Slowly, Argyll wheeled himself through the crowds at the Tower of Sin. Many leapt aside upon seeing him, others giving him strange looks. Some looks he had grown familiar with long ago. Other looks seemed directed at his chair, which he now propelled forward himself using the raised rim of the wheels that rose over his seat. Parallel to the great staircases of the great tower were ramps for moving cargo, which Argyll took to with little effort.
On the top floor, crowds queued before three airships, docked along the open rooftop of Sin. Snow fell gently over the city now, landing upon roofs already laden with a layer of white. The gangway to Thunder was raised, its deck crowded with eager Simians.
A separate crowd of Humans stood aside, some red-robed Churchguards among them. They looked on towards three Humans, who spoke to each other in frantic, panic whispers. One saw Argyll and beckoned him over. On recognising this Human as the priest from the congregation of Sons the previous night, Argyll went to him.
“Argyll,” said the Human. “We have finished loading the ships with the focus-crystals of the Church. Where is Brother Ruairí? Where you with him?”
“Brother Ruairí has fallen,” said Argyll. He had intended to feign grief at this, but found his voice naturally cracked upon saying the name.
The fool read a book that made him want to kill me. Why should I grieve him?
But still, he found himself dwelling on memories of times their interests aligned, and the feelings that came with them. And with a well-practiced feat of emotional acrobatics, Argyll pushed them deep down, until they were no more.
“We were set upon by guards still loyal to the Church on our way out,” he said, the lie coming to him easily. “Ruairí bravely fought them off but paid dearly for it.”
“May Seletoth watch over his soul,” said the priest. “His final Seeing has blessed us with the wisdom of the Lord. Thanks to Brother Ruairí’s fate, we now know what we must do.”
“No,” said Argyll. He raised his voice at this, seeing the rest of the Sons were watching him. “As Ruairí died, he entrusted me with this.”
He took the tome out from his pocket and held it up high. This was met with many gasps from the crowd.
“The Truth. Written by King Móráin the First.”
“It cannot be!” cried the priest, eyes wide with wonder. “So many of us have seen but a glimpse of the Truth. With this, we can see the world as He intended.”
“And you shall. If you agree to come with us across the Eternal Sea.”
This was met with concerned mutters that bubbled within the crowd. On seeing this, Argyll pressed on.
“Ruairí said that the Lord said you must stay here, but to what end, only Ruairí knew. His knowledge is lost now with his death. But if you come with us, you will have all the knowledge you desire.”
As the crowd considered this, the priest turned to confer with the other two he had been speaking to. These, Argyll presumed, were priests too. After a time, the first turned to the crowd, and spoke. “If the Truth is crossing the Eternal Sea, than I shall join it too. You are all free to make up your own mind on this matter.”
On seeing the others consider this, Argyll moved away, seeing is job as being done.
As long as they make their mind up, independent of any vision any fool had, I’ll consider it a victory.
He moved towards a gangway leading up to The Dreadnought. Many Simians who had come carrying too much luggage were turned away at the threshold, given the choice of either abandoning their belongings or staying in Penance with them. Argyll boarded with nothing more than the shirt on his back, for if a lack of his own belongings meant there was room for just one more person to embark, then that was a sacrifice he was happy to make.
The crowd cheered as next to them, Thunder’s engines rumbled, and the ship took flight. Argyll’s heart soared with it.
He boarded The Dreadnought, and the crowd in the dock stepped aside to give him space, but no one spoke to him. This didn’t bother Argyll, until he thought about those closest to him before. Farris, Garth, Nicole, Ruairí… now all dead. Was it that he truly had no one left?
This was a thought he let linger longer than he would have allowed before. Other people aboard laughed and joked with one another, sharing stories and speculating about the life that waited ahead of them. Instead, Argyll looked over the side of the ship, out across the city of Penance, towards the huge hull of Thunder that sailed silently over the high spires of the Steamworks.
The crowd cheered again as the engines beneath their feet came alive. The Dreadnought rose into the air and slowly turned to face its bow westwards. Some passengers started making their way inside the ship’s massive gondola, but most stayed outside to take in this unique view of their city. The last view of their city.
But Argyll’s eyes remained locked on Thunder, which would spearhead the journey west.
From somewhere beneath them, a bolt of fire burst forth, shooting towards Thunder with deadly precision. It struck the ship. The back side of its hull burst alight. A huge plume of red flame rose upwards, sending the nose of the ship pointing upwards.
Argyll’s breath evacuated his lungs. Chaos erupted aboard The Dreadnought. People screamed in anguish and fear, but none could do anything but watch as the body of Thunder took flame. The flames spread over the canvas envelope quickly, as it slowly descended. Within seconds, the canvas burned away, leaving only the metal frame of the hull; a burning patchwork of iron shapes that collapsed into one another.
All eyes aboard The Dreadnought were fixated on the smouldering ruin of Thunder, but Argyll wheeled himself to the side of the ship to find the source of this destruction.
He peered over, and there, directly beneath The Dreadnought, was a dark, winged figure floating in the air.
Morrígan!
Desperation took hold of Argyll. He glanced around. No one else aboard the ship seemed to notice she was there, just below them. He quickly considered his options. Sure, there were likely some Sons of Seletoth aboard, somewhere, with the arms to fight back. But was there time to find them, to alert them?
As he leaned over the side of the ship, Morrígan’s attention was still fixed on the burning ship, which now fell slowly to the ground. How long before she realised another ship was sailing above her, waiting to be burned from the sky too?
There was no time to consider these questions, no time to assess these outcomes. Before he even realised what he was doing, Argyll started wheeling himself across along the deck, focusing still on the girl. There once was a day when he trained to be an engineer and found he could estimate distances and speed with ease. He was no true mathematician, so close estimates would have to do.
Once he reached a certain point, representative of a certain distance ahead of Morrígan, with her a certain distance below, Argyll climbed from his chair. He pulled his body onto the ledge of the deck, limp legs dangling over the side. He did not know long much time this would buy them, nor how well this would even work, but without any further hesitation, Argyll threw himself overboard.
All seemed to slow as he fell. For a moment, weightless, he was free from his chair. Free from the limitations of his injuries. But he could not dwell on this freedom for long, for figure of Morrígan sped closer and closer to.
This is for my legs, he thought, balling his right hand into a fist. For Farris and Nicole. For Simiankind.
As he approached, Morrígan turned. Against the blackness of her clothes and her wings, her pale face shone. A face that grinned, taking joy in her slaughter.
But her smile quickly vanished at it collided with Argyll’s fist, sending both spiralling to the ground.
***
Pain surged through Argyll’s body. He opened his eyes, slowly, blinking through the cloud of dust that rose above him.
Where am I? he thought, raising his head slowly. He pressed a bloodied hand into the ground beneath him, feeling ragged stone pressing painfully into his skin.
Morrígan! he realised. Where is she?
He found himself lying inside a building of some sort. A wooden roof above him bore an open hole, from which heavy sleet fell within, on top of him.
Each movement brought him great pain, but he pulled himself from the wreckage. Slowly, he crawled out into a cobblestone street. Glancing up, with a surge of relief he saw that The Dreadnought was still in the sky.
Across the street, something moved. He glanced to see Morrígan in a heap on the ground, her wings bent crooked from the fall. Gradually, she stood and turned her attention to the ship overhead.
Argyll reached out his hand and shouted to try and pull her attention away, but he was interrupted by a sudden whoosh. Bright light bathed him.
Between him and Morrígan, a great, glowing figure landed. It shone like a golden statue, with huge, gilded wings spreading from its shoulder. It turned to face Argyll, and when it spoke, he felt a fear unlike any he felt before, burning deep in his chest.
“You have given the Simian people a chance at a new life,” it said. As Argyll looked up at this figure’s face, he saw the vague likeness of Firemaster Fionn in there.
“For your courage,” the figure said, “I shall mend your wounds, and allow you to walk—”
“I don’t give a shit!” cried Argyll. Whatever religious nonsense was going on, they could leave him out of it. He pointed towards Morrígan. “Just stop her!”
***
Fionn turned to see Morrígan stepping across the street.
“I see you have done as I asked,” she said. “By killing Seletoth and merging His soul into your own, you can help me rid this world of its meaningless life. And together we can start anew.”
A ball of fire formed in her hand. She looked up to the airship that glided through the sky overhead. Fionn darted forward, crashing into Morrígan and sending both hurtling into and then through a nearby building.
With great force, Morrígan pushed away from Fionn.
“Why do you fight me?” she cried. “You have seen the Truth yourself. The Lord is nothing more than a celestial monstrosity, and all that we have lived and suffered through served only to play back into His hands. This life is nothing more than a tool He created to save Himself.”
“You’re wrong!” roared Fionn. “It matters not where we came from, but the lives we lived.” He gestured towards the sky. “Why not let them live, and allow them to forge a new life across the sea, away from the lies of the Church and of Seletoth?”
“That too will be a life without meaning!” She raised a hand and pulled a large chunk of stone from the ground below. “No life born of Seletoth can have meaning. We once believed the Eternal Sea had no limits. But we were wrong. The seas we know are but raindrops in the oceans of existence. All we know hangs in the infinite darkness of the Endless Firmament, and nothing that happens here serves any purpose.”
She flicked her wrist, flinging the chunk of stone at Fionn. He lunged forward and shattered it into a thousand pieces as it came. Through the cloud of dust it left behind, he flew, approaching Morrígan.
“You were once ignorant of these things,” he said. “And you found joy in life. Or have you forgotten?”
Morrígan paused. “What do you know?”
Fionn let his mind give way to the vast knowledge of the Tapestry of Fate. One memory, one life, one dream tumbled into another, then another, and another and another and another until the cascade of ideas became a huge waterfall of the lives that had come and gone, and among them there was many that Morrígan had touched, had enriched, had taken away, and he turned these thoughts outwards, so that she may see that once she sat in the back of a classroom, passing notes to the innkeeper’s son while a teacher’s voice droned on about letters and numbers and stories, for that teacher was himself a mage, with a lineage that traced all the way back to Móráin the First’s most loyal servants who had followed him across the baren, icy lands to Alabach, but that did not matter here, as Fionn steered his thoughts back towards that classroom, to that village, to the man named Yarlaith the White, who called himself Morrígan’s uncle, but in truth was her father, and he had—
“No!” cried Morrígan, leaping towards Fionn. With a surge of Geomancy, she caused a huge stone column to burst forth from beneath Fionn’s feet. Distracted by the knowledge and wisdom that flooded his mind, Fionn could not react. The collision sent his body soaring upwards. Further and further up he went, until the skyline of Penance below slowly vanished beneath clouds.
***
Argyll covered his face with his hands as the two gods, or demi-gods, or whatever they were, fought on. He lowered them only after one strong assault from Morrígan sent the golden creature that may once have been, or possibly still was Fionn, hurtling into the sky.
No better chance than now, he thought. He bared his teeth as he pulled himself across the street, hands grasping the ground and dragging himself forward, one cobblestone at a time. He had once climbed many walls of many manors in his youth, a second-story burglar of significant talent. This was just like climbing, but more horizontal. Although he could not use his legs to help, at least gravity was on his side. If anything, this was easier. If not for the pain that raged within.
But this was not a fight for survival, for he had already succeeded in stopping Morrígan, at least from a time, from burning The Dreadnought from the sky. He was some distance away from Sin, and it was possible that Sinfall was already leaving. If it left without him, there would not be much lost, for if his life was what it took to give hope to so many others, then so be it.
With great effort, he reached the end of the street, which reached a main basalt road that led all the way to Sin. Without a grip upon individual stones, however, Argyll found no way to pull himself onwards.
Ironic, he thought, rolling himself forward with the strength of his shoulder alone. That the roads of our Simian engineers replacing the cobblestones of the Seachtú would seal my fate.
He could roll, using a significant amount of energy in the process, but he was maybe half a mile from the tower. Perhaps this was no longer a struggle he could partake in. If the other two ships could set off, wouldn’t that be enough?
With that, Argyll gave up. He lay on his back upon the basalt road, his arms spread wide, facing the cloud-covered sky. The pain within him displaced his fighting spirit. Perhaps this fall, this second fall, had done irreparable damage to him. It was likely only the final wind of an animal struggling to survive had taken him this far, and perhaps there was no other option but to die here.
He closed his eyes and welcomed the embrace of death.
“It’s him,” came a frail voice. “See if he’s alive.”
Argyll didn’t bother opening his eyes, for why burden anyone to save him now, if his purpose had already been served?
“He’s alive, your Holiness. What should we do with him?”
No, thought Argyll. Don’t bother.
“See if you can carry him,” came the first voice. “All of this was his idea, after all. It wouldn’t be right, to leave him behind.”
It doesn’t matter. Just leave me to die.
“Come on,” said the second voice. “I’ll need a few hands to help. Let’s see if there’s a healer aboard.”
Argyll struggled to open his eyes and saw the distorted shapes of a dozen or so Humans surrounding him. He could not make out their faces, only blurs that suggested robes, of silver and gold and grey and red. The effort it had taken him to open his eyes left him, and he drifted out of consciousness again.
For a time, Argyll had a vague awareness of what was around him. The air was cold, for some time, but the breeze that brushed his face subsided, indicating that he was indoors. Around him, he heard more voices, and more hands touched his body, and he felt himself moving faster than before.
When he felt the cold wind blow against his face once more, he opened his eyes. This time, the image was clearer.
He was aboard an airship, presumably Sinfall, and was surrounded by Humans. Strange faces all around smiled with glee upon seeing him conscious.
“He’s alive!” one voice called. “Quick, get him to a healer!”
They lay him down on the wooden floor of the deck, and Argyll felt the rumble of engines beneath. Were they already flying?
He turned his head to the side and saw two Humans in the white robes of healers rush to him.
A crowd had gathered now, Humans all, looking to steal a look at the Simian who once would have seen them all dead, only to give his own people a place to call home.
Among them, one Human was dressed in a bright red cloak, with a golden stole draped around his neck.
Upon seeing him, Argyll laughed, for this Human did not bear the all-too-familiar dour expression of the Arch-Canon, but instead smiled warmly.
“Thank you, Argyll,” he said, approaching the Simian’s side. He took off his headgear and laid it on the ground next to him. “If not for you, the Sons would have killed us all in the Basilica.”
“Outside,” Argyll said. “I need air.”
Quickly, the healers took him out to the deck, where other Humans looked on as they carried him out.
“The gunnel,” he grunted, gesturing to the edge of the ship. “Sick….”
The healers didn’t hesitate to bring him to the side of the ship. They allowed Argyll to lean over it, where he saw the foaming waters of the Eternal Sea flowing far below.
Expecting him to throw up, the healers politely looked away. On seeing this, Argyll feigned coughing and retching, and reached into his coat pocket as he did. When he was sure nobody was looking, he tossed The Truth overboard and watched as the tome splashed into the sea.
“Thank you,” he said, turning up the healers. “I feel much better now.”
***
High in the sky, Fionn turned around to face the earth. With Hydromancy, he parted the clouds, and saw the landscape beneath. Alabach was covered in snow, from Elis Point to Gorán. As he surveyed the land, the dark shape of Morrígan came flying towards him. But this time he was ready.
He surged the flame of his soul, which burned brighter than all the stars of the firmament, and pulled upon every mote of vapour from the surrounding clouds. With a glance towards Morrígan, he sent a torrent of icy water at her, slowing her ascent.
“You were brought up to never learn the truth of your birth,” roared Fionn. “The man your mother was married to knew all along, but he kept his feelings inside him, lashing out at you and your mother whenever he drank.”
“What are you doing?” yelled Morrígan. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it means something to you.”
Fionn tore downwards towards Morrígan, and pulling upon the air, sent them both plummeting to the ground, away from Penance, away from the Simian ships.
Somewhere in the Midlands they crashed, sending the earth all around them upwards, forming a crater in the ground.
“Why would that matter?” said Morrígan, pressing a hand into the earth. With a burst of energy, a huge fissure formed between them. The land parted, and Fionn leapt backwards to avoid the dark chasm that opened.
“Because you once lived with purpose,” he said. Somewhere far to the north, the sound of running water rumbled. Fionn glanced towards the source to see the High Sea itself bend to Morrígan’s command. It came flooding through this fissure, bursting forth and consuming all in its path. Fionn quickly took flight as the water rushed beneath him.
Desperately, he let his own thoughts quieten and allowed the knowledge of the Tapestry of Fate rush forth as he reached out towards Morrígan, hoping she would see, hoping she would understand, and all of those lives she had touched upon came forth and her life was laid bare before them If our ancestors claimed this land from the Simians, what use was an axe and a shield? thought a girl as she watched her mother’s coffin being carried through the chapel, and how untidy her hair was, if only her mother could have helped tidying it this morning, as she had done so many times, for Aoife Ní Branna loved nothing more than Morrígan, and her husband did too, despite knowing the child was not truly his.
“Stop!” said Morrígan, covering her ears, “Don’t show me this!”
But Fionn gave in more to the Tapestry, and it showed all those mornings that Aoife and Cormac Ní Branna had just stayed in bed together, letting the hours of the morning turn to the hours of noon and even into the evening, doing nothing but playing with the baby Morrígan, as Cormac would hold her under her arms bouncing her body over their laps, both parents taking so much joy in talking nonsense to her, and how Aoife would warmly grasp Morrígan’s foot saying, “that’s your foot!” and then her arm saying, “and that’s your arm!” and the two would take so much joy from the baby’s reaction for hours and for hours and for hours and they would smile as she would smile back, for despite the fights they had before, despite how deep down Cormac knew Aoife had sought Yarlaith’s bed, in this moment, and in many moments afterwards, everything was perfect was perfect was perfect was perfect and safe for surely if a child was to grow and develop surrounded by so much love, they could overcome every hardship and failure and disappointment life could throw at them, no matter what, and even though the love between Cormac and Aoife was to fade and turn to something worse, the love for that child was still there, and even if Morrígan was to grow, and fight with her parents, they could never bear anything close to hatred towards her, for how could any parent ever hate a child that once bounced upon their knee and responded to their funny faces and their silly voices with a wet gummy smiles and high-pitched giggles and gurgles and—
“No more,” said Morrígan, tears in her eyes. “I… I cannot remember this. I… I don’t believe this. The man who named himself my father was a drunkard, and—”
“And still he loved you,” said Fionn. “He knew you were not of his blood, but still he loved you, for despite where you came from, you were worthy of love.”
Fionn readied himself for another attack, but Morrígan reacted by falling to her knees. She held a hand to her head.
“You were his purpose,” said Fionn, stepping forward. “The circumstance of your birth had no bearing on his love for you.”
Then Fionn reached towards the Tapestry of Fate, and showed Morrígan more, so much more than either could have ever comprehended before, for there once was a captain of the Cruachan City Guard who loved a low-born woman, and they spent many hours lying together, eyes locked upon eyes, despite never telling another soul about the love they shared, because nothing else mattered to them but moments like that, and they longed to make more, and an innkeeper’s son, who once bore feelings he could not understand for a neighbour, but just when he was mature enough to understand what he felt, she was gone and he searched and he asked and he wanted nothing more but to speak to her and tell her all that he had ever felt, but she was gone, alone, in darkness, coping with her own grief in a terrible, profane way that left no room for growth, for strength, because the death of a parent is a terrible thing that befalls every living person fortunate enough to not die young, and one thing that makes Humans who they are is their ability to deal with grief with the help and the support and the love of those around them who have experienced the same, if through conversations or through relationships or through the rituals of their religious beliefs, every person who has ever lived has gone through that pain and has come through the other side, not stronger, not without that pain, for that pain never fades, but through the other side with the knowledge that they must cherish every coming moment with every other person they come upon even more than before, and this force named love must be appreciated and respected and sought no matter its form, no matter where it comes from, and perhaps that child who dissected bodies in the darkness of those caverns could have healed and learned to love again, stronger than she ever had before, if she confronted her grief instead of hiding away from it, fantasising about a reunion that would never come, for others around her did love her, if she did not see it, and Taigdh and Sorcha and Darragh had all lost things themselves, but each loved Morrígan enough to share their own pain to let her overcome her own, but she pushed them away, she pushed them away because she saw a chance to circumvent the cycle of life, to conquer death, but instead of conquering death, she conquered only her own humanity, and this is why she saw the life created by Seletoth as a mistake, not because He created life for His own selfish purpose, but because she denied herself a process of healing so ubiquitous, so commonplace, so Human that no one can ever live a life with any real purpose without having once gone through that loss, for to the parents who spent a day in bed playing with a child with so much tenderness and so much care and so much laughter, and the Simian who lay next to his love, unaware that she felt the same, with the same feelings hidden so deep within that he could not recognise them himself, and the regret he felt when they left that one place he could be himself, and the unspeakable pain he felt when she was taken away from him; if they were all to learn that the life they were given was never intended to have any meaning, would that even come close to nullifying any of those feelings? No, for if one were to interrupt any of those moments, between Aoife and Cormac or Farris and Nicole or Padraig and Aideen and tell them how their lives have no purpose because of Seletoth this or Seletoth that, they would not care, because they have found something else to care about, something that renders the Truth and their origin and the true nature of Seletoth and the vast black void from which He came irrelevant in comparison.
As if struck by a force stronger than Fionn could muster even now, Morrígan fell to the ground, whispering to herself as Fionn caused more images to pass through her mind; the quick glances Taigdh gave her in the inn, the way he clasped his hand into Sorcha’s, the way he pushed through the crowds at Sorcha’s mother’s funeral, desperately searching for Morrígan, for it had been so long since he had seen her.
“No,” Morrígan wept. “They… they didn’t understand what Yarlaith, what my father, sought to do. They feared the power they could not understand. They….”
“And out of fear they killed him,” said Fionn. “But from your own lust for revenge, you killed far, far more. You sought the power of the gods, but would you have done so if you knew the Truth of Seletoth’s nature? Would you still endeavour to become like Him?”
“No…” whispered Morrígan. “I… I just wanted to feel… something.”
“And you could have,” said Fionn. “If you had broken away from Yarlaith and embraced the love of your friends in Roseán, you would have felt far more than what you do now. You had a chance.”
Then Fionn conjured another image, the day Morrígan and Yarlaith succeeded in raising Aoife Ní Branna from the dead, but before Morrígan went downstairs to help, she tended to Darragh, who had injured his hand with a meat cleaver earlier that day, and Morrígan healed it and he thanked her and gave her a necklace, and from this gesture, Morrígan regained some humanity, a mote of compassion, for Darragh shared with her the loss of his own mother, and Morrígan recognised for a moment that circumstance of his loss may have been worse than her own and for a moment she forgot about the catacombs and the experiments and the Necromancy, but then she remembered, she remembered the sanctuary she sought from grief, and in seeking it she left Darragh alone, and later that night, Darragh took his mother’s necklace back from Morrígan with the last of his dying strength, as Morrígan’s undead horde burned the village and slew its villagers.
Morrígan looked up to Fionn. “Darragh… I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do now….”
“The Simians are sailing across the Eternal Sea,” said Fionn. “They seek a new world to the west. Two Humans are travelling south, far from here, there are creatures that someday may form a civilisation. If we want to give them a chance of ever flourishing, of ever doing better than we did… we must leave them.”
“Yes,” Morrígan said, standing. “I hold the souls of Meadhbh and King Diarmuid. And you, that of Seletoth. If we cannot die, how can we let these people live their lives without this terrible power?”
Abruptly, Fionn lunged forward, and embraced Morrígan. She buried her face into his shoulder, and he felt the dampness of her tears upon his skin. Fionn bent his knees and launched them both upwards.
“We keep going up,” he said. “As high as we can go. Until we can’t go any higher.”
Realisation dawned Morrígan’s face.
“To the firmament,” she said, aloud. “To the void from where Seletoth came from.”
Both of their wings unfurled, and both accelerated their ascent to the skies above. Wisps of clouds streaked past, and the air around them quickly grew thinner.
Once the last of the clouds vanished, Fionn turned around, to stare down at the land he was leaving behind.
He recognised Alabach straight away. Warped and broken, with a great crack in its surface from north to south, the kingdom he had once known well now seemed so tiny and insignificant amongst the rest of the world. To the west, the Eternal Sea did not go on forever, but ended at a landmass far larger than Alabach. To the south, unfamiliar lands stretched all the way to the far end of the earth. Grey ice covered the majority of the land, but further on, to the land that he had directed Padraig and Aislinn to, plains of gold and green prevailed.
“This is it,” whispered Morrígan to Fionn. As they went upwards, the air grew thin and colder than anything the Grey Plague had brought. “If we keep on going, we won’t be able to return. We’ll have no control of where we go. And like Seletoth, we’ll plummet blindly through Eternity.”
“I know,” said Fionn, as darkness surrounded them. The world now seemed so small; a tiny disk of blue surrounded by darkness. “But Seletoth eventually came upon a world, our world, which he brought life to.”
“And if we come across the same, will we do as He did?”
“No,” said Fionn, embracing Morrígan as the dim light of the world vanished behind them. “We’ll do so much better.”
***
As the two gods departed, They spoke to those who still lived. Both voices entwined boomed like a song from the heavens, and all who heard Them rejoiced. It brought encouragement to two Humans who were setting on a frightful journey south. It brought hope to the hearts of the Simians and Humans sailing westwards, and they cheered and prayed and sang along with words of their own.
Though one lone Simian did not open his heart to the music, for his eyes remained fixed eastwards, on the land he was leaving behind. He looked on at the smoking ruin that was once Mount Selyth, and he wept for all of those he lost.
As powerful as the Tapestry of Fate was, there was one who had always evaded its threads. And he did so even now. The departing gods assumed him dead, but who were They to assume anything, after all that had happened?
And the lone Simian who did not sing to Their song saw something even They could not see. Perhaps it was a secret magic of his people, or perhaps it was something stronger and more ancient than even Seletoth Himself. But this lone Simian saw something among the smoking ruins of that mountain. And he was sure of it.
He frantically called for help, and even as the others aboard let the melody of the gods fill their hearts with so much courage and so much joy, Argyll the Silverback hoped they still harboured some fear in there for him. For it would take the fear he used to wield in Penance to turn this ship around.
Because his friend still lived.