Chapter XVIII: We Make the Future
‘Remember what I am.’
Cédes’s words still haunted Ifaut, dancing through her head and refusing to offer help to their meaning. Her thoughts weren’t helped by Richo’s frequent interruptions throughout the day to check on her. Every time he wandered in she wanted to scream at him, tell him to go away so Sansonis could come back. She didn’t. Instead she sat listening to his plans for what would happen after they were married, all the while staring blankly at the wall behind him. She doubted he had even lifted a finger this whole time to help his men as they aided the Alzandians.
What was Cédes? She pondered the question repeatedly. A Furosan, first and foremost, obviously. Part Alzandian, her adoptive sister, a prophetess of Mafouras, Seventh Sajana, priestess of Lidae. A lovely person. None of those helped. Perhaps, she thought bitterly, Cédes was the one who would sit by and watch her, in a manner of speaking, enter into a loveless relationship.
Karick staggered to one side as Maya tore past. He gripped his bloodied shotel, a claw hundreds of times larger than Maya’s own, preparing to slice the ferret should the chance present itself. Even the creature’s pathetic leather armor would be no protection.
“Come back here,” he laughed as he turned. His wounded leg caused him to pivot in place, yet the Nefairu trickling through his body propped him upright.
Maya skittered past again, a blur that streaked underneath the falling steel. His claws swiped in a movement very foreign to a ferret, and he tumbled end over end before righting himself again. For his pains he saw blood appear from Karick’s bare ankle. And learnt a new swear word.
You think you are a god, Maya said as Karick lumbered around to face him. You bleed like a human.
“And you will die like the rodent you are!” Karick spat back.
Maya shot forward again, hoping he could injure the human’s other leg enough to bring him down.
Karick saw what was coming. Smiling darkly, he pivoted on his right foot and his left boot found Maya. The ferret soared with a scream, feeling something inside his body break, and hit the ground hard.
“Maya!” Stefi shifted her attention from a dying Radus just in time to see what had happened, and her grief multiplied impossibly. Maya didn’t move.
“Hardly seemed worth the effort,” Karick said with an exaggerated sigh. He ignored Maya and staggered towards Stefi and Radus.
With Radus bleeding the last of his life onto Alzandia’s hills, Stefi closed her eyes and held a quivering Gemmie close. Just like when Cédes first taught her to block out the world, she felt herself drowning in waves of despair. She surrendered herself to her fate. Perhaps, she thought, the next life might be kinder to her and her ferrets. And Radus. She could almost see a rainbow before her eyes now.
“We’ll take no more chances,” Karick continued, pulling a small glass vial from his pocket. A vicious green liquid sloshed inside. “We know you’ll fight back,” he said, calmly pulling out the cork stopper. “This way,” he said as he drizzled the contents across the shotel, and Stefi noticed a pungent, burnt smell, “the slightest cut will kill in moments. We had hoped to poison the water of this pathetic place. Crude and possibly cliché, we admit, yet effective. Seems almost a waste. Almost.” He tossed the vial carelessly over his shoulder.
“I fight…” Radus gurgled as blood seeped from his mouth. “Protect my Stefi.” His gaze looked through her, alighting on something beyond the world and his agony.
At his words Stefi wept even harder, mourning his affection as it died. No longer bothering to apply pressure to his injury, she took his right hand in both of hers and glared defiantly at Karick.
“Stefi! Radus!”
She recognized the new voice without seeing its owner. It was Sansonis.
“Perhaps the Kalkic will fight us,” Karick taunted, readying his blade before him as Sansonis ran over.
Sansonis took in the scene and knew right away what had happened. He half expected the familiar darkness to fall across his mind as he clenched his fists before realizing it was gone, along with the voice of Kardin. The knives were gone from his belt too. He was armed only with his own desperation.
“Come, let us finish this,” Karick continued. He was so distracted by the new arrival that he didn’t notice Maya hoisting his broken body from the ground, didn’t notice him licking the discarded vial.
Kalkic. No, that’s not right. Sansonis, Maya said, even his mental voice weakened by the kick that had broken his ribs. I want to fly one last time.
Sansonis nodded, and in one swift movement he lunged forward, scooping up Maya as he went. He barely avoided the deadly blade that swept past.
Thank you, Maya said from the safety of Sansonis’s arms. We should finish this quickly. Throw me at the bastard. It’ll at least give you a chance to close in and finish him.
“You’re crazy,” Sansonis muttered. Then, with a grin, “I like your style.”
Exactly. He’ll never expect it. He twitched, struggling to keep his eyes open, and Sansonis wondered just how badly he’d been hurt. The ferret’s little heart hummed against his hand and his breath came shallow and fast.
Then Sansonis realized something. Perhaps the ferret knew he was mortally injured and wanted to go down fighting to the end. He knew he would have.
You know… you remind me of her…
He drew back his hand, clutching the armored ferret. “Fly true,” he whispered and hurled Maya like a furry, pointy missile.
Maya was right. It was the last thing Karick expected from them. Reacting slowly, the human lifted his shotel to intercept.
The curving steel clashed against Maya’s claws on one paw, shattering them with ease, and the impact twirled him end over end. Somehow, perhaps by chance, his lithe yet broken body twisted in mid-air, a feat made more impressive by his restricting armor, and with a swipe the remaining claws stabbed into Karick’s right hand. The human dropped the shotel with a pained cry as Maya hung there, his claws now hooked through bone and sinew.
He’s mine! Maya whooped.
Sansonis made to move forward. He almost laughed at the sight of a ferret dangling from a wildly waving hand, unable and unwilling to let go. He didn’t. What came next made him want to cringe and shout.
Somewhere in between the cries of “Ferret!” and countless swear words, Karick managed to grab one of the straps of Maya’s armor. “Gotcha!” He grinned in triumph and yanked hard.
Maya screeched as the war-claws were torn from his paw with a crack of bone and searing pain, yet somehow he barely felt it. He was there, he knew, and yet not. As he dangled helplessly before the one who had destroyed his home, his fading gaze shifted between Karick’s face and a peaceful field, almost like he was falling asleep.
His head grew lighter as the strap that held his armor to his back tightened about his neck, and vaguely, like watching from a distance, he felt his lower body spinning uselessly. The last thing he saw was a finger centimeters from his nose.
“Just a pathetic ferret,” came a taunting voice that echoed through his head over the strange whooshing in his ears.
There sounded another voice, one heard so long ago that he struggled to place it. You have fought well, my love. It is time now to come rest with me.
Kilara!
A small ferret, more black than brown, shimmered into view. Behind her he could see what looked like a rainbow reaching across the heavens. His heart leapt, though whether it was from seeing his long-dead mate or the leather strap pulled tight about his throat he didn’t know.
The next minute he felt reality snap itself back into place, throwing the taunting finger into clear view before him.
You will… harm… no more! Gathering what remained of his strength, his head shot forward and his two large fang-like canines sank into soft flesh.
At once the pressure eased, leaving him gasping for breath as he felt himself flung around once more, this time hanging on with his teeth. Then everything went dark.
&nbs
p; Sansonis was glad Stefi couldn’t see what happened next. On top of Radus, he feared, the shock might have killed her. Karick’s hand swept upwards, smashing against Maya’s body and sending the ferret flying in a spray of blood. His lifeless body thudded to earth, his mouth streaming blood from the shattered stumps of his fangs.
“Dead… now…” Karick panted, rounding on the still body. He raised his right foot, preparing to stomp the life from the creature and ensure the last war-ferret of Farān was truly dead. It hung there as he wavered slightly, raising his bitten finger to eye-level.
“Impossible… deceitful, sneaky weasel!”
Sansonis inched closer, close enough to see what looked like two gleaming white thorns protruding from Karick’s finger, each surrounded with blood and the same green liquid coating the dropped and forgotten shotel.
“It’s over for you,” Sansonis spat. He jumped when an all-too familiar voice shouted back, one he had heard before in his own head.
“There will be others!” Karick’s body wavered and fell to its knees. “More weak, detestable humans to nurture hatred, to give rise to their god. As long as humans live on, so will hatred for anything that isn’t them. The age of ferrets will yet end. Behold, the vessel of Dawn lies dead!”
“The sun will always rise as long as we want it to,” Sansonis said levelly, gray eyes steely with hatred. “It’s almost a shame that what you learnt with me has gone to waste.”
“This world is all that is waste.”
Karick let out a gurgle and slumped backward, unmoving and unbreathing. Maya’s poisoned, broken fangs had done what Sansonis had long wished to do: kill the leader of Sol-Acrima’s church and military. The brave ferret had won at the cost of his own life.
Collecting his thoughts, Sansonis took up Maya’s still-warm body, cradling the tiny hero in his hands.
Kilara… he thought he heard a voice say, but it soon faded into what sounded like wind sighing through pine needles. Then it was gone. And, as the battered creature blurred through his tears, he knew. So was Maya.
“It pretty…” Radus whispered as Stefi again wiped the seemingly endless trickle of blood from his mouth.
“What is?” she said, her voice choked by grief.
“Dei-Latan,” he managed to reply. “B… b… bridge. Colorful.”
“Tell me,” she said soothingly, knowing very well what he must be seeing. “If you feel you have to go, I won’t try to stop you.” She managed a weak smile that reflected in Radus’s unfocused eyes.
“Pretty…” he repeated. “Not like Stefi. You more pretty. Want stay with Stefi. Can’t.”
His breathing slowed and Stefi found herself leaning forward. “Go,” she said, then added without knowing why, “I’ll see you off.” Bending lower, her lips brushed against his forehead, and she caught a glimpse of something just out of range of her vision, like a half remembered dream that dances just beyond the screen of waking life.
Without thinking, she lifted the bandana tied about her neck over her eyes, the next second finding herself in what at first glance looked like exactly the same place. But the sun was gone and the sky burned a dull red. Not a sound hung in the stuffy air. Nothing stirred except Radus, who stood a few steps away, his back to her.
“Radus?” she asked, barely hearing her own words. The very air seemed to stifle them.
He turned to face her, and at once Stefi became strangely aware that the world about her seemed to be shifting, like a canvas stretching and spiraling towards a single point somewhere above the horizon.
Radus began to speak in Alzandian, but it didn’t matter to Stefi. Somehow, she found, the words danced into her head, rearranging themselves into a language she could understand.
“Glad to have met Stefi,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the world shifting around them. “Made Radus very happy. Only regret, not enough time.”
All Stefi could do was nod. Her head felt heavy in the air, weighted by sadness and the overwhelming desire to sleep.
“Another place, another time, perhaps,” Radus continued. He raised his head, glancing towards the point the world seemed to be vanishing into, where it was as if all existence was being sucked through a tiny point. He frowned.
Stefi stepped forward. Even something so simple seemed to require far too much effort. Perhaps it would be easier to fall asleep. As the world grew darker, its light fast drawing away, she caught Radus in her arms, kissed him lingeringly on the lips. He did the same.
At last he pulled away and, along the scenery about them, vanished.
“Always smile,” his voice said.
She found herself suddenly quite alone, wrapped in a darkness that chilled her body. The next moment she felt the bandana lifted from her eyes.
“It’s over,” Sansonis said as he knelt down and put a reassuring arm around her shoulder. He placed Maya’s broken body in her hands. “He died a hero,” he said. “You should be very proud.”
Stefi barely noticed. Her attention refused to turn away from Radus. His violet eyes looked more like amethysts than ever, growing dull and glassy, devoid of their cheeky sparkle. She reached out a hand and eased them closed. She couldn’t quite be certain, but she knew, looking at his face, that he had died happy. And Maya had died a hero.
That was all that mattered.