Prologue
I've heard people talk about hell as though is it some place that awaits them when they die. A land of eternal torture for those who have committed the worst of atrocities. They're wrong. Life is hell. Living is hell. And there is no greater torment than the ones we fashion for ourselves. I have done a great many things in my life; more bad than good, I think. The memories of them play out in my mind again and again. I am ashamed of so much of what I have done. The guilt of my actions remains even after all other consequences have faded. People may speak of hell as though it is some other place, but I say I am living it every day of my life.
The Pit was finally behind me, or more accurately below me. I struggle to say exactly how long I spent down there. My mind tells me it was just over six months, but my body tells me it was over a decade. All part of the unnatural ageing, I suppose. Ten years stolen from me by the magic of Chronomancy. Ten years paid to save Hardt and Tamura. Ten years lost to kill the man I considered my brother. I suppose it was a small price to pay all things considered, and I paid it willingly. I would freely pay it again and again and again. To save my friends there is no price I wouldn't pay. That doesn't mean I'm not bloody well bitter about the cost.
It is a strange thing, but I have noticed the older I get and the fewer years that remain to me, the more I dwell on the choices of my past. I consider my mistakes and belittle my accomplishments. I find myself reliving the hardships, as though they are old friends long lost and fondly remembered. I brush over the joyous times as though they mean nothing to me, the things I have achieved minor in the face of the mistakes I have made. My life has always been fraught with hardship, but rarely has it only been that way. Down in the Pit, I will admit I struggled to find any happiness. But then prison is not meant to be a nice place.
The war was lost, the Orran bloodline was gone and their lands engulfed by the Terrelan empire. It is somewhat odd to think I went into the Pit bound hand and foot, beaten and bloody and stripped of my magic; my Sources taken from me. Down there in the dark they tortured my body and mind. The overseer, the man in charge, did everything in his power to make me swear allegiance to the Terrelans. Not once did he manage to break me, though I have already admitted he came fucking close. I think he made one vital mistake: he tried to use Josef against me. The overseer enlisted the aid of my oldest friend to help turn me. That, more than anything else, galvanised my will to defy. Defy him, defy Deko, defy Josef. I fucking-well defied them all! I went into the Pit as an Orran, daring to hope my emperor and the resistance was still alive. I came out of the Pit as a Terrelan; not because I was broken or my allegiance wavered, but because we were all Terrelans. Six months of peace after the greatest war mankind has ever known had given the Terrelan empire more than enough time to secure the last of the Orran lands. I doubt they did it peacefully though. I met the Terrelan emperor eventually. He made Deko seem like a puppy.
I stared back into the cave that led underground. We were finally free, after so much blood and sweat and sacrifice, and yet some part of me yearned to go back. Some fucking weak and pitiful part of me had decided the dark was my home, that I deserved to be there. As Tamura played in the snow like a child seeing it for the first time, and Hardt stared at the back of Yorin; marching away from us… No, not us. And not marching. Yorin ran away from me. Away from me! From the fear I put in him after he killed Josef. I stared into the darkness of the cave, little more than a crack in the cliff face really. I imagined I could hear scratching, scrabbling. I imagined I could hear the screams of the Damned chasing after us. Still, that weak little part of me wanted to go back. Fuck it! Maybe it wasn't really a part of me at all. Perhaps it was Ssserakis, the ancient horror I had agreed to carry until I could send it home. Ssserakis hated the light, that was why I found it deep underground where the darkness was complete.
For so long I had equated the sky with freedom. Long before my incarceration I looked up at the sky and it was full of promise and wonder. Down in the Pit I used to dream of it, blue or grey, clear or shrouded in cloud, it didn't matter. I used to dream of the sky and promise myself that one day I would see it again. One day I would look up and see stars shining down upon us, the twins moons locked in their crushing embrace as they passed overhead. Now I was free. Now I could see the sky again I found it scared me, made me uneasy. The light made my skin itch. My little victory had been stolen from me and I resented it. I resented the horror that possessed me and the fear it inspired within me. But resentment wasn't enough. I was stuck with it.
We had all sacrificed so much to the Pit. Tamura had long since lost his sanity, though in truth he had perhaps never had it, but I doubt it helped that he had been trapped underground for longer than I had been alive. Hardt had lost his brother, Isen. I would say I regret my actions with Isen, I certainly didn't enjoy it, but that would be a lie. It has just taken me many years to see the truth; of what it cost me and what I gained. I had also lost Josef, though I lost him long before Yorin slit his throat. I think I lost him before we were even sent to the Pit. I lost Josef up on the tower of fort Vernan. I lost him the same day the Orran empire fell. It is a loss I have never quite managed to come to terms with.
But I should move on. The Pit was finally behind me. The sky and the freedom I associated with it were in front of me. There were brighter times to come, and darker. Not just for me but for all of us. I will pick up where I left off: staring into the darkness of the cave, my bare feet cold in the snow, and a clear sapphire sky above.
Chapter 1
A terran philosopher once told me that when you stare into the darkness it stares back. I've always thought it was yourself you should find staring back at you. I found Ssserakis. The ancient horror wore many faces, always of those whose deaths weighed upon my conscience. I stared back into the cave on that cliff face and I saw the ghost of Isen standing there.
My friend. Hardt's only brother. My first love, though I'm not sure I should really call it that. My first lust maybe, my first encounter with sexual desire. My first time with a man inside of me. Isen was a mess, his leg cut open and oozing, his rags torn and bloody, his eyes were pale and misty. For just a moment I hoped it was him. I hoped he had somehow survived. I hoped Hardt would turn and see his little brother and all the pain his death was causing would be forgotten in an instant, but I knew better. I knew I was looking at nothing but a ghost conjured by Ssserakis in an attempt to scare me. But I wouldn't let it. I was not afraid of death. I would not let it affect me. I am the weapon. The mantra drilled into me by the tutors at the academy, designed to absolve me of guilt, of conscience, of doubt.
I was still staring at the face of my lover when a creature erupted from the darkness. It was not much larger than a child, but then, neither was I. The creature hit me and we went down in the snow. Sharpened nails tore at my skin as I fought to keep the thing from my face. The wail it let loose set my ears crackling. Hardt tells me I screamed bloody murder and his recollection is often better than my own. If I did, I'm sure it was more battle shout than cry of terror. I think, these days, the little beast wouldn't have shocked me at all. These days I expect monsters to come flying out of dark corners. Such is the way of raising mischievous children.
Hardt was there in a moment, dragging the wailing thing off me and throwing it to the ground. I have no doubt he could have crushed its skull in his giant hands, but Hardt wanted nothing more to do with violence or death. Too much blood on a person's hands can do that. Blood never washes off. It sinks into the skin and stains a person's soul. I didn't know it then, but Hardt was stained the deepest of crimsons. I was relatively clean of it at that point, though I soon managed to change that.