"The things you cannot live without will bring you to your knees," Cevo said.
"Nothing can extirpate me," I said.
"Anything can kill you, if you love it too much. The price of immortality is to love not."
He said these things the last time we talked. He wanted to keep me from getting too close. To keep me nimble. To help me make the hard call when times became murky.
He was right.
He was right about Evan Burl.
I've stood in platinum halls filled with kings lying prostrate before me. I've surmounted thrones as multitudes shouted my name. I've conquered snow-capped mountains, defeated oceans, vanquished heavens. The people of the world shout, "Terillium the Great," as I pass, then whisper under their breath, "Terillium the Unum," when they think I'm out of earshot.
And this boy, this Evan Burl, this Bête Noire could be my undoing. All because I thought the world might not survive without him. I'm still not sure it can.
Four hours until sunrise.
Time is up.
My armada's flagship, the thousand-ton barque Elandian, had lulled most of the 455 crewmen onboard to sleep hours ago.
At times like these, when all I have for company is my past, the faces come back.
Tonight, Evan Burl's mother lies in my arms.
For the thousandth time, I watch her suck her last few gasps of breath. Always the faces. They haunt me, crawling out of the abyss when I am weak.
I clench my eyes tight, bury the woman back from whence she came—the damp mines of my mind. I move on.
Build another wall.
Lock another door.
Dig another grave.
Bury another face.
Occidere alium diem.
My life had been reduced to a cast of routines, all to keep my secret guarded. All to keep the ones I loved secure.
I bid good night to the eight guards standing straight as masts outside my door. Brushed my teeth just inside the door so they could hear. Pulled the curtains shut. I managed only ten minutes of Un Voyage en Ballon before realizing I couldn't remember a thing I just read. And the author was supposed to be a pioneer in science fiction? Placing the leather strip back to where it was the night before, I laid the old tome on the nightstand. I dialed down the lantern next to the bed until its flame flickered out in a puff of smoke, then I rose silently and walked through the dullgloom to an adjacent room that contained a table, six chairs, a large chest, and no windows.
I shut the door silently, locked it with both the deadbolt and the hidden internal lock I'd installed myself. As I approached the chest, the lid lifted. A neatly stacked pile of bedclothes floated out, situating themselves on the table. I stepped inside the chest, turned to face the locked door and descended into the belly of the ship.
I sat at a small desk in a cramped room. Hundreds of well-worn hand tools surrounded me, hanging lonely and unused on every square inch of the walls. I clicked a round button inscribed with a sans-serif T in its center. A light hanging from a cord above the desk sprang to life. Unlike the ships' many lanterns and candles, this light hummed ever so faintly as it ebbed out warm, soft pulses through the large glass ball enclosing it.
Nothing put me at ease more quickly than the hum and flicker of electric resplendence, perhaps because I was one of only a few men in the world who had ever seen one. A gnat appeared out of the darkness, buzzing in a trancelike dance around the glow. I swatted the bug away; it dematerialized in a puff of smoke.
I scrawled a few words on a blank sheet of parchment.
Urgent. Lectito statim.
Xry Mazol, I received the results of Evan Burl's test today. The news is worse than I imagined possible. I fear for your safety.
But what to write next—execute Evan Burl? Or let the boy live?
Cevo would have a few choice words for me if he saw me now. Yet he was the reason I had to be so careful. I couldn't let Evan Burl fall into his hands.
I read Evan Burl's test results again—all eight words, if you counted the sender's name. It arrived that afternoon tied to the foot of a pigeon, confirming the worst of what I guessed about the boy. Normally, my genius for guessing correctly would have pleased me, but what I felt bordered on despondency.
I risked much in hiding Evan Burl. More still in leaving the Spider to Mazol's care. If Cevo discovered their location, if Evan Burl escaped, all would be lost.
I lifted a bracelet from the desk. I'd been working on it for months—a gift for my daughter—in case I didn't have much time left. She would be taller now. Would she smile when she saw me?
I tucked the bracelet into one of the long pockets of my worn leather pea coat. My daughter's face provided the resolve I'd been searching for. I scrawled the last few words onto the papyrus before me, read them back to myself, then pulled out a small leather book and copied the letter onto the first blank page.
Crumpling the original, I turned it to flame with a flick of my finger. As the paper transformed into heat and smoke, Evan's mother flashed through my mind again.
"This is best for him," I said. "Optimus quisque."
The chair screeched on the worn plank flooring as I stood. I stuffed the book into the same pocket as the bracelets and cleared my desk.
The message was sent. I felt lighter. Decisions are sometimes more difficult to make than to carry out.
I imagined my daughter, my little Bell, running up the plank to greet me, six months older than the last time I'd seen her. If the winds favor us, we could be home in a few days.
But the tome weighed heavy in my pocket. Would my daughter run to me if she knew what I'd just done? Non puto.