonight as a way to scare kids around the fire.” There was a slight wistfulness to his voice, especially in the way it melted into the night, fading in and dissolving, neither retained nor remembered. Stories were not a retelling or a recording, but an reimagination. If this night passed into legend, it would hardly be recognizable.
         “Perhaps in a hundred years Kara can visit us in the afterlife and let us know,” Ranos said with some dark humor, underlining the point further. “Hopefully it won’t be less than interesting.”
         “One hopes,” Tristian said, sounding distracted. Ranos noticed that the sword’s blade was vibrating slightly, a motion that led back to the arm holding it. “You know,” Tristian added in a stronger voice, “we don’t even have to wait until then, right?” He turned to look at Ranos, old humor sparking in his eyes, “We’re in the Time Patrol, right? We can just travel ahead and see.”
         “The Commander might have something to say about that,” Ranos said, glancing toward the house where Brown was presumably still healing.
         “I doubt it,” Tristian said offhandedly, flashing another grin. “Besides, after today, he owes us anyway.” Cocking one eyebrow at the other man, Tristian said, “So . . . what do you think?”
         Ranos allowed himself a thin smile. “It’s worth considering,” was all he said.
         “Good,” Tristian answered, oddly serious. He wasn’t facing Ranos again and the other man couldn’t tell if the shift in tone was intentional or not. “Then we’ve got a plan now, right? Valreck first, to find Kara, then we’ll see if we can track down Rathas. The rest is cleanup.”
         “And the Commander?” Ranos asked, indicating the house. “Any gratitude he has toward us for rescuing him might be slightly diminished if we leave him here.”
         “We won’t,” Tristian said, with a slight smile. “I don’t know how long he’ll take to heal, but he knows to wait for us here when he recovers. We went through too much trouble to get him back, we won’t lose him again. We’ll be back here.”
         “Very good,” was all Ranos said.
         “Now, when we get to Valreck’s, we should come in as close as we can . . .” Tristian started to say, the sword brushing against the ground, drawing sharp lines in the dirt. “I have some idea of what the area is like, so if you want to read it from my mind you can but this is a general idea of the layout . . .” he was furiously sketching with the sword in the dirt now. Ranos strode next to him, watching him as he worked.
         “Do we have to worry about bystanders, if it gets . . . unpleasant?” Ranos asked.
         “No, no, I don’t think so,” Tristian remarked without elaborating. “If we’re lucky we should be able to get in and out . . . maybe we can even grab Kara and then . . .” he stopped feeling Ranos’ eyes on him. “What?” he asked Ranos, drawing himself up straight, as if self-conscious.
         Ranos’ expression never wavered. “I was thinking, this should be the point where you tell me, `This is like old times, isn’t it?’” He held Tristian’s gaze for another few seconds, before giving a vague shrug and adding, “Just a thought.”
         Tristian stared at him for another long moment before bursting out in a quick laugh, shaking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. “Heh,” he said finally, expelling one more squashed chuckle, “even when you’re not reading my mind, you still know me too well.”
         “So you were thinking it?”
         “To some extent, yeah,” Tristian admitted, looking down, passing the sword over his carvings in the dirt without touching any of it. “We don’t do this enough, Ranos.”
         “Last I checked, this involved a series of desperate attempts to stay alive while simultaneously trying to enact increasingly complex plans to stop whoever was trying to kill us, all of which was done on an average of twice a month. And those are the ones we were paid for, of course.” Glancing at Tristian, he added, “You can imagine why my eagerness to revisit those wonderful times might be somewhat . . . subdued.”
         Tristian only grinned in response. “But you’re still here, aren’t you?”
         “Indeed, I am,” Ranos sighed, and it was possible he might something else entirely. “But please remind me of those old times next time a situation like this comes up . . .”
         “So you can conveniently be somewhere else?” Tristian finished.
         Ranos only answered with a half-smile, taking one finger and pressing it against his forehead.
         Their laughter could be heard then, two sounds out of synch with each other, not moving in tandem at all, just out of time, settling on the air, moving downward and outward through it, with no resistance, none at all.
         And if you heard it, if it reached you, you might have wondered where it came from and thought about adding it to the story you were putting together, a story about things that don’t make sense, and the laughter you heard would fit in just fine with the tone.
         And if you were close enough, and it was loud enough, you might realize the source was nearby and run toward your window to see who was creating such a noise, to see who was out on a night like this, laughing out of step with the times, sinking into your brain, falling free.
         And if you went, and you looked, you would see nothing but an empty patch of ground, mired in the depths of the night, and the ripples of a laughter that might have roots in the dark, or simply in the coils of your head.
         Because, if it was just a story, in the end there may have never been anything there to begin with.

* * * * *

         There is no eulogy yet created that will ever bury a man. The tone of his life runs backwards, unraveling in places where there are no knots to dislodge, and voices mingle in the empty spaces, collaborating freely, a sonic mosaic, a patchwork giving verbal recognition to the very fact of his fading existence. We spoke of you once. We talked about you. You were real. You lived. One time. One time.
         Appearing outside, I grab the wall for support. I can’t move one of my arms. I don’t think it’s there anymore. I can’t see it. I’m grabbing the wall to stop myself from falling and I’m leaving bloody smears of misshapen hands on my pristine walls, a trail that points like an arrow to me. I’m looking down because it hurts to look up and I can see now that I don’t want to fall because it’s so damn far. Blood drips from me, thicker than liquid, and I watch it spiral down until I can’t see it anymore. One by one they’re leaving me. Drop by drop, they’re taking me away.
         There is nothing abnormal about the cadence of his life. There are people who infest his waking memories that he will never see again. He wishes he could remember whatever happened to his parents. Some days he’s pretty sure that someone killed them but that’s just nonsense. What kind of person would do that? What kind of monster like that could be allowed to exist? He has staggered his way through the gauze curtains that envelope his life, never sure where he is going, the people he passed only vague images defined whatever angle the light strikes them at. That’s the problem with people. That’s the problem. Everything about them depends on perspective. Nobody ever had the nerve to look him straight on, to look him straight in the eyes.
         Maybe I’m walking. Maybe I’m not. If I stop, I think the planet might just keep moving under my feet. I have no traction anymore, no connection to anything. The world is ringed with circles of voids and if I twist the wrong way I might disappear. I’m not sure why my heart is still beating. Every pulse feels like a countdown. I want to grab hold of every beat before they escape forever. There’s so few left now. So few. I bump against something hard and pain lashes against me, trying to grab hold. My arm isn’t gone. It’s just one big clot now, crusted and oozing, sending a shower of bloodflakes fluttering to the dry ground. Nothing ever grew here. Nothing will grow now. There’s nothing I could ever plant here and the only water I can contribute won’t sustain a damn thing.
         The first time he thinks of bad things an animal falls from a tree and lands at his feet. When he picks it up it is quite dead, but a flood of dislinear, illogical images floods his mind then and gives the world an excuse to kick down the doors and rush in. For an entire day he doesn’t move and only thinks of the infinite ways you could spell death when you forgot what the letters meant. Nothing looked the same after that, it was like new senses had been grafted onto his body. But nothing was clearer. He had fumbled his way to a revelation only to find that it masked the underlying disorder. There was no explaining it to his parents. Once, his father told him that there’s only two things that a man can successfully do in this world. Create or destroy. But they aren’t opposites, his father said, and the timbre of his voice could rattle the shafts supporting a cathedral. Destroy or create. They aren’t opposites and they sure as hell aren’t the same thing. But it’s all you can do, son, it’s all you can do.
         There’s a name nestled in the pits of my lips and I want to spit it out and say it but it’s warm there in the lush waste of my mouth and it doesn’t want to leave. My brain is separating from my head, if my head weren’t enclosed then the whole system might just tumble out. It might just float away. I’ve reached the corner now and it’s time to turn. I try to calculate how much blood a man has in him but I keep losing count because more keeps escaping. I need to call out a name. I need to call out for help. I’ve never helped anyone in this world but myself but that must mean I have enough saved enough for now, right. I never did what everyone did and wasted it. So there should be plenty to spare for me. There has to be plenty left.
         But nothing is fair. He speaks words to that effect to someone with a face he can’t recall. No one ever remembers individual snowflakes, so why should faces be held to a higher standard? He fully intended to erase her mind, he realizes later, when all the noise has settled into a retreating tide, pure and serene. It was all clay to him. So simple. Just to take his hand, and run it across and wipe it all smooth. Afterwards he felt nothing. Why should he? Wasn’t she the one who said to him that she wished that none of this had ever happened? Events were dependent on memories. Convince enough people of a fact and you can erase history itself. Life is all about perception. If no one sees something, then perhaps it really isn’t there. Perhaps it never was.
         My legs give out when I hit the lawn and I fall in pristine slow motion, the air trying to hold me up and failing. I have time for a thousand curses but none come to mind. There’s no need anymore. No reason. The ground isn’t as hard as I suspect, almost spongy. Perhaps it rained recently. I don’t even know anymore. I could lay here and seep into the soil and let it all slip away and it wouldn’t matter if I was happy about that or sad about that because that’s how it would be. But I don’t want that to happen. Grass tickles my lips, tastes like blood. Everything tastes like blood. I’m surrounded by the copper hue, but none of it is in me. Even with the ground here, I’m still falling. I have to crawl forward and away and up and maybe I’ll buy a few precious seconds. But that’s the problem with buying. You always have to pay eventually and there’s never a debt that goes uncollected. But I can hold off the payments, I can keep them at bay for as long as I can.
         Purpose was a beast that looked absolutely alien no matter how long he stared at it. He was fine with it. He’s marking time, he tells himself. And if you keep marking time and marking time eventually there’s just nothing left to scar. Which is fine with him too. Eternity is measured in the smallest of moments and if you divide a segment into enough pieces, somewhere infinity is coiled. The people near him cannot cling too closely, his inherent slickness keeps them away, prevents them staying. He’s watched birds fall away like they were flying into the sun, and yet not be immolated. He wishes to be immune from the sandpaper friction of events, to pass through time without leaving a mark, to be unaffected by history and simply be himself, without precedent, without antecedent. He wants to seek ascension without acknowledging the presence of heights. During his first week away from home, he breaks the arm of a man without touching him. He’s sure he had a good reason, but some days he really can’t remember why.
         My house has a door and that door is inches away. Enough inches together equal a foot. Feet equal yards. Yards become miles. Distances are inconsequential. I’m closing the gap through inexorable pressure. I’ve got ten fingers clasped to the ledge, but one by one I’m losing feeling. I didn’t know it could cut through everything. The look in his eyes was a nimbus of death. I can’t remember if I felt anything at all. The tension in my wires was so strained that I thought the tiniest tear in their continuity would reverberate through all that I knew. I hoped that the backlash might cut him, slash him with a taste even the damned sword couldn’t drown. But there were no consequences. Not to him. He has severed the connection between life and death and I can’t hold the fraying threads together anymore. At the edge of the door, I’m dying. But I will not die outside, with only the shuttered vein of the sky to witness my passing. I need eyes to bear notice. I need to be etched in memory. I will not die here. I will not die alone. So I speak the name. I speak the name.
         In the school there’s a million textures to the air. It’s never quiet. He finds that you can know a man without knowing his name and not all talking requires communication. His life seems to be moving in spurts, time coiling itself into spring and then unbuckling, propelling him forward, so that the intervening events seem to be of little importance. This is when he starts to realize, it’s not how you arrive at a place that truly matters, it’s the presence at the place itself. If you try to move to somewhere and ultimately fail, even if the effort was sound, the result was still failure. The path means nothing. History is nothing more than mad leaps from event to event. He’s watched death from a dozen different ways by the end of the first year, sliding down between the buildings, brazen as the day, clapping a student on the back with pale hands that lack sensation. Once a girl set fire to her brain and there was no way to put the fire out because it was inside her head so they had to stand there and watch as smoke came from her ears and her eyes and her nose and her mouth and eventually it all melted and her staccato screaming became something liquid. They all left the room long before that. He was the only one who stayed there until the end. She didn’t see him. He didn’t touch her. As far as she knew, she died completely alone. Why convince her otherwise?
         What time is it? I feel like I’m losing moments, time flaking off my like dead skin, scattered around my body, wasted to the air. I can’t tell the difference between light and darkness anymore. Maybe I never could. The shell of the house surrounds half of my body, I straddle the doorway, waiting for a hand to pull me in. I’m sliding down a temperature gradient toward a chill that isn’t a chill at all. I can feel her. I can. She’s a forced depression in the stretched rubber of my mind. Her presence pulls me in, draws me near. For some reason I keep thinking that it’s raining. Even open, the door is a near impassable obstacle. I try to focus, try to strain but all my efforts are echoes down a distant well, sound traveling without end, without a destination, and all I can see are warped images viewed through a distorted lens, streaks of water smeared onto glass, refracting the light, changing everything. At some point it occurs to me that I may not see her again. This will not do. It will not be. It will not.
         There is no way to state it without being arrogant. His mind fascinates him. It is a blunt instrument, capable of sweeping all structure away, laying waste to everything within it’s focus. It is the sharpest of tools, the point so fine that the proper eye cannot even perceive it properly, and you will not feel its incision until it is already too late, so painless is its entrance. He does not remember the first moment when he realized that he could procure a profession out of hurting people. Perhaps at the bar that night where the owner shuffled a fair amount of grimy change across the table in the hopes that he would perform an unpleasant act on the men that were harassing his business. Years later he would vaguely remember being told that the bodies had finally floated to the surface. Or perhaps it was the man who wished to damage those who displeased him without leaving any visible outward signs. Two days after a visit from him, a man walking down the street collapsed, limp, his body gelatinous in its consistency. His insides had turned to liquid. He almost sickened himself with that one. Or maybe it was the parents who believed their child wasn’t behaving properly. Through shaken sobs and blood, the child later asked him to hurt them back. Not seeing any reason not to, he complied. In the end, the smoke of their lives mingled heedlessly in the sky. He has seen a thousand faces twisted in agony into a parody of expression, a thousand screams shredding a thousand dreams, the pale and shattered glances of men afraid of the air itself and unable to understand why, the insistence that no matter how much pressure this life exerts on you, someone will wish to have it push against you just that tiny bit more. He has witnessed people break, literally and metaphorically, just crumble apart like a puzzle flung against a wall. He has never liked down any of it. But he has never hated it either. He’s not sure which is the worse crime.
         The house. Inside. I am. I have thoughts but those thoughts are strangers to me, forming shapes that can’t exist, squares with five sides, closed angles that don’t meet, orbiting around me, detaching and breaking away before slowly falling back to the surface. Everything seems to be happening out of order. I’ve crawled into my house already. Why am I doing it again? I’m not sure I can stand. I can’t feel my legs. Can barely see. One by one it’s all shutting down. But no. No. The only color available is red. He used it to brand me, carved his death into my stomach and it’s all I can see now. But his face won’t sing me down. I will not let myth translate me away. I have to do. What he did. Enter the story. Become the legend. The story doesn’t die. It can’t. Not as long as memory persists. I see that now. I see now. He can’t die. He never could. Not the way we can. Not until the story ends. And its end spells the end of everything. I believe I’m leaving behind a trail not unlike a slug. I can’t bring myself to care. Again. I call out. Maybe she hears. Maybe I don’t say anything. There’s too much variation in the world. Too many possibilities. I liked it better when there was only one. I wish it were that way again. I wish the only possibility left was the one I least want to take. I don’t want to go. But there’s just nowhere to stay.
         Bubbles obscure his life, wrap the days around themselves. The first time he meets his wife, he thinks they’re already married and she is someone else. She finds it amusing and goes to bed with him that night. Hours later, tired and spent, stumbling from her room into a washroom, it occurs to him that it’s been years since he has seen his own face. With a purpose he doesn’t understand, he goes to punch the mirror, succeeding only in breaking his hand. She comes in and holds him then and they connect again, on the floor, in that cramped space, for all long as the time lasts. She fell in love with him that night, she says later, watching him trying to shatter his own reflection. The streaks of blood running down the polished glass displayed their intertwined names, and that’s when she knew. It was his refusal to stop that told her the love would last. That they had no choice. That it was fate. At least that’s how he remembers it. Some days he wonders if he got some of the details wrong.
         Under me the floor is not slick or smooth. I can feel every worn crack and jumbled bump. I keep thinking I’m going uphill. Every step demands more than the last. My mind keeps trying to escape, wandering to other times. It’s not supposed to end like this. I need to see her again. But I can’t escape the gravity of my own dead weight. I’m dragging my life behind me, a stillbirth that I can’t eject, still clinging tightly to the womb of my mind. It’s keeping me here, lodged into this space, but if I evict it, if I let it go, then I’ll be free. Free from here. From this angle my house is all concealed shadows and unfamiliar contours. I have never been here before. I have lived here all my life. There is supposed to be only one truth but every day I keep finding that it’s all multiple choice. It’s not right. None of the answers are right. I wonder what he’d say to me, now that he knows. I wonder what he would tell me, if he thinks it was all worth it. Nothing is free and every step we pay for, in lost time, in lost energy, in the slippery texture of our own lives. I wanted so desperately for her to have a life. Was that wrong? Was it wrong to want that? I’m going to tell her. I want to tell her now, before the hours are over and this day descends, I want to say that everything I have done, I have done for her. Even before we met, I did it all in her name, for memories not yet achieved.
         No neat phases divide his life. Every movement moves toward one place. His life ascends into a stagnant balance, all thoughts arrested, all inertia removed. They have always existed together, no matter the place or the time. But he knows it cannot last. Nothing ever does. And he very much wishes for nothing to ever happen to him again. He has all he needs, he requires no more. But she will leave him or he will leave her and it will be over and all they will have left are images, impressions, no more permanent than ripples spreading out over the water, straining for the shore, strength diminished with distance, always fading just within reach. The engine of the Universe grinds on around them and he sits up nights unable to sleep, unable to get its dread clockwork out of his mind. Someone needs to stop the motor, seize the engine now, while things are perfect, before they can disintegrate and the pieces scattered so far that no one can get them together again. Quietly, she laughs, says that the present is the only time that matters and the knowledge that everything is ephemeral adds a sweetness that eternity can never have. But even that quiet wisdom will fade. He needs it now, forever. There has to be a way. Someone must know. Someone does. Someone shows him. And everything changes. For things to remain, everything he knows must change.
         Oh. I see our bedroom ahead now. The door is closed. I don’t hear the baby. It’s sleeping, of course. It’s dawn and he’s sleeping through the night finally. That’s right. I remember that first night. It was such peace. Such relief. The soft touch of her skin, so smooth, like she was barely there. The poignant stench of her hair, the curve of her body fitting so securely into mine. I need that touch again. I need something that I can no longer supply myself. It’s hard to breathe now, each inhalation is a wet rasp, I’m sinking underwater, I can’t find the surface. What’s happened to me? How did I get like this? She can tell me, through her eyes. Her eyes are a reflection of me, and in them I can perceive myself as I am and discover what I’ve done to myself to make me the way I am. She can heal me, as only a good wife can. The bedroom threatens to slide away, or maybe I’m not moving. But I have to. In this life, when you stop moving, you can never start again. If I could move my legs, I could get there. But I can’t feel them. Are they there? The world is a dark blob of immobility, revealing nothing. The blackness is absolute. I have to make it through. If I keep moving, I can make it through. Every problem can be solved by simply getting out of the way. If there’s one lesson I have learned, it’s that. Maybe there’s only one lesson. Maybe it’s all you really need to know. How to get the hell out of the way.
         Things grow more jumbled now, events fall out of sequence. Sometimes he remembers killing people before he’s even met them. Local distortion, he’s told, by the man with the flinted gaze and graveled voice. He doesn’t remember even asking the question. Later, when he does, he gets no answer. The thing with being so good at doing what he does is that it translates well into any environment. She hates it. She loves him. But she hates the endless sand, the endless motion. She can’t sleep, she tells him. Her head always hurt and the people are strange. But she loves him. She doesn’t need to say it. She loves him. And he’s burying bodies in the sand. She loves him. And he watches the fires grow closer. She loves him. And they say the child’s mind could puncture the dimensions if she willed it. She loves him. And he can feel the Universe grinding to a halt, the stars slowing their orbits. She loves him. The crunch of bone on bone extends past mere sensation. She loves him. The shadow men move backwards as time becomes something liquid. And she loves him. One day he wakes up and he can see right through her. But she loves him. There will be a day when she isn’t there. She loved him. Times reaches forward, grasps a stalled moment, brings it back, and she is gone. Just like that. As quick as fate. Just like that.
         Does the door open inward? I can’t recall now. It would make things so much easier. One time I didn’t need to touch anything to get what I needed. I could run my fingers along pliant air and the sensations would absorb us throughout the night. The night’s over now. It’s settling down around him, volcanic dust ruining my vision. Flecks of black are devouring it all. I can’t see right anymore. I think I’m dying. I can’t be. It should be quick, not this slow slide. When did it get so cold? When did it become so chilled in here? Did someone leave a door open? I wish I could stand up. But there’s nothing to support me anymore. All of them, they abandoned me, those bastards. I did the one thing none of them wanted to do to keep us alive. And now I can’t feel any of them. I can’t feel anything at all. When did it stop hurting? When did all the sensation leave? The door is inches away now. I move in spasms, in jerks, writhing toward a place that might save me. There’s a void growing in my head now, slowly, expanding, sucking it all away. I want to keep it back, but there’s nothing to touch. It’s all being taken away. The door is opening. I never touched it. The darkness is so much less in there. I need to get in. I need to get away. I need to go without moving. To leave without departing. I call her name again and without words I hear her answer. Is it enough? I don’t know. But I don’t think I have anything left.
         Like quicksilver his memory is. The events are embedded, driven into the dirt so hard that none of his efforts could dislodge them. He’s killing a man. He’s done it too many times before. He’s killing a man in a tent. It’s different now. He has to get her away from here. Even the sky doesn’t look the same now. He dreams of drowning in blood, of entrails and viscera, of a man who could tear their lives to pieces like frayed sheets. If they stay the sickness will take them. The sickness is death. So he spreads the illness. In this tent. With this man. He wishes the man would scream. But he can’t, of course. He’s cutting his throat. Air is escaping through bubbles of blood in the slit that is carved in his neck. It’s a strange hissing noise, the wind slithering through holes in the rain, a taste of despair. The man stares him in the eyes and he thinks that understanding passes between them. He knows. He knows. They have to go and he has to stay, in body and spirit. He has a life to live and he needs to get out. The man keeps reaching for his torn throat, but his arms won’t work. They were broken several minutes before, along with his jaw. He shouldn’t have fought back. He should have just let it happen. You can’t control events. This scene runs backwards in his dreams, the blood trickling back into his neck. Was the knife his? He never owned a weapon. He didn’t need to. This life, these things, they never make sense, not when you’re right up against them. The soul is invisible. In a sigh, he heard it leave. Depart. He never believed in those things. It all had to go on forever, this existence. He wouldn’t let them leave. So he had to die. Perhaps it’s fate. But he’s not sure he even believes anymore. This man does. Even in the throes of silent death, he never stops. He can’t help but admire that, just a little. He can’t help but love that, just a little. The memory will follow him, stepping in the hollowed spaces of his past footsteps, for as long as he continues to make them. The blood never touches his hands. As far as anyone knows, he is clean. But they know. And they owe him. They owe him their lives. It’s a fact he hopes not to have to remind them of too often.
         And she’s there, of course. As beautiful as ever. She hasn’t changed a bit. Oh, she shouldn’t see me like this, all broken, torn down, reduced to this slowly scarring mass of tissue. But she doesn’t care. I can tell. In her eyes I can tell. Because she sees right to the heart of me. That’s why I love her so much, why I always have. Because in a world where I am surrounded by people who violate your very thoughts, she can read my mind without truly being able to, without truly knowing how, she can see right to the heart of me. She’s sitting on the bed. She doesn’t see me at first. Maybe I make a noise. Maybe she just knows. But she notices. And she sees. And her eyes widen. And she sees. And she says my name. And she says my name. And everything has to be okay.
         Falling, pieces of the past tumble past him. Shattered mirrors, with each shard a face that he doesn’t recognize. How many people fit into a life? How much room is there before something has to go?
         She doesn’t move as I crawl into the room. There’s a slow roaring in my ears now, part of a hillside falling away. I can’t see properly. I’m being guided by memories. I try to call out again, but there’s no words left in my throat.
         A moment alone is nothing. A million moments strung together means nothing. What creates a life? What is it? He can’t explain. Disconnected, it makes no sense out of context. Love floats beside him, separate, distant. He can’t touch it anymore. Maybe he never could. The bottom is near now, in sight.
         And I’m near the edge of the bed now. How did I make it so far? I don’t think I’m moving anymore. She’s getting off the bed now and there’s relief in her face. She’s glad to see me. Oh, I missed you so much. I need your touch, woman. I need to be cleansed. Please get over here. Please help me. I need you. One more time. I need you.
         Because their voices aren’t always the same, the faces unchanging. It’s all variations, he learned. He wanted his life to be different. Perhaps it was. What would his parents say now? After a certain point family is meaningless. It’s getting darker now, he’s sinking slower and it’s just like foam. Is this it? He’s not scared at all. He’d laugh but the sound would go nowhere. Better to keep it in and revel in silence. He can’t lose. He’s not beaten, far from it.
         And she’s looking at me and there’s love in her eyes and maybe I say her name again but I don’t need to. Because oh we’ve been through so much and we’ll go through so much more we don’t have to speak anymore. Do we? Her thoughts are written plain in her graceful hand and I know I know that I’ve won that we will get through this and sustain and be and exist forever. There’s nothing to be afraid of, I tell her without speaking and she knows. I’m not afraid. And neither. Is she.
         Men fall down like dolls in this bleak place. But he’s safe here. He’s content. He’s stopped moving. He’s gotten what he wants. He’s succeeded, finally. There’s nothing but the arc of forever distance to maintain him. All the strata of his life has been compressed.
         I know she’s not afraid because it’s so dark now where did the room go and I can see her face and oh I love her so much and I know she feels the same and I love her so much I can’t breathe and it’s so cold in here it’s so cold
         And if he has to live his life over again he would do it in a second. Out of order, if need be. Why? Because he’s discovered the secret. Finally, he knows.
         and she’s reaching out her hand to me and she says her name with all the love that’s in her that makes me want to burst and she’s reaching out her hand and there’s light in her hand there’s warmth and I’m so cold and the air is rushing away we’re by the ocean now and I want to touch her hand and touch the brightness in her fingers and it’s all I can see all
         All stories end. Legends fade. Myths fall apart. And if you want to live, you have to step outside the story. That’s what he knows now. It’s all he needs.
         and oh Jula you’re light and I’m nothing oh God I can’t see Jula wherever we are I love you I always have Jula I-

* * * * *

         Something stings her eyes and blurs the world. Distorted, he seems so much smaller than usual. His breath is a liquid rattle now, a word without syllables. Chilled, she realizes it might be her name. No, not hers. Not hers at all. Her arm is outstretched before her. It’s only shaking a little bit. The thing in her hand hardly weighs anything at all. She has no idea what it is. Or how to use it. Or why she’s even holding it. It’s humming now. Vibrating slightly. Oh. Oh. It feels like a mouse. One time when she was a little girl she found a tiny mouse huddling outside the walls of her home. It didn’t move when she picked it up and it was so warm and it shivered with a constipated shudder, like it was trying to clutch all that heat to itself. Just like the thing in her hand. Did that happen? It died later. Everything does, in the end. She doesn’t know which memories are hers anymore. Maybe none of them are. Because of him. Because of him.
         He wants to call for her now. Inching forward, he’s leaking pieces of himself all over the floor. One time she spent the whole day cleaning it, so it would be spotless when he came back. They made love three times that night on it, forsaking the bed. The remembered ecstacy pulls at her. It’s not real. It never happened. It’s so hard to see now, there’s a wet curtain coating her vision. He’s missing an arm, she notices with detached candor. None of that is very important now. Somehow her fingers are finding the right indentations on this strange thing. He’s still reaching for her. His hand is covered in dried blood. It’s missing a finger. He’s never looked more grotesque than in this moment. Part of her can’t stop loving him. It’s not real. She’s gritting her teeth and trying not to scream. There’s a pressure lancing into her ears. A whining. She’s never heard it before. Too many things are happening now. He’s calling her name. Without words. Touching without feel. He’s calling her name. It’s running down her spine. The screeching won’t stop. What was the baby’s name? It wasn’t real. She can feel his rough-hewn lips on hers, grinding their passion in, spitting her name down her throat. But it wasn’t right. She can’t see him now. He might be inches away. His voice is slurred and pleading. It’s not the right word. It’s not the right word. Dammit. Damn it all.
         Through clenched teeth, she hisses, “My name . . . it’s not Jula,” throwing it back at him, throwing the manufactured expanse of her life in his face. “You bastard, it’s not . . .” The whining escalates, reaches a certain point, passes beyond her hearing.
         “Do you hear me?” she might say. It’s not clear if anyone does.
         The thing in her hand suddenly grows very warm very quickly. It makes one last violent shake and the room flares into negative colors and there’s the smell of something burning. Startled, frightened, she drops the damned thing, darts back away from it, already cringing back from his fist, his mind, the sibilant, seductive way he called her name. But it wasn’t hers. It never was. Maybe it never belonged to anyone at all.
         But nothing happens. Nothing at all. Trembling slightly, she passes her hand over her eyes, erases the blinding wetness there. The room jumps back into focus, too familiar by far, caught in a jaded darkness, slowly lightening into the day. It’s quiet now. Even her breathing is muted, lost in some obscure void.
         Her gaze drifts to him. He’s not moving. He looks different now, somehow. A pile of torn and bloody clothes, thrown upon a disfigured shape, flung heedlessly onto the floor before her. It’s a full minute before she gets the courage to creep forward. There are two holes in the floor near his head, each a few inches wide. The edges are charred and almost too round. She has no idea where they came from.
         He’s staring at her, she notices with a cold shudder. His eyes are strangely colorless and unblinking. His face appears horribly misshapen, almost like it was caved in.
         It’s almost another minute before she realizes that he’s no longer breathing.
         When it hits her, something heals and breaks inside of her simultaneously. Tentatively, she reaches out, touches his bare arm. No response. She grabs the arm then, gripping it tightly. Nothing. Then, digging her nails into the skin, she tears downward with distanced force, watching as her nails gouge his skin deeply, ripping fault lines into the unmarred surface. He doesn’t react. A tiny trickle of blood wells up in those parallel lines immediately, almost in supplication. Then it stops. There’s nothing else. There’s nothing else to give.
         Something seizes inside of her then, and she sits back heavily, arms clasped tightly around her chest, tucking her chin into the cradle of her arms. “It wasn’t my name,” she whispers to no one at all. It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone. He’s gone.
         She laughs then, even as a different kind of heat wells up behind her eyes and all she can do is ride out the maelstrom, find some sort of exit from the release, she’s laughing and crying in this empty house with a dead man beside her and it doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter. She did it. She did it.
         It’s not until sometime later, when her emotions are spent, that she notices that the strange thing is gone. But that doesn’t really matter either. Not anymore. She’s done it. Finally. It’s over.