​​​​37 What Evil Depends On

RAIN PELTED THE dead earth with vengeful ferocity. It made a hissing sound where it splattered the pockmarked stone. Threadfin sat huddled within the ruins of what might’ve been a farmer’s home once. His back lay against a stone wall, thin arms around his legs. The interior of the house lay open to the elements, all but five feet of it.

A flock of carnivorous songbirds had attacked him, but the sky had burst open at the right time, leaving dozens of feathered blobs in its wake. The rain had damaged him and his clothing. He didn’t care. From his shelter, he watched the acidic sheets cross the barren land, and wondered what this world once looked like. It had been prosperous, perhaps beautiful. Something had happened. Now, although life persisted, it did so in a grotesque form.

Lorn’s face floated in his mind, her sarcastic laugh and taunting defiance, which had so delighted him. There was the uncomfortable fact she was the soul fragment of a mage a thousand years gone. She had hidden the Shathra Stone, not just from the Grim and his Fetch, but from Threadfin. She hadn’t trusted him, and worse, she’d been right not to.

He had never felt so alone. Head in hands he fought his sorrow, and then wondered, why bother? He let loose a full-throated roar, reminiscent of the scaled creature he was becoming. He’d never known such pain. When he had thought Tezcat murdered, it had come close. For some reason, this was worse. It’s because you’re responsible, he thought. Your reflection, your face, your bloody soul doing what your creator intended it for. You’re a servant of the Grim, and you don’t even know it.

He wished Aiyana was with him. He half-expected to see Tezcat or another of Aiyana’s viralic souls appear. He guessed she couldn’t reach him. There didn’t seem any way to get back to her either. Those ghouls might prove useful in that regard, but where would he find one now? He might never see his sister or Tezcat again.

His thoughts returned to the Fetch. My own reflection, detestable and evil. Within reflections lie truth, and the truth is, this is what I am.

A memory formed, unbidden, shoving aside his self-pity. Lorn had sat beside him in a village tavern, and she had said something, which at the time he’d not paid much attention to. ‘It’s not the darkness in one’s soul that makes one evil,’ she had told him. ‘It’s the choice to act on that darkness, to surrender to it. Folk giving up is what evil depends on.’

Threadfin got to his feet and stepped outside. Her words replayed in his mind. The wind ripped at him, burning rain pelting his scaly skin, as though the elements were furious at this change. The Fetch depended on his giving up. It needed him to quit. He had believed himself a failure, and had begun to fear something inside of him was evil, all of which served the Grim’s interests.

Lorn is the wisest of us all, he thought with a wry grin. He wasn’t a failure because he failed. He would be a failure if he quit and gave in to the darkness within him. So simple, but he’d been unable to see it. Maybe there is evil inside me, he thought, but I choose to fight it.

The rain hissed on his scalp and shoulders. He ignored the pain, and began the return walk to Endor across barren hills. Smoke rose in the distance, suggesting the city smouldered despite the weather.

He would find and rescue her, whether she wanted saving or not. She’d call him all sorts of names, and he would give her his cheekiest grin. She would glare and snipe at him with her best insults, like old times.

He halted, looking down at the hissing mud. He knew it was all a fantasy. Lorn had made it clear she could not return to their world, and the Shathra Stone wasn’t his responsibility. It had taken him this long to admit it, but he’d come to the Grimstyx for one reason. To destroy the Fetch. Lorn had known it too, and had drawn him there, keeping out of the Grim’s clutches long enough. Her part was over, and it was his turn. However, a stubborn part of his nature vowed he wouldn’t abandon her either. If there was the slightest chance, he would save her.

Enough daylight remained when he reached the city, but he found no evidence of the previous night’s mayhem. Nothing to suggest anyone had been there for decades.

Becoming desperate, he rushed through the streets, dodging into gutted buildings and back out, crying her name. Ashes smouldered, despite the rain, but not one body remained. Nothing. Where had it taken her? There were no tracks, nothing to suggest a direction to go in, and the ground was turning to mud. How was he meant to follow? He couldn’t find any sign of a temple, either.

Endor was empty, dead.

He kicked through ashes, howling his frustration. Not only could he not save her, now he couldn’t destroy the Fetch either, because he didn’t know where the bastard had gotten to. I shouldn’t have run, he thought bitterly. I should never have bloody well run!