12 Lost In Purgatory

TWELVE SUNS HAD risen at dawn. Lorn Larthuz had counted them. There had been eleven yesterday, and tomorrow there would be one as the cycle began all over again. Not that it was ever hot or cold in this place. There was no feeling, no sensation of any kind.

Being dead sort of sucked to be honest.

The suns were the only measure of time she had since day and night had no other markers. The suns sat there in the sky, until they weren’t. No dawn or dusk, no stars at night wheeling across the sky. No indication that this was a world instead of some prison for lost souls.

On the ground in a sporadic pattern, were puddles of light, some large and others small. She had investigated them on her arrival, but had quickly discovered they did not contain anything as mundane as water. Rather, they were windows of light to somewhere else, and most were occupied by souls. It set her to wondering if this wasteland she walked across was also one of those windows, and someone else could look in and see her. As a result, she periodically found herself looking upwards at the strange sky.

All the other souls agreed with her when they weren’t arguing, babbling, or generally losing their minds. She found that she could hear them, even if she couldn’t see them. As she strode across the vast barren landscape, one broken only by some hills, she realised this might well be it, for eternity. The hill to her right was the same hill she had passed yesterday, and every day before.

I will go insane, she thought, and then in my insanity, I can build whole new worlds and not see this place anymore. She remembered Fin telling her that insanity had its uses, and she could now only agree. It would certainly break the monotony of this sameness.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t completely alone, not all the time. One might have believed the company would be a good thing, and in some ways, it was, but then considering who it was ...

‘All she does is walk,’ grumbled Manic trotting beside her, ‘across this dratted desert. Isn’t she going to do anything interesting, sister? You promised me, interesting. I did think dead souls would be more interesting. After all, they’ve left all that tiresome mundanity behind.’

‘It is purgatory, brother,’ explained Mania. ‘There is nothing else to do but walk. Look around, there is nothing but wasteland.’

‘Yes, barren like our hopes.’

‘Our dreams.’

‘Expectations.’

‘Oh, do you two never shut up?’ Lorn had her hands to her ears. After all, they’d brought her here in the first place. At first, having them with her had helped to keep her from going mad. They claimed to be guiding her or something. Like some twisted form of guardian angels. Somebody’s really scraping the bottom of that barrel if that’s what they’re supposed to be.

She knew they wanted her to do something. Just like they’d tricked her into those events in Tharaxis. She’d tried to prise out their plans, especially her part in them, but both had remained intransigent.

The shraeds had taken on the guise of elderly souls, wrinkled as prunes, each tottering along with a walking staff. Lorn had been forced to check her pace so they could keep up. She’d tried leaving them behind and walking on, but would then find herself coming up behind them. It was a weird place. Desolate.

They wore long sack-like robes, which should have chafed a bit, but she knew in their case likely didn’t. For a shraed of Tartaros, Mania liked her comforts and besides, Lorn knew it was all an illusion with those two. They could appear as anything they wished, and often did.

‘Why does she insist on this foul mood?’ whined Manic. ‘Shouldn’t her soul be a delight, considering the weight of flesh and the trappings of mortal existence has been lifted from her?’

‘It is her plight my dearest brother. The dead are often melodramatic and prone to moodiness. They do not appreciate being dead, the gift of freedom they’ve attained.’

‘I must say, sister, I do not like this part of the plan. I am not enjoying myself. You told me it would be like a holiday, remember? We never take holidays anymore, and I was so looking forward to this.’

Mania sighed. ‘I do empathize, but we must endure. There is far more at stake.’

Lorn stopped walking, kneading at her temples, eyes shut while seeking a moment of peace. She had just sat there, when they’d arrived first, refusing to get involved in whatever it was they were plotting. Then she had decided to explore, hoping to find somewhere different, but it was all the same, all the time. Nothing to break up the monotony of doing nothing, and going nowhere. Now, she alternated between sitting and walking, but it wasn’t helping much. At least back in Tharaxis, she’d had other dead to interact with, and a purpose.

‘Can’t you two, I don’t know, do something? There is nothing here. Surely with your powers ...?’

Mania placed a thin veiny hand on her shoulder. ‘Oh, my dear I wish we could, but we must not be discovered, and using our powers in such a way would draw attention.’

‘You mean attention from Him.’

‘It would be uncomfortable,’ said Manic, ‘should he catch us here. It was difficult enough sneaking in. You do not seem to appreciate the risks we take.’

‘Our arrival here was distinctly unpleasant,’ echoed his sister, ‘and fraught with danger. This is not the city of the dead. This is something else.’

‘A tragedy of epic proportions,’ said Manic. ‘I am never using the back entrance again, sister. In fact, let’s never speak of it.’

Lorn opened her eyes and rounded on them. ‘Why are you haunting me? I’m the one who is dead. Shouldn’t I be doing the haunting? I don’t like being used like this.’

Mania pursed her lips, likely in exception to Lorn’s tone. ‘My dear child, you have no concept of what death is. Do you think we would spend all this time accompanying you to nowhere in this no-place for our own enjoyment?’

‘Who knows why ... wait!’ Lorn eyed them with suspicion. ‘What is it you two are actually up to?’ She couldn’t help it. A flutter of hope in her heart that maybe they could do something after all. ‘Can you get me out of here? Can you ... you know ....’

Manic picked up a rock and threw it. A moment later the rock came from behind and landed right back where it was before he’d picked it up. ‘This is purgatory, a waiting place. You must therefore, wait.’

‘What exactly am I waiting for?’

Mania pointed to one of the puddles on the ground. ‘You were supposed to be waiting for the right moment to join the others, but thus far you have resisted that urge. It should have occurred immediately. It is not something, however, we or you, can force.’

On impulse and because they had drawn her attention back to them, Lorn walked to the nearest pool of light and knelt at its edge.

‘What are you doing?’ Mania demanded behind her. ‘We already discussed this. You must leave them be, for now.’

‘I know,’ said Lorn, staring into the light, which was not water or any liquid, but a window onto another soul. She’d noticed some of the light puddles had coalesced, creating what were more like ponds. A face shimmered into view, screaming. She knew this one, recognised her even though they had never met. Liviana Avitus, a mirror of her own soul and like Lorn, a fragment of the soul belonging to the ancient sorceress, Astra Dar.

She rose and went to another, and there saw a soul named, Antipa who had lived two centuries earlier. She knew each of them, dozens of soul fragments, all trapped in their own version of purgatory.

She was about to rise, and walk to yet another - in part because it irritated Mania, and there was little pleasure to be had in this place - when a hand shot out of the puddle and grabbed her arm.

It pulled hard, and Lorn cried out at the burning pain. Pain was something she’d forgotten. Then Mania was there, a black blade in her hands, sweeping down to sever the grasping arm. What was left of it vanished beneath the surface with a shriek of agony and loss.

Lorn fell back onto the dead ground, and stared up at the shraed. ‘Um, thank you, I guess.’

Mania appeared in no mood for niceties. ‘You are a wilful child.’

‘Intolerable,’ added her brother with a frown.

‘Ignorant.’

‘Unteachable, sister.’

Mania nodded in agreement. ‘And yet, she must learn for all our sakes.’

Lorn groaned, realising they were right, but couldn’t see how things might improve. The lure she felt towards those puddles of light, to join those other souls, was powerful. She got to her feet, no one helping her up she noticed. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? Lucifer, I mean. It’s his pull I’m feeling, right?’

Mania cocked one eyebrow. ‘Perhaps there is hope. Of course, it’s him. He is the essence of Tartaros, the collective mind of all shraeds, the will of the Darkness. Before him there was another, and after him there will be another still. The Darkness is eternal.’

‘He’s a prince these days,’ snorted Manic, followed by a guttural laugh. ‘I think existence has infected his nature more than he would admit.’

‘You have resisted him thus far,’ Mania added. ‘Don’t fall now.’

Lorn shook her head. ‘What’s the point of continuing? What is it you’re not telling me?’

Mania offered her a sad smile. ‘There are no guarantees, and until we know it will work, we would prefer not to say. You must trust us, my dear.’

It was Lorn’s turn to snort in laughter. ‘I see.’ Well, that wasn’t asking too much.

‘What is that?’ asked Manic pointing off to their left.

In the far distance, what looked like storm clouds billowed on the horizon. Lorn stared, her heart thumping in her breast. Of course, she was dead and had no heart or any other organs, and so she imagined her thumping heart was all in her head, so to speak. She wasn’t sure how it all worked, but she knew those clouds were the first new occurrence in this no-place. At least, it was something different.

‘I think he knows, brother. When I cut that arm, I used more of my power. He must have felt it.’

Manic frowned, hands on his knobbly lopsided hips, before he transformed into the Manic of old, one Lorn was more familiar with. A handsome man in a woollen tunic and breeches, all gold embroidered with silver. Mania then transformed too, her youthful curvaceous figure returning in a white almost see-through gown, leaving little to the imagination.

‘There’s no point hiding now,’ explained Manic with a shrug. ‘Besides, that particular look was beginning to depress me.’

‘We are discovered, brother.’

‘Hunted.’

‘We are in despair,’ she finished, though she didn’t sound like it.

Lorn sighed staring off at the fast-approaching clouds. ‘I’m assuming that’s him?’

‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Mania, ‘but he has sent someone or something to ensure you do as you’re supposed to, and I imagine to destroy us.’

It had to be said that Lorn found them both as irritating as two boils on her arse, and as about as useful, but they were also the closest thing she had to friends now she was dead. ‘We need to get away from here.’

‘And go where?’ asked Manic, spreading his hands to encompass everywhere. ‘There is nowhere to go to.’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Lorn, glancing at one of the puddles. ‘One of those is empty. There is no soul, and I felt no pull from it.’ She had felt something else, though. Hope. It was a strange feeling, a ghost of something she’d once felt when alive.

‘It is not yet the appointed time,’ argued Manic. ‘You cannot.’

Now there was an appointed time? They’d neglected to mention that bit.

Mania glanced at her brother, and then back at Lorn. ‘Nevertheless, we will help you find it.’

‡

Lying in bed had been something he’d been looking forward to, but somehow it hadn’t turned out the way Artorius had wanted. Then again, ever since he’d become the imperial marshal, nothing ever did. Even his marriage, since his wife had signed up to serve in the legions.

‘How do you feel?’ asked a woman’s voice, leaning over him, like a doting nursemaid and looking fretful. It was unsettling considering she was the imperatrix, and once an infamous imperial marshal. He doubted she ever had anyone doting over her whenever she’d gotten wounded.

He offered a slight groan by way of explanation, anything but having to explain. He could still see those things. At least he didn’t have to pretend at the groaning part. His right arm was in agony, although he thought it had eased off a little. They had likely given him opium or scopolamine. The medicus would have used acid vinegar to clean his wound, but he knew this wasn’t something anyone could heal. He didn’t remember arriving, or anything else until he’d awoken ten minutes ago.

‘One of the mages is a healer,’ said Sarscha with a smile. ‘He says you’ll be up and about in no time.’

‘Liar,’ he managed before cringing, once he realised what he’d just said. ‘Uh ... I apologise, imperatrix. I just meant...’

Sarscha grimaced while patting him on the leg. He was trussed up in the medicary, along with several other city folks, some rich, some poor, and most somewhere in between, and all suffering one variety of injury or another. All moaning and groaning. To see the imperatrix in such a place was scandalous, or at least it would have been in her father’s time.

‘It’s one of the things I’ve found hardest,’ she admitted, ‘since ascending to my father’s throne ... my throne. I suppose I’ll just have to get used to calling it that. You see, I used to be able to speak to a soldier, and be spoken to, as an equal, rank aside.

‘If someone believed I was wrong, they told me. Now, everyone treats me like I’m made of Valtaran glass. You don’t need to apologise, Art.’ She paused and glanced over at one of the other beds and its occupant. A viral mage was leaning over the woman. The mage was male, but scrawny and willowy, looking like a drowned rat in his black and red mage’s robes. The medicus had not been happy to have a mage usurp his authority, but he could hardly argue with the imperatrix on the matter.

‘What did he actually say?’ asked Artorius, not certain he wanted an answer, but hiding from the truth never worked in his experience.

Sarscha returned her attention to him. ‘To be honest, he doesn’t know. He said he placed a ward, I think that’s what he called it, on the site of infection. He doesn’t know if it can be healed.’

An infection, is it? Well, that can’t be good. ‘Thank you.’

Another slight grimace. ‘You shouldn’t thank me either. I sent you into the middle of it.’

‘It’s my duty.’ Besides, if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else. At least, he’d survived. He grunted as he shifted in the bed, trying to sit up, but he gave up the effort. It did feel as though his arm was improving a little. Perhaps the ward might heal the infection after all. ‘We had to find out what was causing those deaths, didn’t we?’

‘I would have sent Tezcat instead, but she was busy investigating similar incidents in the Muck. Poor girl is run ragged. An entire tenement’s worth of bodies, all blackened and rotting as though they’d died months ago, but it had been no more than a few hours.’

‘The war has come hasn’t it, and we’re losing.’

Sarscha’s voice took on a cold edge, and he began to wonder if he needed another blanket. ‘We are not losing. The war hasn’t even begun. This was nothing more than a probing attack, perhaps an attempt to weaken us. The enemy knows we have viral mages to defend us, and they seek to reduce their number. We lost two tonight. It could have been worse.’

‘Then, what can we do?’

Sarscha sat on the edge of his wooden cot, which creaked. It was oddly reminiscent of his mother sitting on his bed when he’d been a boy, and the comparison made him more uncomfortable. Couldn’t she just wait until he was up and about, and in uniform? He was strongly aware of his nudity beneath the bed covering.

‘We will hold the line, Art. This is all we can do. I wish it were otherwise. I wish we could gather the legions and march to war, to fight on our chosen ground on our terms, but ... it’s not that kind of war.’

‘We need Threadfin Todder.’ Your odd little brother. Amazing how much I miss him now. We need him more than he realises.

She nodded. ‘Threadfin, yes, and the other mages with him, and even that odd Atlantian fellow, the former prince.’

Seeing her smirk, he realised what she was getting at. ‘Well, I suppose you do have to settle down sometime, but I thought ... er, um ...’

She thumped his leg hard, and he yelped in surprise more than pain. Yes, just like his mother. ‘Don’t be an ass. Say what you think. If you don’t know me by now, you never will. If you must know, Ralan is the man I love. I don’t see why it needs to be a secret.’

‘The Son of Grim?’ The words left his mouth before he could stop them.

‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard all the stories. Apparently, he is also one of those Torments. Heard of them, haven’t you? Well, I don’t care. He makes me happy, and I can tell you that is a rare achievement these days. I just wish he was around a bit more, but we all have our duties to perform.’ She gave him an odd look. ‘I heard about your wife.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’ve assigned her to the palace guard.’

He glanced up at her in relief. ‘Thank you, imperatrix.’ How had she known? Then again, how couldn’t she? Sarscha Todralan paid close attention to all her soldiers, including him.

‘Don’t think it will keep her from all danger, Art. When this war erupts, nowhere will be safe. She’s better off with a sword in hand than hiding in a villa if you ask me. Besides, she seems headstrong, and I doubt anyone will be able to hold her back.’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he muttered.

The viral who’d treated him returned, mercifully ending their conversation. When Artorius looked inside that mage’s cowl at the blisters, which looked pink and healthy on what was otherwise bleached-grey hide, well, he wished he hadn’t.

‘The infection is in every one of them, imperatrix,’ he announced, showing no sign of any bedside manner. ‘It can be held at bay, but unfortunately not forever. It will eventually spread, and ...’ he then chose this moment to pause, and glance at Artorius meaningfully.

‘Just spit it out, man,’ the imperatrix growled. She seemed angry. ‘I was a soldier, and death isn’t something I’m unfamiliar with. The same goes for the imperial marshal here.’

The viral studied him a moment and then said, ‘It will spread and consume you, given enough time. It will consume all its victims.’

‘How much time?’ Artorius whispered.

The mage shrugged, and Artorius decided he’d had enough. Despite the pain, which at least felt less debilitating, he shoved his legs over the edge of the cot, and then heaved himself upright. Sarscha, to his shame and indignation, which he kept hidden beneath an impassive mask, grabbed him to help steady him. The mage, just stood and stared.

Bloody useless undead bastards, anyway, he thought, but he didn’t mean it. Not really. He just had to give vent to some feeling, and anger seemed the easiest, the safest, although he didn’t dare display it in front of the imperatrix. He certainly didn’t want to burst into tears in front of her, and that was as likely as anger. A fine sight that would’ve been, and too like those times with his mother when he’d gotten the black chills.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, her tone sharp and no-nonsense.

‘With all due respect, imperatrix, my job. If I’m going to die from whatever this is, then I’ll do it with a sword in my hand. We’re at war, aren’t we? Then, I’ve got a city to defend, and I’ll be doing it to my last breath.’

He shrugged her off, wobbled towards the exit, and then remembered he was stark naked. Oh well, at least I made a good show of it, and he continued on out into the night.