Well,
you’ve got to give me this,
Will thought, staring down at his own still-warm corpse. I know
how to make an entrance.
Around him, the chaos was slowly
subsiding. The charge of the pikemen
down the hillside had apparently scattered the enemy. The bell in the distance had stopped
ringing. Ben and Jason were standing
over his body, the former with an expression of immense sadness, the latter
displaying slack-jawed shock. It was
actually kind of a weird sight. With his
eyes goggling and his mouth wide open, Jason’s face bore an uncanny resemblance
to the hoodie that surrounded it.
Jason looked up at Ben. “You think…you think he’s hurt bad, Ben?”
Ben couldn’t raise his eyes. “I’m afraid he is, Jason.”
“But…how can you be sure?”
“For two reasons. First, there’s six to eight inches of your
harpoon sticking out of his back.
Second,” he added, with a weary gesture, “that would appear to be his
heartlight.”
Jason goggled in shock. “Oh, no!” he wailed. “Oh, no!
No! I didn’t mean to do it! Wait!
Come back!” But Will was drifting
off again, back down the slope towards the Redoubt; for the first time in
weeks, he actually wanted to be alone. He arced in through the mouth of the cave, past
the flickering torches and the newly depleted cairns and basin, and retreated
down one of the narrow fissures extending from the main chamber, around the
corner and into the darkness beyond.
Hovering in the dark, feeling sorry
for himself, Will reflected on the past several weeks of effort. If
nothing else, he thought, I’m better
at meditating now. And I have a better
idea of what I need to do to bring myself back.
I just need to remember what exact questions I asked myself.
Rosemary
won’t be pleased,
he thought. But she’ll hide it well. She’ll
put on her Yoda routine and help me get back.
And when I’m back, I’ll have some insights that’ll help her as well.
Maybe I can provide other souls like my own a swifter path. And then, his mind still adrift: Wait a minute. Yoda? How in the world, with no memories, would I
have any idea who Yoda…
Resonance. Flash.
Impact. Will was freezing cold,
naked, gasping on the cave floor.
Wait…what???
Will couldn’t get his breath back,
or his bearings. All he knew was that he
was cold, butt naked, and suffering. All
around him in the floor of the cave, there was a small, perfectly smooth
depression which he could have sworn hadn’t been there before.
I…I’m
back, he thought. I
was dead. And now I’m not. I’ve incarnated again.
But…how?
Will managed to roll over onto his
back, out of the hollow in the floor.
The depression wasn’t deep. The
material that had disappeared from the cave floor wasn’t too much, really. A small quantity of rock. Perhaps a little less than two hundred
pounds’ worth? Some part of his brain
was demanding his attention, shouting at him that something about the situation
was wrong, but his wits were addled and he hadn’t the spare energy to reflect
on it. It had been a very long day and
he was very, very cold. He needed to put
on some clothes and to put something hot into himself. Will dragged himself to his feet and had
almost managed to make it back to the main chamber when a sizable parade of
Havenites began pouring into the Redoubt through the main entrance. Shivering and mumbling poorly-enunciated
curses under his breath, Will hid his nakedness behind a small rock outcrop
just beyond the confines of the larger enclosure. The ringing in his ears was subsiding. He could already hear snatches of conversation
from within the main chamber.
“…in here, right? I thought I saw it go in here.”
“No, no, move the wounded to town
hall. Doc’ll be waiting. Only the dead in here. Get that stretcher over there…”
“I didn’t know! I swear!
All I saw was a guy coming for Ben with a spear!”
“Jesus. Look at this one in the cloak. He’s just a kid.”
“You sure about that? I mean, he’s pretty hairy...”
There were a plethora of voices
now, and the strange acoustics of the cave made it difficult to guess at the
location of any one in particular. Will
had to actively focus to isolate any particular conversation, but at length he
managed to tune in on a man and a woman.
“Sounds like the hillmen came in
through the south perimeter. Who was
supposed to be patrolling down there?”
“Dunno. From the sounds of it, we gave better than we
got, though. Fire went up quick. Sounds like they pretty much cleaned out
Ammerman’s store, though. The
merchandise, anyway.”
“You don’t say. The hillmen to put a blade in Ammerman himself?”
“No.”
“Damn shame.”
“I hear he’s hoppin’ mad, though. Next town meeting oughtta be interesting.”
“You know, I don’t know that Ben’s
going to be in much of a mood for Ammerman’s whining over lost merchandise. We lost at least six good men and women on
this end of town alone―and Ibrahim was on his third body. Lost Yvette, too, if you can believe that,
though she took about six of ‘em with her.
Pretty soon, there’ll be more lights in here than…than…something with lots
of lights on it. Like, a chandelier, maybe. If we had chandeliers in Haven, I mean.”
“You sure got you a way with words,
Red Dan.”
“C’mon, Aemelia, even a poet like
me can’t get every metaphor right. Anyway, Rosemary will be playing midwife for
weeks, and it’s not like she hasn’t been busy enough with that sort of thing
lately. I’m guessing we won’t get them all
back, either. The hillmen are going to
have a lot to answer for this time.”
Will was distracted by a more
familiar voice―a woman’s voice, shaking with repressed emotion. “Ben!
Ben, thank God, oh, thank God…”
“Hush, Rosemary. I was in no danger. Our young friend over there was…vigilant…in
my defense. He’s a bit shaken at the
moment.”
“Oh, Ben. Did he lose control? Did he kill somebody?”
“It was war, Rosemary. He killed, at a rough estimate, everybody. Including, ummm…unfortunately…”
“It was war, Rosemary. He killed, at a rough estimate, everybody. Including, ummm…unfortunately…”
“―oh, Ben. Oh, I heard.
Oh, no. Is that…him? He’s so young…”
“I’m afraid so. Not much doubt of it. He’s wearing the cloak, after all.”
“He hadn’t made the slightest
progress…when the bell went off…I would never in my wildest dreams…what happened?”
A third voice, a young man’s, crumbling
around the edges. Jason. “He was coming up the hill…he had a spear…I
thought…I mean, I didn’t think…” Then a shuddering moan.
Ben, smoothing things over as best
he could: “Probably best not discussed
at present. You’ll want to take Emily
home, we’ll need to…”
And then an even more familiar
voice, one Will had been listening to every day. One he’d been clutching onto like a
lifeline. “That’s not…no. No, that…that…can’t be right.”
“Emily…child, I’m afraid there’s no
doubt that―”
“I’M NOT A CHILD, BEN!” Then, much more quietly: “And…and that’s not…that’s not who I’ve been
talking to.” A long pause. “It can’t
be…all that time, listening…she told me…” And then, even more quietly: “He
told me…”
A moment’s silence. Then, Jason, on the edge of tears: “Emily…I swear…I swear to God…he just came
running up the hill with a―”
Her voice was acid: “Shut up, Jason. Just shut up.” Retreating footsteps, echoing through the
chamber. Then, silence, except for Jason’s
muffled sobs. Teeth chattering, Will
closed his eyes, curled up into a fetal ball to conserve body heat, and waited
for the nightmare to end.
“Perhaps it would be better if only
Jason and I concluded affairs here. The
rest of you…thank you, the community of Haven thanks you, for your brave
service. Go home to your families. The rest of this dreadful affair will wait
until morning. ‘Early to bed and early
to wake, makes…’ …something to that effect, I don’t know. Go home to your families. All of you.
Please. Rosemary, please tend to
Emily; I will be home soon, I promise.”
Then, muttering voices, fading into the distance.
Will’s toes and fingertips were
blue, his teeth chattering. Hypothermia, he thought. I built
a new body out of cold rocks in the back of a cave. Their elemental makeup changed, but their
temperature didn’t. If I don’t get some clothes on within the
next few minutes, I’m gonna have to go through this whole process for the third
time in one day. But I don’t want them
to see…ah, damnit. Will struggled to his feet and staggered out, naked,
into the main chamber.
Ben and Jason were the only ones
left. Jason was sitting on the floor,
face buried in his hands, a ball of misery.
Ben had a grip on his shoulder and was trying to console him.
“I was his sponsor. And I killed him! The first time I saw him, I killed him!”
“Now, there, boy, no reasonable
person could blame you. You only sought
to defend me against our enemies…it was dark and there was much confusion…”
Will cleared his throat. “Uh…I don’t mean to int-t-terrupt, but can I
have that c-c-cloak thingy b-b-back?”
Ben and Jason looked up
simultaneously. Will cupped his hands over
his nether regions and offered up what he hoped was a charming smile. In return, Ben and Jason offered him stares
of blank amazement.
“N-n-no, seriously, I really need
that r-r-robe. Like, r-r-right now. Please.”
Nobody moved.
And after a few seconds, nobody
continued to move.
“Now here,” Ben whispered, “is a
thing that is not ever supposed to
happen.”
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