"Stop it." My hands were shaking, shivering, my teeth chattering as I forced the words out through numb lips. I had always felt the cold inside, ever since taking Ssserakis in, but this was different. This was the cold it had surrounded me with down in the Pit the day I first encountered it. "Ssserakis, stop! Please." I had to force the words out, and still the cold deepened inside.
I reached out with a trembling hand, the flesh an unhealthy pale blue, and with a gesture I opened a portal. I didn't even bother to give it a destination, and all it showed on the other side was nothing. Black and black and more black, the occasional twinkle of light, possibly a star. And then, in the farthest distance, somewhere beyond anything we recognized as distance, an eye blinked and rolled toward us. The creature from beyond the portals, the same one even the Djinn had feared, and its attention fixed on us.
For a time, we stood there, Ssserakis and I, both on the edge of oblivion. The equivalent of holding a knife to each other's throats. The horror could kill me from the inside. It could lower my body temperature to the point where I would just stop, or feed my heart so much fear it would burst. But I could kill it too. Ssserakis knew the touch of the creature from beyond the portals. It knew that thing would pick it apart to learn the truth of it. Every moment we stood together on that precipice, the monster drew closer. My fear and Ssserakis' mingled until neither of us could tell whose were whose. I suppose it no longer mattered.
Enough! Ssserakis blinked first and the cold inside lessened, I could feel the heat of the Pyromancy Source once more, spreading throughout my body, warming parts of me on the verge of failure. I snapped the portal closed, and collapsed, sprawling on the sandy ground.
For a long time, we both sat in silence. Defiance and pride and stubborn pig-headedness making both of us sulk. Neither of us wanted to be the first to talk. We'd just come so close to destroying each other and yet the truth remained. We were stuck together. I could not get rid of Ssserakis without dying, and the truth the horror was already coming to realise was that it had nowhere else to go. I was its best chance of going home, even if I didn't know how to do it. Well, maybe not its best chance, but I truly believe Ssserakis would take its chances beyond the portal rather than beg the Iron Legion for help.
Silence is a disease. It infects, grows, peels away all that is good and clean, and leaves behind putrid flesh. It can take a healthy relationship and turn it sour, and I was under no false belief, the relationship I shared with Ssserakis was not healthy, but the horror was mine. Mine. Mine alone. My constant companion. My secret no one else knew. We fought and we hurt each other, but it was not the damage or pain or fear that was truly threatening to tear us apart. It was the silence that followed in its wake. It is hard to cut diseased flesh from a body, harder still to convince the afflicted that it is necessary. Silence is the same. It's so much easier to wallow in silence, to allow the relationship to wither and die, than it is to extend a word of apology.
"I will find a way." It was not an apology I offered. In some ways, many ways, it was both better and worse. Any apology I uttered, Ssserakis would know for a lie. Instead, I offered my passenger a promise, offered in genuine honesty. "I don't know how to send you home, Ssserakis. But I will find a way. But not until my desires are met."
What desires?
"Vengeance." I wouldn't name it justice, not to Ssserakis. The others would want to hear it, but my horror would want to know the truth. "The Emperor and the Iron Legion have to pay. Once they have, I will find a way to send you home, no matter the cost."
I need more.
"I won't give up my vengeance." I'm not sure I could, in all honesty. The desire to see it wrought had lessened for a while. That was due to Silva's influence. In her arms I found a different reason for living. But I had chosen the pursuit of power over the woman I loved, and now my vengeance was all I had left.
I need a promise. Swear to me you will stop at nothing to enact your vengeance. Regardless of the cost, lives or otherwise. Stop at nothing. Kill the monster who brought me to this hateful world, and then send me home!
I nodded. "I promise."
If you take one lesson away from my story, from the mistakes I have made in my life, let it be this: Do not make promises. They hold us, bind us in a way that goes beyond the physical. They make manifest desire and purpose. To make a promise is to offer up your own hands in slavery and damn the consequences. I have made many promises in my life, and the truth is I have broken most of them. Each time, I think I broke a part of myself with it.
That day, I left the tower with answers, more questions, and most importantly, a purpose. One I knew Ssserakis would hold me to.
Chapter 12
The following weeks saw me struggling with the true message of Aerolis' memory. I replayed it in my mind over and over again, and soon discovered that Ssserakis saw things in that memory that I did not. The horror saw the emotion clearer than I and sensed the tension in the way the Djinn moved and spoke. It was far more astute in the subtleties of the body language of a race who had no true bodies, save for whatever element they took. We struggled with it together. The tension between us was not forgotten, nor the fact that we had come so close killing one another, but it was forgiven. And not just by me.
Aerolis would be no more help. The Djinn clearly considered his debt paid in full, and I had the distinct feeling that summoning him again would do little to shed any light on the matter. He gave me a riddle, and I would uncover the solution myself.
We took the time to heal. Ishtar's ankle never truly recovered, leaving a limp that afflicted her with every step, but she became quite nimble with a crutch. Our training continued, and despite improving, I felt she improved even faster. I still could not win against her. I couldn't even land a single blow. Imiko brooded. Her conscience threatened to unravel her, and the inactivity made her obnoxious. She was a true pain to be around in those days, and I found I missed my friend. I could fondly remember her levity and wit and the good humour that followed in her wake, but they were gone. I had no idea how to fix the situation, and even Hardt struggled to console her.
Hardt himself chafed. There was little to do up on Do'shan. The city was built and entirely unsustainable. We passed over land and sea, forest and desert. We couldn't stop. There was no anchor in place on Do'shan, and even if Mezula stopped Ro'shan, our flying city would just orbit around it. There were no flyers, and no chain, and no way for the people below to reach us. Supplies were running low, and starvation was becoming a real issue. Hardt found he had nothing to do. Horralain suffered a similar problem and contented himself with days of following me around, watching my back. I wonder what the big man thought when he saw me talking to my horror. Perhaps he thought me mad.
Tamura, I think, was the only one of us who found the change of pace to his liking. The crazy old Aspect happily spent so many of his days lounging around and staring at the sky, or studying the architecture Aerolis had risen around us. Immortality gives a different perspective on life. It is easier to feel like a day is wasted, when you have a limited number of them.
Eventually I went to Tamura for the answers I could not reason out myself. He has always possessed wisdom for those patient enough to decipher his ramblings. I found him sitting on the rooftop of the empty building we called home, tending a cook pot and a dying fire. Where he had found the kindling to start a fire, I had no idea, there was no wood left on Do'shan. One of the many things our lofty position in the sky denied us.