​​​​33 Fragments and Missing Bits

Present Day

SAT ON THE COLD stone beside her, Threadfin listened to Lorn’s breathing. Gazing up at strange stars and twin moons, he thought things over. She’d claimed not to know where the Shathra Stone was. So why did he remain? He stayed because something about her drew him. Was it love, or something else? He didn’t think she loved him, but he’d already decided it didn’t matter.

Within her was a silent strength, almost palpable, tangible. She also possessed a vulnerability he was a witness to. It made him feel closer to her. For some unfathomable reason, he wanted more.

He stifled a gruff laugh, thinking he’d spent too much time with his sister. Aiyana and her big ideas about the undead and breathers in harmony. He wasn’t sure it was possible. Aiyana also needed him, but not in the way he’d once thought. If she was the head of the imperium, he was its spine. Strong, flexible and above all, supportive. Without the Shathra Stone, however, he didn’t believe he could be any of those things. Which mattered the most? The Stone, which might enable him to protect everyone, or this woman? Then, there was the Fetch. He knew it was a threat and not just to him, but to his world.

The silence of Endor screamed of trouble. He raised his head a fraction and noticed Lorn was no longer sleeping. She rose to her knees, and he was about to ask what was wrong, when she put a hand to his mouth.

He heard a scuffling noise from somewhere within the building. Both drew weapons and moved to a second doorway, which was a ragged hole in the wall with stairs leading down.

Lorn went first, but he was on her heels, ready to shove past if danger threatened. Two floors down, was a wide corridor with shattered walls opening into the night. A few feet from the foot of the stairs, was a person, arms and legs thrashing. Whoever it was lay face down. They made no other sound. Threadfin froze when he recognised it as a boy. His hair was dark brown and his skin and clothing looked northern, as in northern Adalalcas.

He glanced at Lorn, who grimaced. She made to approach the child but Threadfin got there first. He caught the lad and turned him over, and then took a few steps back. The boy had no eyes, his mouth sewn shut, and ears sliced off.

‘What is this?’

Lorn didn’t answer, but she used her blade to open the boy’s throat. Threadfin’s shock grew when he saw the child continue thrashing. She had opened his throat with a deep cut, severing the spinal cord. The body kept moving. Black beetles emerged from the wound slick with blood, dozens and then hundreds, until they smothered the body.

She cleaned her blade, face paler than usual. ‘It happens to them sometimes. Maybe one in a hundred. This one is no threat.’

‘What ... what is going on?’

‘It’s not too late,’ she whispered in his gnawed ear pulling him back toward the stairs. ‘You can still escape, but you must leave now. Please, Fin. If you care about me, and I know you do, you will leave.’

She knew how he felt? He kept his voice low as possible trying not to choke. ‘We go together or we stay together. I won’t leave you, so quit trying to get rid of me.’ One way or other, I will get you out of here. Of course, he had the immediate problem of his powers having taken an unscheduled holiday. Once he figured out how to fix it ... well, he wouldn’t ask her.

‘What is he?’ He jerked his head at the child. The pumping blood meant he wasn’t undead. Beetles continuing to emerge, although they appeared lethargic.

She caught his hand, and pulled him in the opposite direction, past the boy and to a jagged hole in the outer wall. ‘Look outside,’ she whispered.

Within the dusty streets below were thousands of people. The moon and stars were too faint to account for the pale light emanating from everywhere. He felt a familiar knot in his stomach.

The people in the street weren’t normal. Well, not exactly. Although each man, woman, and child moved in a somewhat ordinary fashion, he had the immediate impression something wasn’t right. Their missing eyes might’ve had something to do with it. Their mouths were sewn shut like the boy’s. Gaping pits stared ahead. Slices of flesh or pieces of bone missing in a sporadic pattern, which among so many together and viewed from above revealed a macabre artistic hand. It formed, he realised, an inverted pentagram from his vantage point. That was hardly accidental.

Instinctively, he knew the designer wasn’t far away. These people, like the boy, lived. Blood dripped from their wounds. Whatever they had become, they walked aimlessly, or stood staring ... if one could stare without eyes. They didn’t seem aware of the duo watching them.

Lorn ducked her head back inside, dragging him with her. Threadfin’s voice was a whisper, his tattered lips close to her ear. ‘Is this what you were waiting for? Is this what you meant when you said you’d sold your soul?’

She glared at him as though it was all his fault. ‘I’ve played this game as far as I can. It’s almost over. I must see it through.’

‘I still need the Stone, remember?’ And you, he thought. I need you.

‘If they discover you,’ she said, ‘you will not be able to resist. You may be undead but they are no longer people. The manner of their arrival has stripped them of their corporeal forms.’

‘They look solid enough to me.’

‘Those bodies you see are not their own. Flesh and bone from this world, repurposed to house their souls. The Grim couldn’t bring them through the Darklight whole, but their reflections could pass. Their original bodies would have disintegrated.’

‘What’s a Darklight?’

She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter. These are the vanished, the disappeared from our world, and others. They are revenants now. As far as I know, only fire will destroy them. You cannot fight them.’

He gave her a vicious grin. ‘So, you do care about me.’

Lorn scowled and let go of his hand. ‘Listen to me, undeader,’ she snapped as they climbed back upstairs. ‘We may not have much time.’ She was panting.

Reaching the roof, she moved from the door towards the low parapet. She checked below and then returned. ‘Scatter told you Nalrost created the plagues, which gave birth to your kind. She also told you he sacrificed hundreds of magi to achieve this spell. Most did die but not all. There were eleven survivors ... and me.’

Threadfin held his tongue, afraid to speak. The implications of her words were burrowing through his brain faster than any maggot could dream of.

‘I lived another life over a thousand years ago. I watched Nalrost’s power grow beyond what any human mage should’ve been capable of. He tricked the other mages, along with the hundreds of wizards, witches, and acolytes who served them. He wanted to steal their power, their lives. All to birth his virals. The culmination of a life’s work. He had experimented for decades, always failing, producing disgusting creations. Other mages had turned on him. Civil war broke out.’

She paused, gauging his reaction, of which he gave none. What did she expect? He felt numb.

‘You see,’ she continued, ‘I stopped him in the end. I was powerful enough back then. I used my magic against him. I murdered every mage and wizard I could before he could complete the spell. I deprived him of their lives, their magic. I didn’t get them all. Nalrost’s spell did the rest but I’d done enough damage. Then, I tried to stop him directly.’

‘What ... I mean, why?’ was all he could manage.

She hesitated before answering. Perhaps she was afraid of what he would think. Right then, he didn’t know what to think. ‘Rasnal Nalrost always sought greater power. He began studying the Spectrum of Existence, seeking knowledge beyond our world. When he found out about a threat to the Spectrum, instead of danger he saw opportunity.’

The silence from the street below was eerie, especially since thousands filled it. Threadfin didn’t care. The woman before him was at least a thousand years old if she was telling the truth. At least, her soul was. He could see no evidence of a lie in her, but it was difficult to accept. ‘Go on,’ he said in a whisper.

She lowered herself into a sitting position as she spoke, and leaned back against the nearest wall. ‘He was in contact with other powers, forces from deep within the Spectrum. At some point, someone or something gave him the Shathra Stone. Handed it to him, or so he always claimed. I believe he stole it but the result is the same.’

‘Scatter told me he created our kind to protect this world.’

Lorn cocked her head a fraction and offered him a sympathetic smile. ‘You and those like you were the pinnacle of his creative efforts. He made you to conquer it all, our world and all its mirrors. He even used the Shathra Stone and another artefact for the spell itself to form a Key. My interference is likely why you would not be born for a thousand years. Much later than he’d planned.’

Threadfin felt ill. ‘Look, I don’t care about all that.’ He felt confused and uncertain.

‘You should,’ she said with a pained expression on her face. ‘In thwarting Nalrost, I was ... ripped apart. I died. What remained of my soul was strewn across time.’

A suspicion entered his mind. ‘You weren’t known as, Lorn, back then, were you?’

Her voice was full of regret, ‘A thousand years ago, my name was, Astra.’