281 (II)

Loss

Slowly, the outline of a human manifested over Can Hu, ebbing outward like a ripple in a placid lake’s surface and gaining more and more detail.

“Well done, well done. This has turned out far better than I expected. I anticipated at least some losses. Culturist, your determination to see yourself deprived and humiliated at every turn by my father astounds me. Deathless, your willingness to control yourself and not cut loose has probably done you more favors than if you’d gone down a more monstrous path. Surprising, I suppose, but that’s the beautiful thing about these experiments. Surprises! They always keep things interesting.”

A wave of varied responses swept through the bridge. The orcs snapped to full alertness, their eyes locking onto Can Hu. Spells were shaped. The bridge came awash with Biomantic red. The Court Leviathan’s interior was layered in ridges of bone, and tendrils sprouted free from the walls. Blades erupted around the Penitent, trapping it in place.

“Rose!” Roland cried out. “Udraal! You—”

“Don’t worry, my favorite anomaly,” Udraal replied, cutting through the Town Lord’s anxiety. Trapped between those jagged teeth of enamel, he simply held up a hand—Can Hu’s hand. “I will not see your beloved harmed. Currently, she’s cursing at me inside this metal shell. I am also sorry, Penitent. I need to borrow you for a while. I can’t risk a valuable instance of myself, not with my father present, though I would argue he is still more of a pale shadow than anything.”

Shiv caught a snarl on the Culturist’s face, but he held himself back—his head snapping to the Educator, who stood with an impassive look on her face.

Udraal commanded Can Hu to turn. The unshadowed outline of Udraal looking over it now faced Valor, and the ancient Pathbearer strode past the orcs, only blocked by Jessica. Jessica, who had her blade high, who was staring at Udraal, her body language betraying the first hint of worry. She too had been caught off guard.

Shiv saw it then, the faintest tendril, almost invisible, thinner than a hair. But it was there, a trace of fear, running from her to Udraal Thann.

Udraal cocked his head. “I must say, Father, seeing you like this breaks my heart. You should have reclaimed yourself instead of having someone else intervene on your behalf. It’s not the way I wanted you to turn out. It’s not the lesson I wanted you to learn.”

Udraal’s shadowed self folded his arms, tutting in mockery of his own father. Valor, meanwhile, clasped both hands behind his back. Then his flesh faded. It was like he didn’t want to present himself as a person to his son. Instead, he chose his deathly visage.

“Udraal,” Valor said. “I thought I’d felt something wrong in Can Hu earlier…”

“But you did nothing. You ignored. How pitiful. You are still incomplete. Your Animancy remains lost. Your Awareness is deprived—and so your Stealth is not whole. I recommend that you reclaim yourself before our next conversation. It might not be so pleasant, Father. And it would be a shame to shatter you once again, making all this for naught. Nonetheless, today, I’m simply here to congratulate you, Deathless.” Udraal turned to face Shiv. “Things are finally back on track. You’re with Roland, and you have all the resources I expected you to have by this point in your life. Now we might embark on the path of conquest and see this world truly elevated in anticipation of what is to come.”

Shiv scowled at his creator, his predator, the creature that had stolen the face of his mother. Where he would have responded like a barking dog before growling his hate or perhaps a slurred demur at his adversary, the Deathless held his tongue and went over Udraal’s words once more in his head.

And there it was, that vibration from earlier, Gardener of Doubt was right. Shiv’s anxiety was rewarded. Of course it had to be rewarded. The path ahead was war. Everything they had now was a good foundation for Gate Piety to be expanded, to be built up. Adam and Shiv’s brief conversation was the seed, or perhaps it was an inevitable outcome. After everything they’d experienced and helped set in motion, with what was coming to the Republic, with the Abyss, the First Blood, Compact, war was ultimately inevitable. Shiv didn’t need to ask about that. But there were other things he wanted to know. And he might as well just try asking.

“Is this all part of your plan to raise the world’s Ambient Mana Threshold?” Shiv said. “To make me strong enough to force another premature incursion before the nations across the world are ready?”

Udraal hummed, and he merged through the Animancy, his thin but handsome face surfacing from the mana as if it were a still pond. This version of him wasn’t fully human; his skin appeared to be sculpted from glossy obsidian, and his eyes scintillated like stars plucked from the night sky. This was another vessel rooted in Can Hu. Layers of redundancy went into Udraal’s every action to protect himself.

But even so, he had bypassed one of them to smirk at Shiv. It felt like a showing of twisted respect. “Ah, and you’re maturing quickly too. Your Psychology Skill is advancing at a prodigious rate. Wonderful. I expected you to be more feral after everything, but you never do stop impressing me in certain ways. I guess there are major benefits to being a rational individual as well. Though don’t let go of that bestial side.” Udraal winked. “You’re going to need it soon.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Adam asked. He had a Veilpiercer nocked, but there was little point to this. He couldn’t risk hitting Can Hu, and both of them knew Udraal likely couldn’t be wounded by a Master-Tier Skill either way.

“The answer is yes,” Udraal said, ignoring Adam. “I am trying to accelerate the incursion. Thus far, only one part still vexes me: the fact that you haven’t released the unborn child nested inside you. Unless you’ve digested her soul essence somehow, which… would be worrying… dear Adam’s sister here should have long emerged. No matter. I will keep testing. We will see you keep evolving. Perhaps she will appear at some point. Perhaps she is still nested in one of your Skills. I cannot say for certain. What I can say, however, is I look forward to seeing if your resurrective capabilities are truly functional. On that note, you should go visit that Head Chef of yours.”

“What?” Shiv breathed.

Udraal clicked his tongue. “Anyhow, I bid you adieu—and before I leave, Jessica, carry a message to Veronica for me. Tell her that I’ve sold the Undying Tarrasque to the Court of the Shattered Moon, and that the Jotun will be marching within a month. Good luck, my Deathless. I look forward to you proving your superiority over Sullain’s poor knock-off of my work. I insist upon it. Don’t disappoint me. Enjoy your peace and deal with your emotions in the meantime.” Udraal’s expression suddenly turned wistful. “Oh, to be young and unscarred…”

“Wait!” Shiv called out, but Valor’s son vanished as quickly as he came. The faint blue of Animancy surrounding Can Hu faded in an instant, leaving the Penitent itself once more.

Rose’s face contorted as Can Hu opened up. “You godsdamn cock-sucking piece of shit motherfucker—”

Shiv ignored her ranting, ignored everything. He was about to ask Roland where Georges was, where all the sick were being held right now. But, as usual, Adam was a step ahead. Adam always had Shiv’s back. An arrow was fired. A rift opened. Adam took Uva under the shoulder and nodded at Shiv.

“Go,” Adam said, and Shiv was across the dimensional channel, tuning the static that danced around him. On the other side of the tunnel, he saw white curtains fluttering. He saw a blanket and the outline of a foot, a lower body, and more besides. He erupted out on the other side—and the air stank of decay. He ignored how there were no vitality signatures in the room. He ignored how he couldn’t hear any breathing. He ignored everything until he found himself standing at a bedside.

A white blanket covered the Head Chef of the Swan-Eating Toad. One of his arms hung off the edge of the bed, rail-thin and covered in pustules. Shiv stared. Uva said something to him. He didn’t know when she’d followed him. She said something else. He couldn’t hear her. She touched him, her face pressed against his, but he was someplace distant, some place deep inside himself. He just stared at that bedsheet. He stared, then he looked at Georges’ arm again, then the bedsheet, and then he stepped away. He walked around the room. He looked at the other bodies. He tried to see, no, willed himself to see a hint of life. A flicker of vitality, the pump of a heart, displayed upon his Atlas.

But there was nothing. There was nothing.

He returned to Georges, still lost in a haze, and Adam was in the room as well, Uva still held up by him. He called out to Shiv, but Shiv couldn’t hear him either. Only the roar of his blood in his ears.

Looking down at Georges, Shiv’s body shook. He clutched his hands tight, and through a forest of disbelief, a refusal, and building misery, he reached down with a trembling hand and, after what could have been a lifetime as much as a second, pulled the sheet off the man’s face. He half expected some kind of insult, a demand for cigarettes, a curse followed by a question whether he was a single-celled organism or just stupid for shining light into Georges’ eyes like this. Something. Something. Something. Not nothing.

But Georges… Georges wasn’t Georges anymore. His face was too pale. His mouth was pressed together flat. His flesh was winnowed. He looked deprived of all fat, and his bones settled high, nearly piercing through his jaundiced skin. His hair was utterly missing as well. Only faint, fuzzy patches remained. Faint, fuzzy patches between large sores that still wept black pus.

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Worst of all, he was silent. That was the strangest part.

And so Shiv waited. Waited for something to prove him wrong. Waited for Georges to suddenly crack open an eye. Rise up and flick Shiv’s forehead with a sneer. Shiv could hear his Skills talking to him. He refused to acknowledge them. He couldn’t hear what they were saying anyway. He kept waiting and waiting and waiting. But Georges wasn’t Georges anymore. He wasn’t even a person. There was no life left, no vitality. Just flesh in transition to dust. A person had become an object. So much character, and so much history was a corpse.

So much history was a corpse.

Shiv kept staring at Georges. And he bit his lip for the first time.

Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Shiv, Shiv, he’s dead, but Udraal got our attention for a reason. It has to be for a reason. There has to be something we can do right now. Go over, reach into him with your Vitae. Reach into him. Reach into him and bring him back. You brought Rose back, you did! Death is not the end, death is not the end. We can change this, we can. MOVE!

Once more, Shiv snapped into motion. He gave a stuttered reply. His words barely made sense as he muttered an apology. Uva and Adam both called out to him, but he ignored them. He was possessed once more, but this time there was momentum behind him. He was no longer stunned; there was purpose. He had to do this; he had do this; he had to.

He reached into Georges using his Vitae. His red-white strands of mana burrowed through the flesh, deeper and deeper and deeper, but… there was nothing there. There was no “deeper.” He was just carving bloody holes in the body. There was no soul to reach into, no Magical Resistance, no mana. He sensed nothing; there was nowhere to go.

Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Focus. Focus, you subhuman piece of shit! Focus, you useless, stupid creature. It’s there. It has to be. He has to have something. A Skill, or… The System doesn’t—he existed. There should be a soul left. There should be!

And Shiv’s hand began trembling, and so did his Vitaemancy. His red-white strings quivered as his lip began to shake, like it hadn’t since he was cast out of the orphanage, released into a world that didn’t want him, into streets that hated him, into alleys that were so cold it hurt to breathe at night, into a seemingly endless struggle.

That was what his life had been: a miserable struggle. Until he ran into Georges. It was when he was digging through the trash in the alley behind the Swan-Eating Toad and the back door creaked open to reveal a red, scowling face with a cigarette in its mouth that everything changed. He got the chance to be a person for once. Georges saved him. Georges turned everything around. Everything. Georges was the only reason why Shiv was even Shiv. Why he was even alive.

And now there was nothing Shiv could do. He couldn’t find any hint of a Skill or a soul or vitality or a mind or anything. He didn’t know what he was doing. He tried harder, he used more of his anger, but there was no anger to draw from, there was nothing to be angry at. He tried sinking deeper into his hatred for Udraal, for the System, for everything, but he didn’t know what to do even with power; it was just blind. There was nowhere for it to go.

Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Don’t give me this shit! Focus, focus! You stupid fucking thing. Focus. It’s right there. It has to be. Do it. Do it. Just bring him back. Just reach deeper and pull him back. Fucking do it!

Gardener of Doubt: Shiv, Shiv. That is enough. Anger is not the solution here. He is gone. You need to stop. You need to speak with Valor or someone and figure out how a soul works before you can hope to attempt anything.

The Deathless did just that. He turned away from Georges’ body—and found Valor standing right at the exit rift. But the ancient Pathbearer’s face was a map of remorse and sadness.

“Valor—” Shiv began.

But the lich cut him off with a shake of his head. “No, Shiv. No. There is nothing left. When vitality is dissolved for good, nothing remains. No Skill, no soul, no mind. There is nothing we can reach into. How Rose was retained during that ritual, I don’t know. Perhaps if I had my Animancy Skill, if I was entirely myself… But no—even that is false hope. Even Udraal doesn’t truly know how to return a being to life. I think he simply provoked you into this so that you might be able to force an Evolution or discover another surprise. He doesn’t yet understand how your Path works, and if you couldn’t do anything right now, then—”

“No,” Shiv growled. “No! No! No! You’ve done this before!” He reached out to grab Valor by the shoulders, and his mentor didn’t resist. “The ritual! You’ve split souls before—How does that work?”

“Not when one is already past,” Valor said, his voice warm but heavy.

“Then I’ll do something else!” Shiv said, his voice quavering on the verge of a tantrum. “I’ll do something! I’ll think of something! Something!”

Shiv clutched at his head, and his teeth raked across his lips. His eyes narrowed in on Georges’ body again. And it didn’t even look like Georges. Maybe he’d made a mistake. This one, this man was too thin. The arms didn’t look like the right length.

“Adam!” Shiv snapped. “Adam, are you sure this is him? A lot of these bodies, they might look the same.” Shiv wandered over and pulled off another bedsheet. This one was most definitely not Georges. It was a girl, now a little more than torn skin and bones.

“Shiv,” Adam said, trying to be gentle, trying to get his friend to stop.

“You could have gotten it wrong. You’ve gotten things wrong before,” Shiv said. “You could have.”

And then something brushed his mind. It bounced off his Shapeless Tides, clashing against his Magical Resistance. But he felt it. Uva’s touch. The touch of Psychomancy. He turned, and she didn’t need to use her typical empathy to communicate what she wanted to say. She simply stared at him. She held up an arm. It took a considerable effort on her part, an immense strain after everything she had spent trying to survive her ordeal.

The Deathless struggled. He shook as he stood in place. He still looked into her open embrace, but he didn’t want to walk into it. He didn’t want to submit. He looked back at George’s, and he bit his lip as he tried again. He reached into him and tore, jabbing his Vitaemancy into the corpse over and over again. Darkened blood spilled out—and so much of the body was rotted and ruined on the inside. There was so much wrong. Maybe if he could start the heart again, maybe—

Shiv suddenly spun, blubbering through his words, “Get Helix! He’s, he’s way better than us at this. Ekkihurst talked about this once, I remember it. If he can get the oxygen and the blood flowing again—”

“Shiv,” Valor said, his voice heavy. “That’s enough. It’s enough.”

“No!” Shiv shouted. “No! Just get Helix. We have to try. We have to.”

“He is dead,” Valor said, his own voice rising. “He is dead,” he repeated. Shiv began shaking his head. Valor loomed closer. “He’s Dead, Shiv. I didn’t want this to happen to you, but I have always told you; eventually, you will take a wound. I suspected you would when you were trapped inside that teleportation anchor. When you were going to lose Uva and the others. You managed to subvert that outcome. Then I suspected you would at Theborn, when we were fighting the Recollector. You prevailed against the odds. I suspected you would so many times, but you defied all those moments. But defy is only delay. You live, and you continue to live. You do not die, but people around you are not the same. You have taken a wound. There is no avoiding this. Your heart is bleeding. There is no avoiding this.”

Shiv clutched at his head. He clawed at his face and scratched bloody grooves into his skin. He tried to silence the thoughts. He tried to force his mind to get angrier so he could think better, so he could come up with a better plan. His Sage of the Enkindled Heart was white-hot with rage, screaming at him, calling him every kind of curse he’d ever suffered in his entire life. He drew at them. He accepted those insults willingly. If it could just give him some hint of inspiration. If it could just… just…

“What am I supposed to do?” Shiv asked. He was speaking to himself, but it wasn’t he who replied.

“There is nothing you can do,” Valor said, grasping his shoulder.

“It’s not your fault,” Adam said, though he didn’t sound like he believed it either. The Gate Lord was also taking a wound, if not the same as Shiv’s. His face was pale, and his eyes were misting as he stared at the other bodies here. Dozens of them. He recognized many of them, and he’d failed all of them. At least that’s what his expression told Shiv. He was the Young Lord of Blackedge, and now he was taking in the butcher’s bill of Vicar Sullain, his long-sought revenge exacted long after the man’s own demise. Shiv remembered Sullain, then, what he’d said to him in Blackedge, his words during their final battle, and when Shiv had finally killed him.

He would say he could almost hear the Vicar laughing at him, but he couldn’t. There was only silence there.

“Shiv, come here,” Uva said. Her voice was authoritative but thick with emotion. “Come. We’re right here.”

Shiv stared at her. He stared into her eyes, and then he looked away. There was a finality there. But turning away from her, Valor stepped into view once more, and his mentor did something heartless. He raised a hand, and he pushed Shiv away. His shove was gentle, but it was determined.

“Go,” Valor said, his own voice hardening. “Go now. You are bleeding. Deal with the wound. You have no choice. Do not pretend it doesn’t exist. You have never been a coward, Shiv of Blackedge. Don’t turn away from a fight now. Even if it’s going to destroy you.”

Shiv clenched his jaw tight. It felt like something inside of him was tearing, something inside of his mind was threatening to collapse.

It shouldn’t have been this way.

They’d saved the town. They’d done everything right. Everything had been for this. And everything had gone perfectly. They’d won.

But the System, it had to take something from him. It had to do something like this. It had to. It just had to. His anger rose, and it went nowhere. There was nothing to vent it on. There was nothing to do.

Shiv took a step forward and then another. It felt like his body was a lead brick and that he was Pathless again, barely able to move the weight. But somehow, some way, he found his way over to Adam and Uva, and he leaned against them like a wounded animal pressing against a light post, slumping down to die.

“I was supposed to save him,” Shiv said, as if he were lost in a fantasy. “I told him I would. This wasn’t—”

Uva tightened her arm around his neck and pressed her forehead under his chin. Adam reached out and hugged her as well, pulling them both close. The Gate Lord hid his face away, the first to cry for the fallen. He did it with silent dignity.

Shiv knew he couldn’t manage the same.

I should have looked at Georges’ body again. The man was too thin. It could be a mistake. It really could be—

And then Shiv let out a noise—one that sounded like a dying beast. It hurt. Everything inside him hurt. “I never got to…” He choked on his words. “He never got to see who I really became… I never got the chance to…” And the part that was breaking inside of him collapsed entirely. “Oh. Oh, gods. Oh, Broken Moon. I was too late. Too…”

And the pain Shiv felt then hurt worse than being burned alive in an anchor. Being torn apart from the inside. Having his soul and mind ripped asunder. It hurt more than all those things, and it just didn’t stop hurting.

“I was supposed to come and save you in time,” Shiv whispered.

Something rolled down his cheek, something hot. It was followed by something else. He hated it. He hated all of it. He hated being human. He hated this pain, and it just kept building until it turned into a solid block at his heart. A pitch-black color began to expand at his emotional core. It was fluid like mercury. And it wasn’t rage. He had no means of controlling it.

The Deathless was powerless.

The Deathless was lost.

The Deathless wept like the child he still was.

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