Everything was heavy and sluggish; Kanrel's mind felt as though it no longer inhabited his body, but instead observed itself from far above, beyond the veil and the clouds, and all that it could hear was Torin's scream, which had filled his mind, for it yet rang within his ears. All other sounds were numb and hardly present, so were all other sensations, even Mirai's grip as she pulled him with her, further and further away from the destruction caused by him.
How could she bear to touch him? How could she bear existence at the face of needless loss? How had she not pronounced him guilty and left him behind, to deal with his own evils? Did she not know that he was the cause of even this?
Darkness descended, and the grace of light was left behind. It was a cold night, and they could not stay a moment longer in this place. They could only drudge forth, lest they be caught in an onslaught of shadows.
It was like a dream, where you find yourself blind. A dream where sounds arise from beneath the waves; they bubble and burst, they are subdued and scarcely there. And the blindness that he lived through was one where the darkness of the forest and the snow mixed with the darkness of the sky, and the darkness of the person who pulled forth, and the darkness of the mind, and the darkness of all the things between, which then mixed with one another. Still there, still something observable; still something that cannot be seen, or focused on. A dream, where the body becomes numb, where actions feel slow, where warmth is distant, where the eyes, when they blink, feel like a moment that lasts forever. A dream, where all is in haze. A dream, where you are pulled further and further away from the governance of yourself into the root of who you are when you dream. And you cannot wake up from it. You cannot wake yourself from such a dream. Only others can pull you out. Only someone else can keep you alive.
A slap echoed through all of existence. A sharp pain spread from his cheek and extended itself to the rest of his face. The world had moved. The darkness was at a different angle. His eyes looked at the snow, not ahead, like before. His head to the side, as if afraid to look into the eyes of the person who had brought him back to life. The sounds arrived, the wind, slow and steady. Her words were cold and direct...
"Do you want to die?" If the hand that had struck him was like the kiss of life, then her words were like the breath that came right after it.
Kanrel shook his head, unsure if he meant to have done such a thing. The wind was cold, the world was so cold. He could hear it all around: how the wind traversed through this wintry forest, how it breached its silence, how it shook the branches as it reached in and touched them.
"Then do something," she commanded. "Save us, as you saved us before," she demanded. But there was no passion in her. Her hope was him, yet all she must have had was despair.
"How?" Kanrel barely said aloud. She must've heard him, for she stepped forth, forcing Kanrel to look ahead, to look at her. She was pale; her cheeks, her nose, and her eyes were so red. "Focus," she whispered, right in front of him, then let her hands drop as they stared at one another. "Survive, or we both die." Her voice shook as she spoke, so did her hands; in fact, her whole body trembled. She brought her hands together and rubbed them against one another. "Warmth," she cried out.
Kanrel furrowed his brows. It felt difficult to do, as if they had been frozen still for far too long. Slowly, he began creating a code that could bring her warmth. The familiar code would warm the air around them just enough to make it feel like spring. This time, though, he wanted her to feel the warmth of the warmest day of summer. To bask in the sun without any obstruction. But it crawled through him, as if he were hungover, it wanted to push out of him; to burn his throat and be released from this body. Kanrel swallowed and activated the code, allowing its warmth to grace her and himself.
She trembled before him, and she didn't stop even when minutes went by. She must have been so tired. She must have been scared. Disgusted. Despaired. Sorrow must have been what she felt. But Mirai refused her tears; she held her head up; her brows furrowed into a mask of determination. Even when she trembled, she stood tall, never stooped low, and soon, she stopped trembling. All the while, they stared at one another, without a useless word to fill the silence.
They both knew. There was no need for words; no need to say out loud what was known by both. Though what was known and felt differed from one another. They only thought that they knew.
Then, so suddenly, she just turned around and walked forth. Her stride seemed confident, as though power coursed through her very existence, as though nothing had happened. As though she never had been cold, never so close to death, never afraid of what was behind them. Never saddened by the loss of a friend.
She walked, and she didn't look back. Either she assumed that Kanrel would follow right behind, or stay and die in his lonesome. Such a choice had been given to him, and if she hadn't slapped him and spoken to him, if she had just left him standing here, then he would have died. He wouldn't have followed her.
Kanrel hurried after her and kept his codes running. He tried to focus on just them and keep her in his sights. For if his thoughts were to stray for even a moment, wouldn't the dream pull him back in and then swallow?
They walked for an inordinate amount of time; Kanrel could see the sun rise from beyond the horizon and claim its place above them, a red dot that painted the Veil and the clouds beyond it. Like a drop of blood on a gray canvas.
Mirai still walked slightly ahead; she kept her pace, forcing Kanrel to keep up with her. She made no stops, for there was no point in stopping. They had no food to eat, no supplies to use. They had nothing but the clothes they wore and the knife at Mirai's hip. Kanrel had burned everything else.
Was it why she refused to look back? Had she at last realized what Kanrel was? Had she seen past his mask, had she pried open his head and looked within his mind and seen only the guilt that he carried? Had she grown afraid?
Kanrel ignored the questions and focused on his codes and on his stride. He had to keep up; he had to make sure that at least she would survive. If she didn't, then all he would have is failure.
The landscape around started to change. The somewhat even ground became a steady incline, and each step became more difficult to take. The forest became a series of ups and downs as they ascended and then descended from hill to hill. The trees around became just a means to the climb after the next. A guard that kept them from falling and finding themselves amongst the snow, staring up ahead at the darkened skies. At least the distance between Kanrel and Mirai became shorter, but even then, it was more difficult to keep up with her. Mirai seemed like she could go on forever. Like there was no tall hill or deep river that could keep her from climbing or crossing over. It felt like it for hours, until the sight presented itself to them. They stepped through a thicket of birch, now standing on a cliff, overlooking the journey ahead.
For the first time since what felt like ages, Kanrel recognized a thing. He had crossed this river. Though now it was nearly frozen. He could see the mountains to the north of them, a far-away shadow that loomed, as if a thing that they were supposed to reach in the end.
The river had no banks, and if there were, they were standing on them, perhaps a hundred feet above the frozen surface, steep rocky walls on either side of it. A gorge that men hundreds of years ago stood above, in awe, like they did, looking down a fall no man could survive, wondering how they could ever cross such a thing.
It was said that an Angel, a thousand years before, ripped the ground open to save a flock of humans from the devouring Wildkin. Thus, the gorge was often called Angel's Grace, or Wildkin's Fall.
Almost two decades ago, Kanrel had wondered whether such a story could be true, or whether the narrow valley was a creation of nature, perhaps because of an ancient earthquake or something similar, but now he found himself believing that an Angel had truly done it. Though not to save anyone... How many Atheians did the ground swallow at Ignar's command?
Kanrel stood and frowned at the sight, and he shuddered as he imagined the earth before him in pristine condition, yet unseparated. He could see how hundreds of Atheians ran toward the east, on their way to the location where Ignar had commanded them to depart to. Then, far behind, a grotesque thing with wings spread open descended toward them. A sword in its hands, it struck down in a cleaving motion; the earth suddenly began to shake and rip. Cracks form, and from them an orange hue emerges; then, suddenly, the earth separates. The Atheians fall to their deaths, in screams of horror, soon swallowed by the river of lava beneath them. And the Angel just flies over, never looking at his doings again, only looking ahead, and seeing the next group of Atheians to eviscerate.
Mirai suddenly pulled him with her. She had tightly grabbed his wrist and guided them up the stream, toward a bridge that had been built hundreds of years ago by priests so that man could conquer the lands beyond the Angel's Grace...
It didn't take long for them to see it. A massive construction that had withstood hundreds of years of use and nature's wrath. It was almost entirely built from stone, almost three hundred feet in length, and only kept up by its arches that had been set into the very cliffs on either side of the structure. The arches reached all the way down to the river as pillars. It was said that during its construction, many people died from falling into the depths of the river, never to be seen again. And so, each arch and each pillar had been named after those who had died. But in reality, the pillars had been named after the fourteen personal disciples the Herald at the time had in her entourage.
They reached the bridge and soon began to cross it. And as they walked on its snow-covered stones, Kanrel sublimated the cold snow away. Leaving a well-kept bridge in their wake. After all, such care was the only reason the bridge had stood for as long as it did. They soon reached the other side and chose to continue on the road instead of entering the forest again. The journey ahead would go much quicker this way.
They stopped only for the night, and Kanrel was forced to build them another shelter, which was hidden much better.
All of today, and might as well be for all of existence, she had been beyond him. Someone unreachable, who could only ever reach down toward him, to offer grace for a being who deserved none. And now, she lay eyes closed before him. An unmoving thing he could never truly comprehend.
Humanity, in its complicated essence, was by all means beyond him. For how could a copy of a man understand the complexities of real humans, with real emotions, with real experiences, with real beliefs? For all that he had was just knowledge that could only bring more questions; only doubt and never answers. Just a state of being, where he found himself unable to relate to those who lived in reality, whether that reality was simulated and molded, forced to be a certain way by so-called gods. Would a man not prefer such simplicity over whatever knowing could offer?
Wasn't it better to have an inkling of doubt formed from reasonable suspicion rather than what was formed by knowing almost exactly what had happened? It was, somehow, after all of this time, better to be left in uncertainty than in certainty.
Especially of things that were beyond human understanding. Wasn't it easier to sit and listen to a priest, who would perform certainty in your stead as you yourself doubted every word, yet chose to believe in them regardless? Wouldn't that be a form of... peace?
For what knowledge of the proclaimed gods had given him was only the fear of them. He had opened his eyes and seen the truth; with great disappointment, with enormous disgust, he had learned that gods, or whatever they were, were just evil. There was no goodness within them.
Kanrel furrowed his brows and examined Mirai's face; her expression seemed sullen even while asleep, as though her face had been forced to perform an expression to protect her from those who might try to see the truth of her whilst she was in her dreams.
Wouldn't he rather be like her? Living in a plane of not knowing. Even with the horrors that she had seen. For she could still feel the horrors in their totality, instead of through the eyes of a mind that had learned to claim that the next horror would always be worse; that had learned to remove itself from the grandeur of one event, and instead see it from further away, as if it were a piece of beautiful tapestry, a piece of art with meaning to its chaos. For surely all things, even in their horrors, would lead to something worthwhile, into something even more beautiful than this. For don't the ends justify the means?
He couldn't help but scoff at himself. He didn't believe such a thing. He knew that he didn't. But it was tempting to. For how could a human mind cope with each horror in its totality without learning to ignore it at some fundamental level? The death of a man may remain a tragedy, and the deaths of thousands a mere statistic; and even then, both are within the margin of error with all things considered. They might as well be things that never happened, and they might as well not have any meaning to him, unless he knew even one of the people who had died. Empathy? What and for whom was such a thing, really?
He shuddered at his own thoughts. There, indeed, within his mind and almost every human mind, was a way to reason yourself from caring about things that didn't somehow directly affect you. Rodents we are; no, worse. Roaches, we are. Roaches, we remain.
Kanrel sighed and yet examined Mirai's face. He kept his codes up, making sure that she might sleep without cold seeping in her bones. Then her eyes opened up, a slow blink. Two gazes, locked on one another's.
Her eyes felt lifeless against his. And so must have his on hers. But then, her brows furrowed, the gaze in her eyes sharpened. Within them, something more present; something that Kanrel could not handle. He almost looked away, but did not. He had to face his guilt, lest he become the coward he feared himself to be.
"Why didn't you save him?" she asked.
He could see her. Not Mirai, but the woman who had stared at him from the edge of his vision. She stared at him with such blame in her eyes. Why had he done nothing?
"I saw something," he whispered. "The shadow had a face, and that face I saw in my dreams the night before."
"I couldn't move. I couldn't hear a thing. I could only stare at her as she stared at me..."
"In Aucklyn, I saw a child buried beneath the rubble of the temple there. I carried him from beneath the ash and the stone and the burned wood. I carried him outside the village, out onto a hill that overlooked it. I buried him there. And in my dreams, I saw that woman, in that same temple, looking at that same rubble, looking at where that same child had been crushed beneath the weight of the temple itself."
"And in that dream, the woman looks at me. And she cannot remember who she was. She cannot remember why she is there. She cannot remember the person who lay beneath the rubble. She can't remember her own son. And I try, and I try; I try to take her where she might see her son's grave, but I cannot touch her, I cannot lead her. My hands go through her, and she looks at me, past me, at something other than just me. She looks within me, and all blame is placed onto me."
"I should have saved him. I should have saved Torin. Yet I cannot apologize; it means nothing if I do. It is my fault," Kanrel spoke, and throughout his speech, the form of truth that he had chosen to present, his throat burned; his tongue felt heavy, and his lips numb. And when he was done, he breathed out a long, wavering breath. Throughout, he had not strayed his gaze away from Mirai's eyes. And he had seen the sharpness in them intensify. She would never be able to forgive him. She shouldn't.
Kanrel looked away. And it was silent for a while before she spoke in turn.
"And the fire? What was the fire you used?"
Kanrel swallowed. "It is... I'm not sure... but I think that it is the very essence of magic."
"And you discovered it?"
"Yes, years ago. When I was lost. It nullifies magic; it destroys. It is... disgusting to use. You have heard of it, right? What priests feel when they use magic? It is like something crawls through you; nausea toward the thing that now inhabits you; nausea toward existence it forces you to be in. Nausea, toward the self and the thing itself. There is nothing holy about it."
It was silent again. And it was for a long while. For long enough for Kanrel to think that the woman had fallen asleep. He again met her eyes, and she yet stared straight at him. Their gazes now locked again. Though now, in her eyes, fury had claimed a domain for itself.
"Kanrel... are these... shadows... are they people? When you burned them, were they people before? Were they once like you and I?" Her tone gained an edge of its own.
Kanrel nodded.
"And did you... Were you the one... Are you connected to this?"
A thousand nails bore into him in an instant. It felt as if his body was nailed against the ground itself. Like his mind was stretched and nailed onto a tanning rack, and the question flayed him. His gaze became hazy, and he could not see the woman in front of her; not her gaze, nothing about her. She wasn't there; he wasn't here.
His lips unsealed. A muffled voice spoke through him. "I don't know," it said. "I don't know," it lied. "I fear that I am," it spoke, at last, a truth.
Mirai didn't reply for a while. Kanrel couldn't see her. He feared truly seeing her.
"You will pay for your crimes," she whispered, and Kanrel could barely hear her. But her whisper pulled him out of his own mind, forcing him to face her. Forcing him to see her and the expression that wore itself on her face. Disgust. Fear. Judgment. All present on her, in her eyes, in her words.
Kanrel looked away and nodded. They did not speak another word that night.
- - - - -
She opened her eyes and found herself in darkness, the safety of its bastion. The stars aren't seen. The temple buried beneath the hum of mass; a thousand or more souls weeping for their end; the loss of love and the birth of oblivion. None remembers where they came from, where they are going, or where they will end up.
Where was this? Where was she?
Four tall stained windows on either side, facing one another, in colors of the rainbow, depict the coming of each Angel. There are nine in total, but only eight stand in the panes of their windows, depicted in more hues than she could name. Each held on to an item or an element.
First held in their hand a seed cradled in open palm, with a single bone laid across the wrist. They looked down at her, their hand as if reaching for her, as if promising one or the other.
Across from them was another, this one looked saddened, though wore a grin on their face. They held a wine cup, overflowing with what seemed like tears, falling one by one toward the temple floor.
Next came one who stared with such longing or disdain. They leaned against the pane itself, they held a thorned rose, and they held it closer to their nose as they looked at her. Blood flowed down the hand that held the thorns.
Across from them, an intimidating figure stood almost taller than the rest. Their wings were as if a dark gown that covered the rest of him. They held scales, one pan held a noose the other held nothing.
The next stained window was too dark, or perhaps too bright, to see. You couldn't tell if there was anything depicted on it, but she imagined, past the dark and the light, a figure who has seen but the dark for far too long, or been blinded by the light.
Amid the darkness and light, in the stained window, stood a figure with their gaze set toward the sky beyond. They held a simple stone against their chest. As if asking, "How much will the lake ripple when one stone is cast? How many are needed for the ripples to turn into waves?"
Then there was another, they stood in their pane, relaxed yet not. They held a quill in one hand and in the other a heart; with a grin on their face, or a grimace, they stabbed the heart, and it bled black. At their feet lay a paper, and onto it words formed. "Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur." However, she could not understand what it meant.
And across from them, the 8th Angel, depicted on the stained windows positioned across from another. A regal creature, grotesque in nature, but with such gentleness, they held onto their sword wrapped in chains, pointed downward, wings spread behind, to extend all of their glory. A white feather is pierced by the sword that strikes down; blood claims the earth.
She reached the altar at the end of the grand temple. A large painting covered the whole wall. An angel looked down on her, on all of them, all of the others, all of the souls that sang of their terror at the end of all life. Their golden eyes, haloed in dark red. They held but an hourglass, where infinite sand flowed down to fill the finite space beneath their feet. Each grain as if a billion or more possibilities of each and every moment of being. But...
As she peered at the grains of sand, at the hourglass that bled them. It felt as though time itself was running out. It escapes, irretrievable time. The souls weep, and their hum swells in the cathedral. Then, sudden silence. The final grain flies away; the hourglass is empty.
And a voice echoes: "This is as far as I've seen; all that comes after is shrouded in shadow." The expression held by the angel in the painting shifts, and from their grotesque face a new one emerges... Was it... sad? Their eyes close; no more golden hue, nor halo of darkened red.
A bell strikes, and Roslyn wakes up gasping for air, wiping away tears that flow down her cheeks.