Shin did not answer.
Instead, he drummed the table with his fingers. The beat slowing with each pass of his fingers, till it came to a stop.
"First time I saw you," he said, voice even, "You were just a kid. A hunter who walked into the lion's den. Perhaps it was a fool's bravado. Or maybe it was your guts. Then, I heard of you taking part in the Ahamkara hunt. You bravely hunted the dragons on Mars. Your squad was among the few who succeeded."
His gaze flicked up. "Ah, of course. Then there was the Moon."
"The Great Lunar War."
Void did not shift. "I didn't come for a story hour."
"Humour me," Shin cut in, not unkind.
"You joined the frontlines. Fought bravely against the Hive. Against the dreaded horrors that haunt those who dare to rise against them. Finally, you took on the Hive's ascendant in a brief but deadly exchange."
"Saved the lives of hundreds, if not thousands." Shin smiled. "You became a war hero. A symbol of growth and resilience." He clenched his fist and raised it high.
"One that showed no signs of stopping."
Shin's voice dropped.
"You did all that. Then you did the one thing no one expected you to do." He locked eyes with Void and slammed his fist down on the table.
Shin's eyes took on a new light, not hostile, not soft, but curious.
"Why did you do it?"
Void's brow drew, then smoothed.
"You're asking that? I thought you, of all people, would know." Void quipped.
But the man seated across from him chuckled in response.
"Me?"
"Toland crossed the line," he said. "He wanted to use the City as tinder to light his proof. If a choice stands between saving a man who chose to rot and keeping a thousand from suffering from it, I take the thousand. I took it that day. I would take it again."
Shin listened like a judge. He nodded once. "Good values," he said. "Sound. Honest."
He let the words sit. Then he tilted his head, and the air seemed to thin.
"You gave up a big position in the City for your values. Perhaps even made some enemies, or turned people away because of your actions."
Shin looked at Void, "But seeing you now. Looks like you were sure of what you did. There is, but one thing."
"One last thing." He sighed.
"What happens when those values change?" he asked. "What happens when a century scrapes the edges off them. When grief or pride or the wrong kind of victory bends them. When the line you're so sure of moves. What then. Do you aim the gun at yourself before the dark doesn't have to?"
Shin spoke softly. But the words struck Void.
Void gulped. Elsie's voice flickered up out of memory.
He held Shin's stare and found no lie that would stand up to the man across the table.
He said nothing.
Time passed, but Void didn't utter a word. No, rather, he couldn't.
He did not have an answer. He had no idea what a century would do to his values. What decades of trying would do to his beliefs, or what years of fighting would do to his tolerance.
For an instant, he understood every NPC in the game that was so wary of the Fallen. Why, even when they turned to the light, were they not welcomed with open arms?
Time.
Time had changed the values of the guardians. He, as a player, found it so easy to accept Mithrax and his house of light. But if he, too, had spent years of his life fighting off the Fallen and watching his comrades die? He wouldn't have found it easy either.
Shin tapped the table once with a finger. "Others told me they'd never change," he said. "They puffed up. Or they tried a pretty answer. You didn't." His mouth tightened in something almost like approval. "You chose silence. Because you don't know."
Void's voice came quieter. "What would you do. When erosion comes for you, too."
Shin's mouth lifted, and for a heartbeat, he looked younger and older at once. "I'd pass my last words to someone whose hands are steadier than mine," he said.
An almost imperceptible smile curled up his lips, and his voice lightened just a little. "Then I'd live what life is left the way a man should. One last time."
Void looked at the revolver at Shin's side. His mind connected the dots to what actually happened to the Shin Malphur in the game. He indeed had passed on the Last Word to the player, given him his last message, and left. To live a life the way a man should. One last time.
That's why he had never appeared again. Was that really the ending to Shin Malphur's story? Void glanced back at him.
Shin let him think. Then he set his hands flat on the table and brought the thing he had been coming toward since he opened his mouth.
"What I want," he said, "is you."
Void's chin tipped a fraction. "Say it plain."
"Join me," Shin said. "Join us. We hunt the ones who won't let go. The ones who were good once and cannot be anymore, but refuse to set the weapon down. "
Callum's eyes stayed on Void, unreadable.
Shin spoke before Void could even reply. "I don't doubt your skill. I don't doubt your convictions now. I doubt time. Time makes strangers out of men you would have died for."
He chuckled to himself again, "All those years ago, I watched Toland grow into something brilliant. Then, I watched him fall. Further and further, till he himself was lost in his obsession and greed. Til he was no longer the man I once knew. If you hadn't killed him, I would have had to."
He leaned in a fraction, not to loom, but to close the space where lies normally grew. "Come work with me. Not above ground with banners. Down here where it matters. Hunt the rot while it is still new enough to bleed. Keep the City clean even when the City doesn't know it was dirty."
The bunker held the words. They did not echo. They just stayed, heavy and honest.
Void looked from Shin to Callum and back.
He set his hands on the table, palms down. "You said you know where Marcus is."
Shin did not blink. "I do."
"Then tell me," Void said. "After that, we can talk about your hunt."
"Fair," Shin said. He slid a folded paper slip and tapped it once against the paper as if waking it from a nap. He pushed it across the wood.
Void did not reach for it. He held Shin's gaze a breath longer, reading intent the way he read a room. Then he took the paper and palmed it without looking at it.
"Marcus chose a bad place to hide," Shin said. "That is the only kind of place left for his kind of brain. You will not like the trail."
"I rarely do," Void said.
Void tucked the paper away and stood. "When this is done, and I find him", he said, "we talk."
Shin's eyes warmed by a fraction. "We will."
Callum pushed off the wall and opened the inner door. The bunker's breath met the city's damp air. Void stepped into it and let the cold bite his face awake.
Outside, Old Chicago's rain had already turned to a fine mist. He took a step forward, and his figure disappeared, vanishing into the shadows.
-
Callum closed the door, the mist spraying his face as he watched Void leave. He dusted his hands and flicked off the water from his cape.
"I didn't think you'd agree so easily." He spoke out.
Callum walked to the chair, dragged it back and sat down.
"Why not?" Shin leaned back.
"He basically made you a promise. One that he might not ever fulfil. I mean, how do you know he'll even come back?" Callum shrugged, "If it were me, I wouldn't have made such a simple deal."
"One cannot expect to fool those who already tread the line of light and dark. Insincerity will only breed distrust. Whereas trust will lead to fruition."
"You've got a way with words." Callum crossed his arms, "And what convinced you that he already tread that line?"
"His light. It wasn't pure. Rather. It was tainted. Far too tainted. Had you not brought him? I'd never have recognised him. No, even then, the moment I saw him, I planned to draw my gun and kill him." Shin frowned.
"I thought he'd gone too far. But a split second later. I saw the reality. He was likely injured by the dark. But the dark itself was unwilling to let go."
"I've encountered many guardians who have wrestled with the dark. Some learned how to adopt it. Some were consumed by it." Shin paused.
"But none were ever drenched in it to this degree."
"Just one third of what he went through would be enough to drive most crazy. To corrupt their very souls. Yet him? He endured. Like it was but a scratch."
Shin smiled. "His mind hadn't gone hazy; his memories were still intact because he remembered everything from the past. There wasn't a single slip-up in our talk. So I had no choice but to believe it."
"Ghostsword is someone who has undoubtedly found the line between Light and Dark."
=
Check out my Patre*n for more!
patre*n.com/Writers_Ablood