The End
They had set sail on the Wotan from Valice on a sunny day with clear skies and smooth waters. Cassilda stood on the deck overlooking the prow, staring into the blue waters, watching with amusement as dolphins swam playfully ahead of their wake. It was a crime to kill a dolphin in the Gulf of Katan because of their beauty and intelligence as well as an old sailor’s superstition that they were messengers of the gods of the sea. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to kill a dolphin. Feeling the warmth of the sun and smelling the salt of the ocean’s wind, Cassilda couldn’t image why anyone would want to kill any living thing. It was good to be alive; it was wondrous, and with wonder came joy and excitement and the rush of love. She looked across the deck at a young mage with ebony skin and a handsome jawline and blushed. Ambierce was chatting with some countess or other—she wasn’t sure and that was fine—and she was left to feel young and beautiful and intoxicated with the promise of the future. What a magnificent voyage they had begun! A tour of Capetia, the pearl of the gulf! And then the sights of the wilderness, the coast of Rheineland, and finally a stop at San-Elza, where they would drink wine from Beaune and listen to the music of flamenco and watch the dancers as they danced with the sweet summer sweat beading on their noble faces. She never imagined that she’d have such a life, not when she was an urchin picking pockets in Gaul. Those years were blotted out in her memory, replaced with a blank spot waiting to be filled with the adventures of youth.
The young mage approached her and introduced himself as Jaffrey, performing an elaborate bow that she assumed was meant to charm, though it made him look rather foolish. He asked her what she thought about the Gulf of Katan and whether she believed the warnings of the scientists of the Mitte Academy regarding the increasing industrial pollution of the North affecting the warming of the Southern Ocean. Cassilda smiled prettily at him and gave something of a non-answer; she was not particularly interested in politics or matters of a global nature. Jaffrey looked a little panicked. She wondered if he had altered his appearance, for he had more the mannerisms of a maladroit scholar than a handsome wizard. She looked out across the sea and saw something on the horizon, a menacing weather system, perhaps, or maybe just a figment of her imagination.
“Do you see something?” she asked Jaffrey, pointing at what she had noticed.
“Forgive me, lady, for I do not,” he stammered.
“I would hate for us to be caught in a squall. It would ruin the atmosphere of the voyage.”
The more she looked at the horizon the more she was certain that there was something out there. It looked as though a mass of black clouds were heading in their direction, but there was a ship beneath them, perhaps caught in the storm.
“I am going to say something to the captain,” she said. “Excuse me.”
She left Jaffrey and walked across the deck. There were many wizards on board, most of them young and inexperienced, chaperoned by Ambierce, the Countess, and a Zanj mage named Omari. It was an educational expedition, intended to widen the minds and improve the social skills of the young wizards who had signed on. Cassilda had been apprehensive when Ambierce had suggested it, citing sea sickness and shyness as reasons for staying ashore, but as always, he had been right, and she had enjoyed herself thus far. She knew that her apprenticeship was coming to an end, and part of her feared independence. Ambierce was trying to find her a position at court in Galvania or Valice, which was exciting, though she still had to apply for her license from the Conventum. I can’t live in that ruined manor with him forever she thought. Still, she would try to see him as often as possible.
“Change is good,” she said quietly to herself, stopping before the captain, who had his eyes on the horizon. He was a big man with large-knuckled hands, grizzled and stern, the spitting image of a sea captain, intimidating in a serious way, for he took himself and his profession seriously. Cassilda tried to assume the noble air of a mage, but she stammered slightly as she got the captain’s attention.
“What is it, m’lady?” he asked brusquely.
“Is that a vessel on the horizon there, caught in that squall?”
“It ain’t caught in the squall, m’lady. It’s the other way around. The ship’s steering the storm, putting it right in our direction. I’m trying to get us closer to the coast, but it’s moving faster than it should.”
“How would a storm steer a ship?” asked Cassilda.
“There’s an aeromancer on board, no doubt. In the old days, many of them worked on ships summoning good winds. Now, with more steamships in the water and mages becoming rarer, you don’t see them as much. I don’t want to meet this one. That’s an evil-looking cloud lingering over yonder, and he may be working with pirates or raiders. I don’t doubt that the mages on board could handle themselves, but it’d be best to avoid conflict. Why don’t you go tell your master what’s going on?”
She almost replied that Ambierce was not her master but instead hurried away, an ill-feeling coming over her like a cold chill. She found him below deck in his quarters, sea-sick, a sour expression on his visage.
“You are not well?” she asked.
“I had to beg leave of the Countess. My stomach is not doing well with this rollicking.”
“But it is so much better than it was earlier,” said Cassilda.
“Indeed it is, but my stomach does not know better. What’s the matter?” he asked, reading her eyes.
She told him about the approaching ship and the captain’s concerns.
“I’ll come on deck in a minute. You and I need to have a discussion beforehand. I saw you making eyes at that young man. Did you speak to him? Good. You are coming out of your shell. Soon you will be lording over us all. As soon as we have received your license, I think you should take a position I have secured for you in Valice in Albert Bourdain’s household. He’s a knight in good-standing with the Occupational government, an old friend from the war, a raconteur, and a bit of a charmer, though he knows enough to keep his hands to himself. The old families of Valice like to have a wizard on call for various traditional tasks, but Bourdain needs magical help in his capacity as a lieutenant of the Reconstruction. They have the Calamity to deal with, and it’s a task that my generation has left as a burden for the next. The decline of wizards is due to that catastrophe. It is my wish that you will begin your career as part of the solution. We can do great things, Cassilda. It would be a shame for Pannotia to leave the old ways behind while chasing so-called progress. All the technological innovations of Vaalbara will not change the nature of man. I see hope in the youth. There are no wars brewing to mar your friendships, and the old guard is as weak as ever. The Conventum will be disbanded or replaced by the youth, my dear. Mark my words: the mages on this boat will do more to better the world than all of the old Conventum together.”
He embraced her then, the old fool, with tears in his eyes. Cassilda did not know why he was becoming so emotional. She knew he loved her as a daughter, but he was losing an apprentice and gaining a peer, as she saw it. Vague proclamations made her uneasy, and she didn’t wish to live with prophesies thrust upon her. Kissing his forehead, she went up to the deck.
She noticed their faces first. Separated by only a few yards of ocean, a black ship rocked in synchronicity with the Wotan, its prow jutting forth like a skewering spike. They stood in black robes with the faces of animals; she saw a vulture beak, a wolf snout, and the bared teeth of a horse. Something that looked like a cross between a bear and a human snarled and raised a clawed hand. A plank fell, contacting the Wotan’s deck. The young mages scattered, for they knew that these were not raiders armed with swords and clubs. The reek of black magic hung from the frames of the interlopers like the stench of a rotting corpse. Part of Cassilda wanted to vanish below deck, but a horrible fascination with what she was witnessing made her walk out amongst the dark magicians. They marched on board and congregated on the bow while the youth fled to the stern, with Cassilda standing in the middle like a bridge between two countries. One of the dark magicians approached her; he did not remove his hood, but she felt a familiar sickness boiling in her stomach as he passed her by without a glance. He raised his hands to the air and the darkened sky turned blood red. Beckoning to the youth, he began to speak.
“Innocents abroad! What a time we live in! Babes cross the Sea of Katan on a great pleasure cruise, touring the ancient lands of Ur! You do know, children, that what you call Ur is only a small portion of the Maat, and that the Maat itself is only a tiny spec in the chaotic ocean of the Isfet. Order, truth, harmony—these are the concepts of the human universe and the legacy of the dead God. Man creates order, does he not? Man gives names to things and categorizes flora and fauna and the heavenly bodies. In a sense, man creates the universe that he perceives. Without his perception, man would be like any other thing—dumb, deaf, and prey to uncontrollable impulses. Which is not to say that man is any better than any other animal.”
He walked past Cassilda, pausing to place a hand on her cheek. She knocked it away, shuddering at its touch, and the dark void within the hood laughed.
“Man likes to pretend that he adheres to god-given principles. Man likes to believe that he has a moral character that shows true in most situations. Man composed the Theory of Evolution and then discredited it, because how could a godly being share a common ancestor with apes? Apes lack moral fiber, let me tell you. I once witnessed a chimpanzee in the Dzanga-Sangha beat another to death for no less of a violation than the theft of a pomegranate. I felt that all the sins of humanity were mirrored in that act. That realization, of course, led me to comprehend that there was no such thing as sin. Have your handlers taught you that, youth of the future? I doubt it. They have probably fed you some nonsense about responsibility and how important it is to be an ethical professional. You must think of others during your long, illustrious careers. They will say nothing of the intoxicant power, nor mention anything about lust. They will tell you to set aside such trivial desires and work for the betterment of mankind. They will feed you the lies that they were fed, hoping in their heart of hearts that you continue to chew your cud. Do you think that they have had their sins laid out for all to examine? If they are going to insist on morality, then should they not be judged by their own standards? Where is the war criminal Ambierce Serpico?”
He emerged from below deck and stood warily with clenched fists, teeth gritted together like he was suffering from lockjaw. His hands opened in a flash, and the wind roared, and lightning thundered in the sky, but then there was nothing but silence, and the waters of the sea seemed to cease churning. Suddenly Ambierce was on his knees, head bowed, hands bound before him by an invisible rope. Cassilda’s stomach lurched—she knew that something terrible was happening—and fear rose up in her throat at the sight of a powerful mage like Ambierce diminished instantly.
“Should we give him a trial?” asked the leader of the dark magicians.
No one spoke in answer. The Countess and Omari had appeared, but they said and did nothing. The expression on their faces told Cassilda that they were not fighters, and she hated them for their helplessness.
“Not one of you thinks this man deserves a trial? What a condemnation! Even Capetia grants the guilty a trial! Galvania punishes children for their parents’ crimes, yet they still muster up the judge, lawyers, and jury! And you children do not even know of his crimes! Has he been that bad of a teacher? Do you love him not at all?”
“They are scared of you and your brutes,” said Cassilda. “You animal men who have appeared out of nothingness. What grants you the right to accuse him in such a manner? Are you a pirate with a flair for grandiose statements? Or are you simply a degenerate who thinks himself to be intelligent when he is boorish, stupid, and ugly?”
She felt him staring at her, felt the fear he was trying to put inside her like a poison. Her heart beat quickly with adrenaline, and her hands trembled slightly, but Cassilda fought to kept herself under control and retained her dignity.
“They should be scared,” he said loudly. “Fear is an appropriate response in my presence. I never get tired of feeling like a predator on the prowl. Fear is a base emotion, the most primitive one, the natural chemical response to a world fraught with peril. I myself have been paralyzed by it many a time, though it has been several hundred years. You know how I conquered fear, pretty girl? I mastered death. I consumed a piece of God. When you eat of your maker, my child, you gain forbidden knowledge. You realize that death is weakness born out of a desire to kill thyself. It is very hard, however, to kill life. Oh, an individual falls easily, but what about a town or a city? What about a species? What about every named and unnamed creature of the Maat? You see, even God knew that He was a helpless power doomed to eternal life, and so he knew that his suicide was futile because his children would grow from his corpse. The weakness of God is present in all of us, and I have successfully destroyed my drive towards death. Unlike Ambierce here, I will survive until the last bit of the Maat has become swallowed by the Isfet. Do you understand my role, girl? God abdicated His throne, so somebody must rule. Being God means you must play the Demon as well, does it not? Look at the sky; see that it is red, burdened with the color of blood. I am in my demonic aspect. Scream if you must when I pull back my cowl, for you will view the face of evil eternal. It is old, wrinkled, and liver-spotted. It is jealous of youth and judgmental of the young. It harbors grudges real and imagined. It judges your master weak because he wanted to act but could not. And so he will be castrated and thrown to the sea, and if the waters do not take him, the beasts of the sea will rend his flesh and gnaw his bones, and what curses he speaks will fall on deaf ears. Such is the judgment of Pliny the Black.”
...
The Thief willed himself to his feet, shaking his head as though to clear the muddled thoughts flickering through his mind. They had navigated the swamps and come to the foot of the mountain, and he had spied a small, throat-like passage amongst the rocks. He and the sorceress had crawled on their bellies in utter darkness for what seemed like a mile until they had emerged into a spacious chamber, which Cassilda had illuminated with her firefly. The aura of the green light had only expanded so far, however, and a veil of palatable darkness had beset the small spirit, causing the two figures to huddle beside one another as though to ward off the nothingness that surrounded them. They had marched blindly onward until a faint green glow shimmered out of the void. “It’s the Emerald City,” the sorceress had said, and they began to run towards it, so eager were they to escape the blackness. Then something had passed before their vision, an uncanny chimera of teeth, eyes, and misplaced organs. The Thief had wanted to cry out but found himself paralyzed. The sorceress had pulled close to him and whispered unintelligible words in his ears, and the memory had faded, and his feet had begun to move once more. They met more unmentionable things in the darkness as they approached the City, and each time the Thief’s mind had threatened to break, but the spell held, for it was strong and ancient magic. Yet the last creature had been too much. He had heard its ponderous step echoing out of the ether, and the ground trembled with each movement of its many feet. A spiny, scaled appendage had slithered forth, recoiling slightly in the green light of the firefly, and he had thought for a second that that was all he would see of it, and then a monstrous, human-like skull rolled into view, jaws gaping, teeth gnashing, and the Thief had lost consciousness. After an interminable period had passed, he had awoken confused and shaken. I can’t see anything else he thought as he began to walk again. The City was close, and he managed to see nothing else in the darkness.
The Emerald City was not a city in conventional terms, that is, a human settlement composed of livable edifices and well-trod avenues. Its buildings were more like malignant growths festering in the Underworld, strange organic structures evocative of termite mounds or misshapen pieces of flesh. The Thief walked beneath slender arches that rocked gently in the non-existent breeze; he steered between pulsating pustules that moaned like dying animals. When something approached, he hid and shut his eyes, only opening them when the sounds faded. All of it glowed an unnatural green that shone through his eyelids. Nightmare noises echoed through the canal-like streets: high-pitched wails, guttural bellows, chittering shrieks. Once he glimpsed the tail of something weaving ahead and saw little skeletal creatures squirming in the flesh. After a while he got the sense that he was being followed, and so he turned around just a little too quickly and saw a face grinning back at him, a wide-eyed, stretched out, disembodied visage. His first instinct was to run in terror, but he just stood there and stared back at it. The face continued to wear its unsettling grin.
“What are you?” asked the Thief.
“A lost soul,” it said, without moving its enormous mouth.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Hell,” said the lost soul.
“I don’t believe in Hell,” said the Thief, looking around, “but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“What do you seek?” asked the lost soul.
“A companion of mine. A live woman.”
“There are women-like things near the pools, but they are not exactly live,” said the lost soul.
“Then I think I’ll steer clear of them. My companion is a witch, and she was heading for the Pit of the Dead.”
“The crater? It is over this way, through the pillars and past the garden. I will show you. We will pass a door, however. We must be careful.”
“Why?” asked the Thief.
“Because sometimes things come through the door,” explained the lost soul.
The pillars were massive leg-like structures, hollowed out husks bunched closely together. The Thief thought they appeared vaguely reptilian, though he had never seen a lizard of that immensity and therefore doubted his judgment. The lost soul moved deftly between the pillars, weaving a circuitous route that the Thief took care to follow, lest one false step trigger some terrible and unforeseen consequence. They stopped beneath a towering pair of legs and remained motionless for several minutes. The Thief knew better than to ask his companion what the matter was; it was obvious that the lost soul was waiting for something to pass. He felt the hairs on his neck stand up as though perked by an electrical current, but then the feeling passed, and the soul resumed its course.
“Why are you helping me?” he asked as they came upon a grove of mushroom-like growths that he assumed was the garden.
“There is nothing else to do,” said the lost soul.
“What are you, imprisoned?” asked the Thief.
“More or less,” said the lost soul.
“That’s pretty vague.”
“My situation is inexplicable. If there were more to say, then I would say it.”
“Fair enough,” said the Thief.
“I tried to explain my circumstance once to another like you. I guided him as I am guiding you. In as much as something can have a purpose, I think that is my own. To guide. Not to explain.”
“What happened to this person?”
“The monster got him.”
“Which monster? I beg your pardon, lost soul, but to my eyes, you look monstrous.”
“As do you to me. That’s a feature of this place. But there’s only one monster.”
The lost soul tilted upward. The Thief saw nothing but blackness.
“You’ll hear it before you see it. If it sees you, you won’t be able to move. That’s what happened to the last one. He was caught in the crater.”
“Is it a bad way to go?” asked the Thief.
“Are there good ways to go?” asked the lost soul.
“In your bed. Asleep. A heart attack while screwing.”
The lost soul said nothing in response. The Thief wondered if it understood what he meant.
“Perhaps it would be good to not have the burden. The heavy weight of being. The responsibility of watching, of waiting, of wearing out time. The fear. The desire. The kindling embers of hope.”
“I am struggling to find a little bit of light in the darkness, lost soul, and you aren’t making it easier,” said the Thief.
The lost soul did not have shoulders, but the Thief felt that if it did, it would have shrugged.
“Do you know what love is, lost soul? Does love exist in whatever dimension you came from?”
“I do not know what love is,” responded the lost soul.
“Love is a parasitic form of attachment humans are inflicted with from time to time. Do you have parasites where you’re from? Leeches? Ticks? Lice?”
“Yes,” said the lost soul.
“You can be in love with anything. A place. A person. An idea. You can be in love with your own anger. With revenge. But more commonly, you’re in love with people. When you’re in love with a person, you want that love to be genuine. You want it to be true. You don’t want it to be forced or manipulated. You wish for it to be the purest emotion in a muddled sea of discontent. You want it to grant you purpose. You want it to raise you out of the muck.”
He paused, letting his hand linger on a mushroom stalk. A great abyss stretched before them, a massive void of gray dust. It was shaped like the impact crater of a meteor; something titanic had fallen from the sky eons ago and left a gulf in this dark place. How a mountain had formed over it, he could not fathom. He conjectured that rationality had no purpose in the Underworld.
“How can something parasitic be pure, lost soul? Is love anything more than an unhealthy need? Does it require a sacrifice to be validated? And to whom are we validating our love? To the loved, or to ourselves? I’m just a simple thief. I was not made for such pondering. What I miss is the comfort of the bottle and the satisfaction of a job well-done. But we can’t go back, can we? Once we are forced forward, we must continue. You can tell I’ve been in the company of wizards for far too long. I miss the wisdom of a strange, small fellow with giant ears. I long to argue again with the barbarian. But the sorceress is the only one left, and I have an ugly choice to make. Is it love to let her do what she desires, even if it destroys us all? But how can I stop her, after coming so far? There’s no way out of the Underworld, is there?”
“Not for you,” said the lost soul.
“That’s what I thought. You are telling me that the choice has already been made.”
“We don’t make choices. We only think we do.”
“Whether or not that is true, I have to believe that it is not,” said the Thief.
They saw her suddenly, a small figure on the edge of the crater, a green firefly painting ellipses around her head. Even from a distance, they could see the Heart in her hands, a throbbing red mass of fire. The Thief heard her voice faintly as she uttered ancient words of possession, and though he did not understand, their timbre chilled him to the bone.
“She’s doing it without me. I have to go to her,” he said.
“I would wait if I were you,” said the lost soul.
A roar echoed through the Underworld, the guttural bellow of a giant. Things moved in the dark plane before them, seeking the shelter of the Emerald City. From somewhere high above in the utter blackness, a red light kindled and grew brighter. The Thief saw it as an unstable shape of trailing wing and curved talon; what the lost soul saw is indescribable in human language. As it glided downward, it seemed to bleed something akin to fire; spots of incandescence appeared on the plane, lighting the way to the crater. Every instinct of the Thief told him to hide and cower in terror, yet the image of Cassilda standing small above the Pit of the Dead roused all his courage and spirit. He sprinted out on the plane, leaving the lost soul to watch his figure shrink as the nascent fires grew larger and brighter, pushing away the enveloping darkness. Having borne witness to many similar conflicts over millennia, the lost soul turned away, for it did not wish to see the end of the Thief or the winged terror fully illuminated. After all, even lost souls have nightmares.
...
In Cassilda’s eyes, it looked like a dragon. As it bore down on her, she thought of Zmey Gorynych, the dragon-spirit of Ambierce’s haunted estate, and how she had fled in terror after provoking it. She felt the same instinct she’d felt then, the same mad urge to flee, but the burning warmth of the Heart in her hands filled her with power, and she took her fear and transformed it into rage. The firefly that had been encircling her shot up suddenly, multiplying in size as it gained altitude, changing from a tiny green spec to an enormous ball of emerald fire. The dragon roared and wrapped itself in its wings, and the fireball burst upon it, producing an immense explosion that blinded and deafened anyone in the vicinity. Cassilda watched as it fell from the sky and crashed into the Pit of the Dead, smoke steaming from its charred hide. Out of the abyss rose broken, skinless wings; a moment later the great head lolled out of the dark like a serpent’s skull, eyes burning a malevolent red. She knew no wards to protect against its strange fire, nor did she know any spell that could resist a being of such size. Still, the Heart gave her confidence, so she drew from its power and manifested another firefly which orbited the space between the sorceress and the dragon, tracing patterns in the air.
The massive head tilted and opened hooked jaws filled with jagged teeth. Smoke billowed from the creature’s nostrils, polluting the air with the foul reek of sulfur. The sorceress was tiny before it, like an ant brazenly staring up at an eagle. It stared at her with pure contempt, and for a moment she thought it was going to turn away before it spoke.
“You are no godling or daemon of war. You are a mortal shrouded in weak magic, playing with pieces you do not understand. You have taken the Heart of the one God and claimed it before the Pit of the Dead, for I have heard your words reverberating through my chambers and have come as your reckoning. Either bow before me or consume the Heart and finish what you have started.”
Its voice was strong, deep, resonant, and full of power. Cassilda found it very difficult not to collapse to her knees and give the Heart as an offering. She might have done so had not the Thief suddenly appeared by her side. His hand reached out and touched her shoulder, and she broke the dragon’s gaze and looked at his scarred face, finding devotion there that she had planted long ago. How it had grown and taken on a life of its own. No spell could command a man to walk into the Underworld or stand before the winged terror. There was not one bearing the Heart of Rankar but two, and that slight increase was enough to summon all her power. The firefly before the dragon became a tremendous wall of fire that she stretched and elongated, surrounding the monster and trapping it in the center. She would melt through its thick hide and burn it to cinders, and then she would eat the Heart and end the journey she’d begun so many years ago. When the beast penetrated the wall of flame and inhaled all her fire in one long, mighty breath, she did not know what to think. Sparks crackled between her fingers, and she bit her tongue and thought madly to try to summon the flames once more. Before she could act, it silenced her, taking her magic, and the only thing she could feel was the Heart beating steadily in her hands.
“You cannot burn something that was born of fire,” said the dragon. “If pyromancy be your gift, you are least suited to wage war on me.”
A clawed paw clamped down on them, trapping them between its digits. The dragon’s head lowered to their level. Its scales were petrified like stones, and it wore the scars of many conflicts upon its ancient skin. Its red eyes willed them to be still, and there was nothing they could do but obey.
“This is the last piece of God. After its consumption, there will be no light in this universe. The souls of all men will leave them, and the sentience that has plagued us will depart. Those that linger will do so as animated husks until their bodies decay into dust. Why would you desire such a fate, sorceress? Should this Heart not be cradled somewhere as the most treasured of all things?” asked the dragon.
...
They took Ambierce by the arms, the beast-men, and dragged him to the gunwale, leaving a trail of blood. Cassilda screamed and struggled in their grasp, but their hands were like iron, and no spell would come from her lips, nor spark from her fingers. Pliny took the severed member and tossed it overboard, shouting to the gulls who circled overhead, bidding them to come and take it.
“He is a man no more,” said the wizard. “He has no purpose left in life. Before we condemn you to a watery grave, look once more on your protégé, this fiery girl who has spoken for you, who will not believe your sins. She does not recognize my judgment. What shall be her fate? Shall we defile her as we have defiled you?”
Ambierce turned a haggard head, eyes mad, his whole face a weary expression of pain. He was mouthing something; no one could hear it, for they had silenced him. Pliny looked at him with false pity, hands stretched out expectantly, as though he welcomed an answer from the dumb man.
“He puts your fate in my hands, for he has not the strength to voice opposition. Shall I put the question back to you, my girl? What do you deserve? Shall we wait until he is tossed in the sea so that he will drown without knowing what became of Cassilda, his beloved? I can think of no finer torture.”
...
“I have to kill him,” she said, so quietly that the dragon cocked its head. “Pliny the Black. The immortal wizard. The one who has taken a piece of God and consumed its power. He cannot be allowed to live forever.”
The dragon lowered its head inches away from them. Its eyes were four feet in diameter. Its skull was as large as an elephant. When its jaws parted, its breath was like the funeral dust of a thousand urns.
“But you cannot kill evil without killing good, mortal. Man makes morality—he takes it as his god-gift—and everything in his code has its opposite. There is no pleasure without pain, no joy without depression, no courage without cowardice. Without mankind, there would be no one to define morality, and without the Heart of Rankar, there will be no human race. Will you sacrifice every person to fulfill your vendetta?”
Cassilda was silent. She looked over at the Thief. She had never realized how tall he was, for it seemed absurd that a man of his commanding height could move so quietly and disappear in an instant. He was good-looking, almost, despite his scars and brooding manner. And he was present. Breathing. Alive.
She realized that the Heart in her hands did not belong to her.
...
There he was in the waves, arms flailing, head bobbing above the water. She would not kiss Pliny’s boot, and the blood flowed from her broken nose like water rushing through a break in the hull. It didn’t matter so much what they did to her body; it was the sight of her savior, her father, her mentor thrashing in the great wide waste of the ocean that killed the hope within her heart. Even as he drowned, she was replacing the fresh void in her soul with the mad rage of revenge. She did not listen to his cries carrying across the water, hearing them only as curses cast upon the killers.
He asked her to forget him, to leave him to his fate, to let his soul be buried in the deep.
What a futile request to make! She had the rest of her life to plot and scheme as the poison inside her grew and drenched into her bones. Could the memory of her joyful time with Ambierce blot out the pain of his death? Did intense suffering erase the prospect of happiness?
...
“There are two narratives regarding the death of God. One states that He could not abide the utter horror of His existence, and so destroyed Himself, cursing the children that formed from His remains. The other claims that He sacrificed His body in order to give life to the universe. I will let you choose the truth, child of God. If you believe that you are cursed, eat of His flesh and then be free. If you believe that you are blessed, give the Heart to me, and I will do what I can with it, continuing the narrative.” Thus spoke the dragon.
Cassilda continued to look at the Thief. She saw pain in his eyes, misery in his flesh, fatigue in his bones. But there was also the smallest sliver of hope emanating from his person. There was care in his hand upon her shoulder. There was love in his touch.
She took his hand and gave away the Heart of God.
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