Chapter Fifteen – Lamentation at the Precipice

           The Emblem of the Star-Crossed Lovers (Interitus 1: Book X)

Chapter Fifteen – Lamentation at the Precipice

 

I once lived this life like a loner lost in the limelight, locked to lament a life I never sought. Countless men would kill for a fraction of my might, but this unmatched power is something I did not want. All we ever wanted was a quiet life beneath the stars, but we were cursed in such a way that peace could never quite be ours. I did not embark on this path for some sick fantasy of power, despite that there are countless souls I know I must devour. It was the stars which crossed me and cursed me to perdition; they forced their way between us and put me in this position. Each crime I must commit could cause a weaker man contrition, but I instead ignore the consequence and declare it in remission. I will let no force in this world take her from me, even if we must devour everyone just for a shot at being free. The others in this world are just factors in equations, and I can crush them all at once with no considerations.

Aeliana and I dressed in cloaks as we entered the crowd, camouflaging with other pedestrians because of the cool weather. Claire stood a short distance behind us, determined to assist us in our lurid quest for her own gain. She assured me that if she constructs a fourth of the giant Array, then she will receive a fourth of the total quintessence—not a fourth of the victims. In this way, she could cover the cost to revitalize her son while I would still inherit the lives of the countless victims. The identity of the underworld healer no longer mattered; I would devour him when I devoured everyone else in Bones City.

Even while we were blocks away, we could see that hordes of people had already congregated on the beach. The shadows of walking people danced in the light of small bonfires onshore. The quiet chatter of countless voices carried across the night. Starlight illuminated a multitude of shadows pouring toward the beach from all directions. But just as the plague slowly settled in my bones and strangled the strength from my soul, I had suspected that people would postpone or cancel the sea gathering in fear of sickness.

But the city leaders were adamant that this event would continue as scheduled as a showing of pride for Bones City. Despite that the perilous plague could spread like wildfire through the masses, people resolved to show themselves as upstanding members of the community. To not attend was to discard one’s own social standing entirely. Basic safety was rebranded as an act of cowardice, and this could not have possibly worked better in my favor. Had the people actually trusted their instincts, our sickness would have killed us before we could ever kill them. The city leaders had compared their bravery to that of the ancient heroes celebrated by the people, but even those long-lost heroes had also lost their lives as a consequence of their bravery. History would simply repeat itself in their reflection.

A city leader announced from a stand near the starlit sea, “We are so glad to see so many citizens celebrate being free! Let us not forget the heroes who wrestled with the shadows to give us this chance. Do not let yourselves forget that all this world was once plagued by demons who would strike with fire from the sky. Entire cities were wiped from the world in a single night by these monsters. But the heroes of our city laid down their lives to fight back. We only have a place to stand because of their sacrifice! Let us remember their bravery and give it new life inside ourselves.”

Enthusiastic cheers echoed across the crowd of gathering citizens. Humored voices shouted along as if anyone could truly delude themselves into honoring an alleged sacrifice from countless years past. I have to believe that on some level, everyone at that gathering knew the reality that the long-lost heroes had no effect on our lives as we knew it. This was nothing more than a concession to tradition or a thinly-veiled excuse to make appearances. Perhaps my cynicism was summoned by the fact that I shared the same power as the demons who fought these heroes, so perhaps I aligned myself with the demons as if it made us family in some way. Regardless of the reason, that ancient battle would repeat itself on this celebratory night by the sea. The people would cry out with valor as if they had the strength to change anything, but in the end they would be devoured by a darkness that is cursed to care only about its sole ambition. At least in that way, it is true that history repeats itself. At the very least, I was determined to ensure that it would.

I had spent days deducing the design and running calculations to ensure that this would work. Many people understand in their heads that a straight line becomes curved when projected upon a curved surface, but very few understand the formulation. I wasted hours just on reverse engineering and then verifying the length of this world’s radius. In between bouts of sickness or caring for Aeliana as she suffered hers, I spent the better part of my time adjusting every line and curve in the Array of Black Fire to compensate for invisible curvature. From there, it was simply a matter of packaging the information so that Claire and Aeliana could understand how to draw their sections of the Array.

Aeliana had slept behind me for days while I deduced the calculations necessary to complete the Array. During this time, we both fought to suppress the symptoms of sickness, but we could feel ourselves lose the fight as the plague pierced into our bones. She had it much worse than me, and I startled her awake several times as she slept when it sounded like she stopped breathing altogether. I couldn’t even admit to myself at the time how close I had come to losing her. When I shook her from sleep for the second time, she asked me why I chose to let Claire take part in our tremendous Array. I explained that at first it was a matter of completion; we simply needed someone else equally immoral to draw a portion of the Array during the short time we had to work while the world froze. But at the same time, I also confessed that the real reason was that Claire had a power which served as a failsafe. We would grant her the fuel to use her power, and then I would kill her with black fire in case I needed to use it for myself. It was no different than fattening up an animal before a feast.

The final question concerned the creation of the inscription itself. If the underworld healer saw the enormous Array when he stepped onto the beach, he would take his family and run; he might even warn other walkers as they wandered into the trap. I intended instead to inscribe the Array beneath their feet once the celebration began. By the time fireworks would ordinarily enliven the sky with a barrage of fiery color, only three sets of eyes would remain to watch.

Almost as if the power in her soul were forged to allow this, Aeliana had become the cornerstone of my design. When we witnessed her power for the first time, we realized that she simply froze time itself so that we could wander a world rendered motionless, untouchable by our actions and decisions. We could not move or strike anything in that state; we could only pass by. At least, this was my interpretation when we witnessed her weapon for the first time. But now with the passage of time, I realized I had overlooked an obtrusive omission. We could still affect the ground beneath our feet, and this was proven in the way we could still walk and propel ourselves forward; we could not push off the ground if it could not push back. This meant that Aeliana and the world itself were bound in a pact forged by her power. Even in that timeless state, we could still exert our will upon the world as long as it only affected the surface of this long-dead star. I must admit that on some level I believed this to be an act of providence which served as proof that destiny itself had designed us for each other. Why else would her power serve no other practical purpose than to set the stage for our Array?

Even as we stood huddled on the shadowed shore where scores of people arrived every minute, I found myself remarking for the first time at the malleability of this reality. I had declared since I lost Alyssa that I would rewrite reality and render a world where we are together for good. Where we are together forevermore. But when I said that back before this all began, I had no idea how I could accomplish it. I had the will to warp the world without a way to actually do it. But these powers we possess, all unfueled in their natural state, define the way in which we each warp reality to achieve our own designs. My power is not bound by singularity, so it continues to grow with every life I devour. Every soul I swallow expands my power to bend this reality. And as time passes, as stolen souls approach infinity, I will eventually become unbound by the chains of what I once called reality.

The same city leader announced with a booming voice, “If we want to grow past this then we have no other choice. I know some people decry us for risking the spread of the plague, but we cannot let ourselves fall victim to fear. Fear is the enemy of progress; fear acts only to prevent the future we know we deserve. But as for me, I cannot fathom the thought of surrendering to fear on the night when we are meant to come together and honor our heroes. They gave their lives in an act of bravery to provide the peaceful prosperity we all now enjoy! How could we dare to defile our prosperous present by wasting the peaceful times they gave us? We cannot and must not poison their legacy or derail our future for something as dehumanizing as fear.”

I almost found myself moved by his words. If it were not for the fact that my cynicism infected my view of every city leader, then perhaps on some level I could take him at face value. He spoke as if he truly believed that the people of the city were champions who valiantly fought their fear to honor the valorous heroes of the past. At the same time, he had to know to some extent that this tradition would cost scores of people their lives. After all, even Aeliana and I silently spread our sickness to the crowd all around us. Surely there were other infected people as well. But then again, this city leader was right to minimize the terror of the paralytic plague which poisoned the people and percolated through the crowds. Even I, who struggled to suppress the symptoms of sickness, posed a threat far greater to this gathering than just the spread of germs.

“This is the time; it is now that we act,” I said to my accomplices as if bound by a pact.

Aeliana nodded and then wrapped her arms around me. She grabbed Claire with her shaking hand and activated her power by burning the fuel she seized in Bellaina’s home. It was in that moment the world around us froze altogether; even the ocean waves froze in place. The steam which lifted from the sea glowed in the light of lava in the distance. Tiny drops of suspended sea spray scattered the shore and shimmered in the starlight. But despite the orchestra of reflected lights locked in time, we resolved to ignore the beauty and enact our task as quickly as we could. We each had in our bags the plans which detailed the specifications of the inscription we would create. We each carried enough diluted ink to stain the ground with the barest minimum to trigger the Array. As long as the Array of Black Fire could circulate its power by connecting to itself, it would activate even if it were practically invisible.

I could not help but sense an ambiguous reaction inside myself as I stained the sand with the curved lines of the Array. When I was younger, I wasted hours of each night scribbling nonsense into notebooks while wondering if I would ever join the joyous crowds. I now found myself within these crowds but not among them. Smiling faces stood frozen in place all around me, gazing at each other with wonder in the excitement of some inane conversation. I could not help but feel like I could have been one of them in another life, with just a shuffle of circumstances or a second roll of the cosmic dice. It was like a last look at a long-lost life or a final glance at what never was but could have been.

Perhaps my ambiguity was not even my own. Perhaps I had slain a soul which lamented the action as I slowly committed it piece-by-piece, and it decried my crime so completely that it could echo even in death. Perhaps their merciful souls had poisoned my own such that my tunnel-vision dropped from 100% to 99%. Regardless of the reason, it made no difference in the end. I continued with bittersweet adamance, scarring the shore and staring at the faces of victims who could have been my dearest friends in another life. But this is the consequence of impotence. The weak have no way to exert their will on this world. They are bound only by chance, unconsciously begging invisible algorithms to steer them clear of a monster like me.

I could tell just by the unguarded smiles of the people I walked past that they were optimists in the same sense as me, except that their optimism was borne of the trend that they had so far had it easy. My optimism is borne instead by my realism. I learned long ago that we can forge a bright future, but only if we are willing to force it upon reality and annihilate any obstacle in its way. This resolve is so central to me that it manifests the power that put me on this path; mine is the power that turns obstacles into ingredients. It turns roadblocks into steppingstones. Everyone I passed was another ingredient for the future we swore to forge, and one among them possessed the power which would save our fleeting lives.

Even as I stained the sand with the unholy inscription, I couldn’t help but remark that this in itself was an object lesson on our biological ultimatum. We as people when faced with a threat are forced to choose between flight or fight. Some, like Donovan, find a way to wander the space between the two extremes as if walking a tightrope in the sky. When faced with a threat that endangered the love of his life, he had chosen to enter the darkness and use it to protect himself—almost as if he fled the threat so that someone else could fight it instead. Other people, like the underworld healer who had hidden himself in the crowd, choose to hide for protection. But I on the other hand chose to fight the threat and crush everything in our path. I staked my life and my future on this one gamble, and in mere moments, we would see the consequence of this cosmic gambit.

But among the delighted faces of conversant people trapped in time, I saw a single face stick out from the crowd. Instead of catching up with friends or making conversation with peaceful strangers, Donovan stood frozen in place with his hands balled into fists. He appeared to have been walking briskly and scanning the strangers that he passed. I invented a story in my head to serve as an explanation for his haste, like perhaps he sought out some old contacts from the underworld. Perhaps he was searching for his favorite city leader after hearing a rousing speech. I knew these reasons were nothing more than nonsense wished in reverie to deny the grim reality. When I dismissed the fictions I forged in my head, I knew that he only cared about one thing in this world. Since his family was not with him, his ardent search served as proof that he wanted only to find them. When I dismissed my daydreams and diagnosed the reality, I decided not to complete my segment of the Array. I left a small stretch of the final curve incomplete.

“I thought we would trigger the Array when my power expired,” Aeliana whispered as she recounted the plot we conspired.

“That was the idea, but there’s a wrinkle in the plan. I want to get my friend out of here as quickly as I can.”

Aeliana glanced at Donovan and said as if to herself, “I thought we did not care at all about anyone else.”

“I believe on some level that I was Donovan in a past life. He like me has eyes locked in a tunnel to see only his wife. Even while lost in a crowd or locked in time and space, you can see his search for her written all over his face. He and I are both bound by the same one-track mind; I see a future to forge while he sees one to find. It’s true that if I help him I have nothing to gain, but if I create his heartbreak then I will suffer the same. This only works if I can get him out of here. I can only save his heart if she is not yet here. It’s a wrinkle, but this concession is one I know I must make,” I explained to Aeliana for Donovan’s sake.

Aeliana nodded but did not say a word. The plague had poisoned her body and paralyzed her lungs. I held her closely in my arms in this timeless space, lost in the center of a motionless crowd. I silently remarked for a moment on the way in which this bizarre circumstance resembled everyday life for those of us to whom a crowd means nothing. For those of us who found ourselves uninterested in the inane interactions of ordinary people, this timeless world was no different than usual.

Even before we forced time to freeze, I never cared which words passed between strangers in pointless conversations. I never cared on any level about anything they did or said. All my life, the people who flooded the streets of this city were worth nothing more than the air they breathe; I noticed them no more than I noticed mundane decorations in stores or markets. All their lives could have ended at a glance, and I doubt I would have noticed. They were always meaningless, carrying on inconsequential conversations which did not concern me, just as they did now except that they were frozen in time. They were just as meaningless as ever before, but at least I could give meaning to their lives in death by carrying them with me into eternity.

When her power expired, the world returned to motion exactly as before. The crowds continued their inconsequential conversations, and modest waves washed ashore in the distant shallows. No one seemed to notice the faint stain we placed upon the sand, or at least no one cared enough to interrupt the course of their chatter. It almost felt like a star could descend from the sky and strike the sea beside them, but they would not notice or care enough to interrupt their inanity. They behaved exactly as I predicted. I carefully meandered my way through the crowd until I found Donovan, hardly hiding that he was the target of my quest. I found him as he himself scoured the shore in search of his family, but he emerged from his monomania in the moment he saw me.

“I never thought that I would see you again. City security went and ransacked your home,” said Donovan as he realized that I was not alone.

I whispered to him as Aeliana walked up to my side, “I need you to run far away and find somewhere to hide. That is the only way you can escape this shore with your life. You will simply have to gamble that this crowd does not contain your wife.”

But Donovan tilted his head to the side and asked, “How do you always manage to outrun your past? No one who exits the walls ever comes back alive. No one who robs a city leader manages to survive. I know that you killed the queen of the dark. Anyone else would have died a thousand times for the crimes you committed.”

I explained to him to emphasize the gravity, “This city stands just seconds from tragedy. I have survived this long by killing others in my place, and soon I will kill everyone who has gathered in this space. This city will sit quiet and hollow for decades, and I will stand at the center as all this world fades. You can be scared as long as you escape this shore, but you must run because we cannot wait anymore.”

Donovan glanced at the sand behind us and saw a stain engraved upon the sand. His green eyes lit up with recognition as he came to realize the unfolding tragedy. He took off running toward the street in a full-force sprint, but I could tell by the way he ran that he did not care to save himself. He did not run with his face held motionlessly toward his self-prescribed finish line. Instead, he bobbed his head side-to-side as he sprinted, scouring the crowd one last time for some sign of his family. The other people on the beach glanced at him for a moment with intrigue, but they quickly dismissed their curiosity and resumed their conversations.

Having failed to find his family in the crowd as he ran past, I finally realized the destination of Donovan’s dash. Starlight shimmered on the steel surface of a ladder which descended the side of a three-story building near shore. It stood just past the edge of the enormous Array, but it stood close enough to shore that he could overlook the beach and inspect the crowd from above. He had no interest in saving himself or anyone else. He cared only to find his family and save them from the inescapable tragedy. Even at the edge of oblivion, he ran for higher ground with which he could spot and somehow save the love of his life. This in itself served as ultimate evidence that he and I were different iterations of the same soul, but I feared that this also proved he would not survive my Array. He would die because he had chosen to run away instead of fighting back—a lesson which would stain his soul even if he sacrificed his memories to reroll the cosmic dice.

Having given Donovan my warning, I took Aeliana by the hand and jogged back toward the only opening in the massive Array. It would take mere seconds to complete the inscription and engulf the crowd in a burst of black fire. But even as I ran with her hand in mine, I could feel through her limp grip and her high temperature that her sickness had pushed her to the edge. After helping to stain the beach with the special ink, she could hardly move her arms on her own. She nearly stumbled six times as we made our way to the only opening in the Array. But in that moment, I saw a familiar silhouette emerge from the faceless crowd. In a group of people who served no purpose other than fuel, a single man emerged onto a stand from which he could announce to the crowd. He unsheathed a sword and pointed it at us from across the beach. A light shone upon him from below and revealed that this was Hayatama.

His voice shouted to the crowd without tact or pity, “Those are the villains who attacked our city! I know for a fact that even now they orchestrate a heartless plot. Security! Anyone! I’ll reward anyone who stops them with an exorbitant prize!”

I felt a sudden jolt like I had been shot through my soul. Without wasting any time to inspect myself for damage, I prepared my paintbrush and stumbled toward the only opening in the Array. Even if I were attacked on all sides, I could slay them all in the second I completed the inscription. But as I pushed my way closer, I felt a tremendous drag on the right side of my body. I glanced to the side in a state of shock and saw that the shiver I suffered was felt through her as if by some vicarious connection. Someone had struck Aeliana from a distance with an arrow through the chest. I let out an audible gasp and wrapped my arms around her; I could feel her warm blood rinse across my arms. She dropped onto her knees with a squeal and stared at me with tear-filled eyes. I realized in that moment that she had frozen time.