4.

 

It was not a child that Zaifyr saw, but rather a young man—a soldier who emerged from the edge of the Spine, his haunt marked by the wounds that had killed him. He was the only one so marked. The man’s face was distorted by the pitch that had been poured over him which ruined the dimensions of his face, leaving a misshapen lump. His face looked like a mask, an apt description for the being that lurked behind it.

Ger is dead. The soldier spoke with a girl’s voice, a child’s voice. My father—

Your father?

He was one of many who were reluctant.

They were all reluctant. What is your name?

I have none. I simply am.

He smiled in response.

You are one of the pretenders, she said. It is fitting that I speak to you today, I believe. It is as fate promised.

There is no fate.

There is a strand. A single strand. It is the faintest truth, one I can barely understand or comprehend.

Did it tell you Ger would die?

He was always dying.

They all are.

Yes. The broken head of the haunt tilted, the damaged eyes staring at him. But in answer to the question, no, it did not tell me. I am incomplete. I cannot fully comprehend fate yet.

Like us all.

No, you are a fragment, a fallen piece of fate and power. You are what you are. You have grown as far as you will. You will never be complete.

And you will?

Yes.

Around him, the killing ground began to smooth. The huge blocks of cement that formed the Spine morphed into the crumbling peaks of the Eakar Mountains. When it had finished, the barren, windswept soil of the valley emerged. There, from the ground, a sphere of dirt began to rise, as if the poisoned ground gave birth. Men and women—memories, not haunts—flickered into being as they emerged: white-skinned, they fell to the ground in homage before the sphere. In their faces, the young and old, Zaifyr could not see sickness or the toll that the toxic land had taken of them; instead, he saw a fatigue hidden behind a fevered belief, a need to rest that was pushed aside by magic as they began to rip open the sphere with their hands.

This is my birth, she said. I was not born of woman, like you. I was not born flesh, like you. I was made from the very being of the divine.

You were born in poisoned dirt.

I lay in the soil Linae made for me. She constructed me, saw the need for me as fate told her. In my birth she must have seen her death, but did she see the prison that you were confined in as well? It was derelict to the men and women who found me, of no interest to them. But—

A crooked tower came into view, which Zaifyr knew intimately.

On the tiled roof of it, however, sat a brown mountain eagle. The claws of the bird—of Jae’le—made faint scratching noises when it landed and when the eagle took flight.

But the man you call your brother. He was interested.

Zaifyr was unsurprised.

He followed the men and women who came for me, my Faithful. He followed them for each year that it took to bring me home.

The landscape changed: the Spine returned to its truthful structure and a large wagon passed through its gates. Pulled by a pair of heavily muscled oxen, it was heavily laden, a thick, discolored canvas cover pulled over its cart. The driver was one of the older men from the Eakar Mountains, while those who had stood with him ringed the cart on horses. The fatigue he had seen earlier was now etched even deeper into their features. In the back of the wagon—through the opening of the canvas—sat a crumbling sphere of dirt, the poisonous casing barely visible.

In its cracked crown lay a child.

Still quite young—too young, Zaifyr thought, when compared to how those around her had aged—she was wrapped in a dirty cloth and slept soundly as the cart began its steep descent of the mount. A wild dog lurked behind, following from the edge of the Spine before it disappeared into the bush.

He never took control of the oxen, never thought to slow us. He but watched until we arrived in Leera, then returned to you.

Where, Zaifyr knew, the door to his prison was soon unlocked.

Interesting, but I never sensed you at all, he said. For a thousand years there was only the dead—

Who spoke of you. The images faded, revealing the broken killing ground, the flags, and the stillness of it all. I did not have a form for a long time and so I did not sense you, either. But I knew of you. I was told about you. It was not until much later that I realized you were not a haunt like them, that you were not their dead king who would not serve me.

A haunt serves nobody.

They do. He sensed pleasure, a smile through the soldier’s still lips, and frowned. I do not yet know all of fate but I can feel its strand, as I said. Its length is one I can grasp, if not know. And I know that it affects not just me, but you and all the living and all the dead. The haunts on the mountains knew this. They knew I would give them life, give them birth, again and again.

You cannot.

It is my right.

No—

I can keep them dead, or I can let them live. Her voice rose. It is my will, my power—

Then why do your Faithful use blood to work their miracles? Why not just gift them what they ask for in prayer?

The movement was a shimmer, a slam into his chest, a burst of pain across the haunt he was in. The intent, he knew instinctively, was to drive him out of the haunt, to shock him with the power she wielded. In that, she was not entirely unsuccessful. For while he kept the body of the haunt, kept his control over her, he also felt an echo in his being, a reverberation that left him with the sensation of being hollow. He could explain it no better and took the second slam to experience it again, but when she made to hit him a third time, the arms of haunts emerged from the ground and wrapped around the legs of the soldier.

You are different, he said to her, slowly.

I am the last God, she said. I am Fate. I am Divine. I am the Child. You may have power here but it is a feeble thing. You do not wish to stand against me.

Not if I have a choice.

And, suddenly, the anger and the power drained from the haunt of the soldier. Yes, you have a choice, she said softly. At this instance, it is before you.

He shook his head.

Do you not believe me?

No, you are different. I imagine that my brother knew, as well. I wonder if he felt as if a part of him were drawn in, being consumed as if tiny mouths were trying to pierce his very being?

The laughter was a girl’s laughter: musical, light and sinister through its innocence.

But I have no interest in the return of gods, especially if you do as you say, and keep the dead here. His voice grew cold. If you have done that, you are nothing but my enemy.

To that, there was no response.

In front of him, the haunt of the soldier began to dissolve. His head crumbled first, sinking into his chest, collapsing until the rest of his haunt began to do so, and the man stopped existing in any way that Zaifyr knew.