The Lonely Cannibal
Perseus
I
Oh, callous flesh, how you so readily suck the iron from your own veins.
And how right is the monstrous fury of the cutting sword. When thou'st thought of it, Flowers grew from the graves, through concrete rubbish clutched and o'er epitaph that reads 'no shelter here be found.'
Strange remembrances of the skirmish high in the mountain called Mother danced in Perseus's head while he slept.
What he could recall he recalled vividly. It had been a storm of flesh and a symphony of screams. They had fought like cavemen with rocks and sticks, with teeth and fingernails, with fists and feet and rage. Flesh crashed into flesh and blood splattered red to the mud, over which the heavy leather boots of soldiers ran frantic. And all around him men had roared and screamed and bled and died.
And They hadn't died like he had imagined them to, like they were supposed to. They didn't keel over with elegant poise or drop dramatically to their knees with an air of rugged courage. They didn't die like heroes or knaves. No. No, instead they writhed and agonized in the mud, cried for their mothers, howled like dogs, shit and pissed themselves as the life bled away from them. They begged the Gods for mercy, and whether their prayers silent or whispered or screeching it made no matter, the Gods did not seem to hear. All the while they clawed through the dirt like frantic beetles scattering beneath an upturned stone, pulling broken bodies along the blood trodden earth and fleeing the footfalls of man, hoping just to melt back into the mud.
It had been nothing like the stories, those promises of glory and honor did not come to fruit, far from it. Instead they'd grown withered and black like berries left too long upon the vine. And how foolish he'd been to yet pluck the rotten fruit and taste its saccharine sickness. All but for the sake of a fleeting taste of glory.
Alas, it hadn't been glory he sank his teeth into up there in the mountains.
Even in his dreams the taste of the man's flesh was alive on his tongue as clearly as if he still had a mouthful of the meat. He could feel his teeth sinking ever deeper into the man's forearm, filling with juicy gore. How he'd felt like a wild animal then, just ripping and tearing through skin and flesh alike, sinuous muscles cutting into his gums like floss and the coppery tang of blood filling his mouth.
Sweet as honey it was.
He and the Thracian had fallen into the mud then and wrestled across it, struggling for dominance as the song of battle rang out as comrades above thundered and died. The wet earth had been full of jagged stones that punched into their backs as they toppled across them. They grappled arm in arm, spitting and cursing, grimed fingernails cutting into one another, their limbs intertwined like the lovers in bed.
Though the Thracian's arm was left bloody and weak from where Perseus's teeth had taken a chunk of it, the man was yet older and stronger and managed to roll atop him. With his one sturdy hand he'd buried Perseus's face in a muddied puddle, air bubbling out from the slop as he gasped for breath.
His own desperate hand had clawed for a nearby stone then. He'd grasped, wrapping his fingers tight about the cold rock, he swung and struck true and felt lighter as the man fell aside with a thick and muddy splash.
And with their advantages reversed and Perseus above him with stone in hand, it was over then. They both knew it. The terror in the dead eye's had said as much.
The stone had been smooth and cold and fit his hand near as perfect as his boot fit his foot. With a guttural roar, Perseus brought that stone down upon the bastard's head. Again and again, he kept hitting till he'd turned the man's head into a paste. Bits of teeth and bone glistened like pearls above red slop. The Thracian's brain that had once held his memories and dreams, every experience, emotion, cognition, was transformed into a sloppy pudding of meat mingling with the dirt.
It had all been a lie, and of course it had. That was obvious now. How could there be glory in this, this death. There was no honor to be found here, no ceremony, and never was. It was just animals killing animals. As ugly and savage as wolves maiming elk. Even in the dark of sleep Perseus could still feel the terror and rage eating its way through his guts and ripping at his ego, tearing it apart as one would a chunk of bread from the loaf.
In his dreams Perseus was still kneeling above the corpse, still swinging the stone like an ape. Watching the mud and life splatter across the stoney earth with each impact. His entire body, helm to boot, was caked in a thick coat of mud and the gory bits of death, it masked well the contorted horror that surely sat upon his face.
Even after the Thracian stopped his struggling, Perseus kept hitting, kept roaring. He bashed the man's head to bits and beyond, to a red sewage of meat in the mud, and yet he didn't stop. He couldn't. He had to keep hitting and hitting and hitting until his arms ached and numbed and even longer still he brought that red stone above his head and down again. And again and again.
For no one could there be a semblance of magic or spirit left in this empty world once they'd stared at the gore beneath him. He'd realized then what he was, what he truly was, he was nothing.
He was nothing.
He'd just reduced the brains of a man to a slime to be enjoyed by worms and birds and lesser seen life. All that man's hopes and dreams now just mud and food and flesh. Same as it ever was.
That's what life is, Perseus understood. It's mud, it's all mud. He was mud and he was nothing.
He'd stared down hopelessly at the muddy brains below and begged, begged for something, something utterly indescribable. And on his knees, in an ineffable supplication, was how the next Thracian came down upon him
The last thing he remembered was the cudgel. The first swing sent his helm flying, the next sent his vision dancing, the third knocked his body over itself to the ground. And before the fourth swing could even connect his world was black.
And he was falling into oblivion.
Perseus
II
At the tender age of 16 he'd eagerly enlisted in the Etruscan military, a starry eyed young romantic, brimming with the boundless optimism and hope so reserved for youth. So full of an unwavering patriotism you could practically hear the trumpets sounding when he thought of the motherland. He'd gone ready to be a hero, the Eyeless King come again. It was the most noble thing an Etruscan boy could do, bear arms for his state and, if fate dictated, subsequently die for it.
Those who are blessed with iron in their veins have a duty to shed it. It was more than purpose, it was duty, and duty above all else. Those words echoed somewhere deep in the unconscious of his swirling mind. Lies and lies, he knew now.
Once Perseus had saluted these ideas and proudly. Once he was a hero for Etruria, or so he'd been told. What shit that was. He was naught but meat for the grinder and it had so readily chewed up his youth and idealism only to spit it out thoroughly gnashed.
He was meat, a bolus, bitter and broken.
He was mud.
Oh, ever pitiful flesh, begin your walk to me. Over fields of dead and moaning. Over ice and fire and sand and sea. Come to me, come to me, walk with me to thy garden and see.
The Royal army had spent little enough time training him, mere months before they'd pushed him from the proverbial nest and let gravity do its harsh work; shipping him out to those icy mountains to patrol the borders that separated Etruria and Thracia. He'd lived a cold and confused several months in a cramped barracks up near Mother, harsh too and making few friends besides. What a fool he'd been not to realize what he was. He was but fodder for his lords and king, just flesh for them.
And they had used him as such.
Border skirmishes such as this were by no means rare, though usually a great deal less bloody. Since the end of the Great War the two eastern powers of Dorhea were locked in a bitter, albeit unspoken, power struggle, each eyeing the other's prosperity with a sense of self-perceived entitlement to the hegemony. The tension had been growing thicker and thicker in recent years, foam was gathering along the lip of the pot now, wouldn't be long till it finally boiled over.
The Comets had promised as much.
In his dreams the headless bastard would shiver up from the dirt, ropey strands of viscera clung stubborn to the puddle of gore that'd once been his head as he rose. After steadying, the wretch would stumble towards Perseus with a clumsy lurching gait, his limbs flailing wildly. The headless monster would try and scream, but without a mouth the noise bubbled out in a grotesque gurgle. The corpse of the Thracian would charge towards just as he had before when he still had a head atop his shoulders. Only now Perseus was no longer the valiant warrior thirsting for battle. No, here in his dreams he was himself.
He wanted to flee, he wanted to hide, to be left alone in safety, but there was nowhere to go.
He clenched the heavy stone tight in his hand, and what else could he do? He swung it down, killing the dead man again, he swung again and again till the thing stopped its struggling, its thirsting. He broke bones and smeared gored. He killed.
And suddenly, as the creature breathed its agonal breaths, snow began to fall all around him, melting upon his ruddy cheeks.
He sat cross-legged in the snow and mud, slowly succumbing to the quietude of sleep. His body grew so cold that eventually, he began to feel warm again. Branches and roots birthed from the mountaintop gently wreathed around his sleeping body, encasing him.
He dreamed so on repeat. Again and again beating the Thracian headless, then killing the corpse that rose in his stead, before finally succumbing to the cold warmth.
And there, at the end of each repetition, in a woody cocoon, he found a kindness far greater than any truth reality could offer.
So often is that the case, here in wasteland that iron born.
Perseus
III
Perseus woke from his dreams to an aching head, pitch blackness, and the rage of thunder overhead. The storm's fury was so great the night sky itself shuddered and screeched, showering him in a dry rain.
He could see nothing, not even the shadowy outlines of his world. His wish had been granted, it would seem, I have truly become the Eyeless King. He realized in a detached horror.
But sight would have done him little good, his mind hazed as it were. Proto-thoughts of hunger, fever, fear, and pain, all shuffled to the forefront of his mind only to evaporate before he could truly grasp them. He couldn't say where he was, even when. Barely could he manage who.
He was suspended in a shadow place, a purgatory.
Dislocated memories of the skirmish, combined with this mindless purgatory, stoked a rising panic beside that throbbing in his head. His heart raced in his chest and begged to leap up from his throat. Something was wrong. With a frantic disorganization he clamored against the dark for answers. Where am I? Where's the light? What of the mountain? What of me? The dark, ever silent, kept its secrets close at hand.
His memories of the mountain sat like a month old corpse in the mind, rotted but with reluctant hints of form. He could remember the rattling of batons and curses before the fighting began, and dead men in the mud after. But his thoughts were disjointed and even within his own psyche indecipherable.
Crimson gore and the taste of blood, screaming men and the swollen wounds of death. Slop in the mud, a bloodied stone in hand, bits of tangled hair dangling from it like knots. The imagery danced in a mindless mind.
He raised a feeble hand to his forehead in a impotent attempt to soothe the ache and collect himself. The thunder above was echoing off the walls of his skull magnifying that pulsating agony that was rattling about his head. Yet it was all so withdrawn and distant. Vaguely unreal, as if he were just observing some poor bastard's torments but not really experiencing them in himself, not in a way that really counted at least.
And it wasn't just the pain, everything felt distorted and fake. Wrong in a minute indescribable way.
The panic grew with his distance from reality, becoming desperate and hungry. Eating his nerves, the way fire gobbles up kindling.
He tried to yell through the distortion, for help maybe, or just to prove to himself that he could. And for it he earned a sharp lancing of pain. It wrenched against his throat as the noise tried to claw its way free from his vocal folds. Naught but a hopeless groan passed through chapped lips. His hands instinctively flew around his neck in another impotent attempt to spare himself some pain. Something has stolen my voice! It stole my sight and now it stole my voice!
"Hush now, boy" The darkness whispered, its tone a woman's hiss.
And at the shadows command, he felt the world give way, he found himself in free fall, spinning through the void, sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss.
Come Abyss, come, I beg thee, oh, sweet oblivion I curse them with every terrible moment of wit I am allowed.
I'm dead, Perseus realized, I died up there. Probably felled right beside the man I killed. The crows are probably picking us apart right now and this is death, descent and ache and storm. Mute and scared.
And is this all that awaits me? He wondered. A banal descent through eternal blackness with an aching head beside? Or will I eventually hit the bottom of this bottomless pit and find comfort on solid earth. He raised a hand to his temple to rub the spot where it ached, his hand found the skin rough and wet, decayed, he realized. I'm not ready to die, please, not yet, he tried to whisper the words aloud. The pitiful, voiceless plea escaped his lips as a breath, please. Someone, anyone, please. Mother, oh mother please.
In the inky blackness that surrounded him, he could've sworn he glimpsed a shadowy figure moving, black shifting against black. He tried calling to it but without a voice it shimmered beyond his reach.
There was nothing he could do, he was totally helpless. Hopeless too. It is but shadows and thunder and descent forever and ever.
He again tried to croak at the gliding figure in the black, to plead with it, to beg it for life or mercy or anything at all. Too late fool, white maggots are already wriggling through that brain of yours.
"Please." He finally managed to whisper. His worn voice seemed to come from somewhere other than himself, somewhere in the dark. As if it weren't his at all. And though the noise was lost to the shadows, evaporating beneath the thunder of it all, it comforted him to know he was still capable of speech. Take victories where you can find them.
"I said Hush." The dark replied.
"I was to be the Eyeless King." He whimpered.
The dark did not deign to reply to that.
He felt a moment of sinking calm as he surrendered to his despair. We all die someday. He thought to himself, would've happened sooner or later, so why not sooner.
He shrunk into himself, his mind collapsing to a single point, an atom. Smaller than an atom. He let his grip loosen. And he became nothing.
Come, awake and come.
It lasted for but a moment.
Reality snapped back then, harshly and rather suddenly, like the flicking on of a light switch. The ringing and spinning subsided, thoughts cleared. It was as though reality had just been waiting til he had become comfortable with his fate before ripping the blanket of unreality away.
The thunder overhead was nothing but leaden boots thudding a floor above, the falling sensation was the spinning of a dizzy head, the decayed skin he'd found was but soiled bandages, and the darkness was the ordinary black of some non-descript room, one in desperate need of dusting.
Where am I? He wondered again, this time with logic. He dumbly craned his head about the pitch as if he would see any hints in this black. The movement proved to be a poor choice. His head felt thrice the size it ought and heavier still; it slumped aside and down, his neck too weak to support it. He could feel the room start to spin again, it felt as if he'd downed half a bottle of moonshine.
Depending on who found me, either the Thracian's stuck me in a dungeon, or the Etruscan's stuck me in a hospital. The foul stink of the room hinted at a Thracian dungeon, but Perseus knew they'd never allow a prisoner a pillow let alone a bed.
He was never able to reach a conclusion.
The thunderous stomps above grew only louder, interrupting Perseus's thoughts. Muffled voices blended into a discordant buzzing of noise, giving birth to a ringing clangor over it all. He clapped his hands over his ears with the hope of blunting the sounds above. When that didn't make a lick of difference he stuck his head under his pillow, it was nice and cool, but it did little to soothe, his brain still felt as though it was threatening to split in two. "Help" he managed to croak to the darkness, cold silence answered.
"Please," he begged the nothingness. "Mother, please!" He tried to rise and felt as his limbs immediately gave under the ask. "Mother!"
The shadow in the dark danced from wall to wall. "Quiet, boy." It commanded in a sharp whisper.
With the barest of movements a sudden wave of exhaustion clenched at his head and heart, a woozy feeling flooded into his veins, finding its way to his mind and spreading throughout his weak limbs, his muscles tensed and then relaxed and his eyes drooped close, giving in.
Perseus returned to his dreams and to his mountain and to his headless ghost.
Perseus
IV
The next time he woke it wasn't for long, just time enough to hear his mom calling his name. "Perseus?" She asked, her voice was light and tinted with worry. "Are you awake?" Am I? He wondered. Her faceless head leaned above him, yellow hair pouring over him like pale rays of light. But mom had black hair, and she never wore it like that? "Get him water, quick!" She called.
He smiled a faint grin up at her. She was acting like she used to, before it all. He found that he missed that more than he had been able to admit to himself.
He didn't have to wait long till she was gone and the Thracian was back and snow was swirling about him.
Perseus
V
He jolted awake, cold with sweat.
This time wakefulness felt different. The world was falling back into place. His head still ached to be sure, though certainly less than before and his delusions had seemed to have run their course, thank the Gods. He ran a hand through greasy hair and felt it catch in his curls, they had grown to a knotted crown of black, it's like you're wearing a bird's nest for a hat, I half expect to see a robin fly out! he heard his mom say.
With lucidity came his senses and in turn his surroundings, though he'd have preferred his sense of smell had taken its due time. The air smelled thick of piss and shit and was so heavy with dust that every other breath drew in thick clouds of irritants that scratched at his already raw throat.
His mouth tasted of a sour bile and with a thin film of slime coating his mouth. He wet his lips, dry and cracked as the Shiloh they were, his saliva stung as it mingled with the breakages in them. His woolen bed was scratchy as leaves in autumn and tough as stone and his pillow was little more than a thin lump of feathers wrapped in a burlap sack. Truthfully it wasn't all that much different than his bunk in the mountains. Etruscan's may have found me yet.
A thin line of golden light cut through the black like a knife. The light was seeping in through his chamber door cracked just wide enough for the shine of the adjacent room to spill through.
The sliver of light proved sufficient to introduce enough photons into the room. The photons found their way to the receptor cells of Perseus's eye, exciting the retinal within and preventing the flow of sodium ions into the cell, which, through a series of chemical and electrical stimulation, told a part of his brain that he was seeing. Thus vague outlines of his world bled into existence. He'd read that in Wernege's Neo-Phrenology. Wernege, studying dogs, had discovered all perception, thought, movement, was just cells spewing chemicals at other cells and ions flowing in and out. That's all this was. Ions flowing through channels, every thought, every dream, every memory, fear, pleasure, even love and hate were naught but ions moving down their electrochemical gradients. Everything he could possibly imagine was just that, electrical stimulation where it needed to be.
He was just that too, a series of chemical reactions, chemical reactions that decided they were something real and different, something important. The mountain had taught him the truth of it though, these chemical reactions were no more unique than that which formed rocks or in their own convoluted way made the sun shine or the grass grow.
He was flesh and mud that thought it wasn't. He was though. He knew what he was, he was nothing. He remembered the Thracian's head, the way it cracked open like an egg and the sludge it so easily became. That's what he was, and it was nothing.
There was nowhere to hide from the cold nakedness of his mind now. He was trapped, made to face the blank unadulterated truth of what he was, nothing at all. And with it came a cloud of unreality, or rather absolute reality, that settled over his perceptions like a morning mist, graying all things.
The very geography of Perseus's mind was warped terrain now, through which he stumbled helplessly. I'm an actor drifting along. He thought. Following some script, a script I thought I wrote, but of course I didn't. It had been handed to me by some mindless God and writ in a language I can scarcely read. I danced along quite nicely, didn't I?
And for whatever else could I have done.
And so rather than struggle, Perseus resigned himself to this empty tranquility, this soulless enlightenment. He felt himself grow light and easy. He felt himself sink towards. He felt nothing at all.
In an objective sense he and the man in the mountain and the rock that bashed his skull in, all three, had the same objective value, which of course was none at all, how could there ever be such a thing as 'objective' value? The very concept was an impossible notion, by its nature value was subjective. In fact the only true value this world had to offer was the subjective swirling of neurotransmitters drifting through his mind and even now that suddenly seemed numb and distant.
He stared at the shadowy outline of his hand, it felt like someone else's, his body wasn't his, nothing was, not his name, not his face, not even his thoughts. He could feel his identity crumbling apart like an old ruin from a forgotten age, piece by piece dropping to the earth.
Jolts of realization rolled like waves through him, crashing and breaking and melting into the sands, he was nothing, he was nothing, he was nothing. He knew what he was, and he was nothing.
It was comforting in a way. To be nothing. For nothing to matter. Any pressures, whether internal or external, were nothing too, any expectations. He was free were he willing to let go.
I warn you now, never realize what you are, for Ignorance begs innocence. The corruption of understanding is unrelenting and unending, build your walls high and hide behind them. In my rare moments of understanding I cower and I cry and I curse for them to pass and return me to the glory of delusion I was gifted so.
Dust was sucked into his throat, some receptor detected the irritants, some message was relayed to his brain, and from his brain some other message told his ribs and abdominal muscles to contract and thus to cough. Organic automata, a consciousness just interpreting whatever this world threw at him while his fleshy, robotic body already moved according to predetermined workings.
The resulting cough nearly sent him back to unconsciousness, his body shook as his lungs expanded and contracted. He choked on bloody phlegm as his body struggled to control the spasm. It felt like someone had started a friction fire in his chest, each cough beating into him with enough force he thought it might be his last. By the time the fit had passed he lay clutching his chest and wheezing. Whether or no life is real, pain sure as hell is.
He heard shuffling footsteps above his head again, though this time the steps were a softer sort, a quiet pitter patter rather than thunder. He was able to make out two distinct sets. And they were growing louder. Goddamn it, he thought, they must have heard his cough.
Anxiety burned through his body like electricity, damned ions. He cursed.
The pair's approach was signaled by footfalls descending through a stairwell. Closer and closer they came till the pair was outside his door, the thin sliver of light dimmed and shone as the pair danced around and in front of it. They spoke in hushed whispers, barely audible.
The door swung wide and a flood of light poured into the room. He gave an awkward, raspy yelp as the light stung at his eyes.
no, not eyes, eye. Just one eye.
Something was wrong with his left eye. He reached up to investigate, and his fingers met bandage. The wrappings were crusted and tattered. As the memories of the mountain skirmish returned he felt an iciness run through the room. Oh, right, he thought hollowly, recalling just how the skirmish had ended for him.
But it didn't matter. Because it couldn't. Because nothing could.
Two figures appeared before him at the foot of his bed, silhouettes at first. His eye was slow to adjust to the light, he squinted, shielding his vision with a hand. As his neurons adapted to the sudden influx of photons and his iris contracted, he slowly made out the faces before him. Two women. One was, judging by her uniform, a nurse, short and squat, and wore her yellow-blonde hair tied up in the back, the other woman was taller and wore a sky blue dress made of rag, her short brown hair barely reached the nape of her neck, but was perfectly shorn. She wore an expression of utter blankness on her face in stark opposition to the concern writ clear upon the nurse's.
Both women were quite pretty and he suddenly became very aware of the awkward yelp he'd just made.
He struggled to sit up. The small movement sent his stomach into a whirl. His head felt heavy and the room began to spin.
VI
Pyrrha
"It's just ions" The boy rasped before slumping back down into the hug of his bed. Was he still delirious? When she'd first come to see him he'd been babbling in whispered breaths about how he was the Eyeless King come again and other nonsense. But that had been weeks ago. He'd been slipping in and out of consciousness ever since. And scarcely with any more cognizance.
Until now perhaps? "Private Orestes?" Pyrrha called to him. He lay as still as death. "Private Orestes?" She tried again and still to no avail.
The sickly scent of urine and feces hit her like a wall as she stepped through the threshold of his room, her eyes growing blurry at the stench. She dabbed the tears away and did what she could to ignore the odor. But even still, ignoring the smell, the room was in an abysmal state. It was a monument to neglect, a thick layer of dust covered precariously stacked boxes that were piled to the ceiling and long ignored filing cabinets were spilling their papery guts across the floor. Mountains of wires and rusted appliances and miscellaneous rubbish were piled a head taller than she and cobwebs clung to just about every inch of the room or drifted weightless through the air. The debris crowded from wall to wall save for a space in the center where she and Kaia had cleared a small ring of floor. And there laid the boy and his small bed, the frame rusted and leaning at an uncomfortable rightward slant. His toes, curled unnaturally tight, peeked out the bottom of a thin white sheet. Pyrrha strode over and gently pulled it down to cover him completely.
This is where things went to be forgotten, she thought studying the mess, it's what made it the perfect hiding place. Not even the employees of the hospital had looked in this place in years, no one would find the young soldier here. And no one would hurt him.
She could feel Caspian's dead eyes on her back. It made the hairs of her neck stand straight out and sent goose pimples rippling down her arms.
Kaia joined her bedside, leaning over him, fluffing up his pillow, and adjusting his blanket with delicate care. She brushed a curly lock of hair horning in over his eye, the one not hidden behind gauze, her gaze lingering on the boy with a mix of sadness and matronly concern. Poor things, the both of you.
Pyrrha couldn't shake the feeling she would come to regret involving the nurse so, she was a good woman and far too sweet for this sort of work. And dangerous work it was.
Nurse Kaia had been more than happy to help, near insistent in fact. It had been she who had found the room, the spare bed, scrubbed Perseus's name from the hospital records, and even stolen the necessary medicines. And all for a boy she didn't know.
Put them from your concern. She told herself. If Cassander was right then the only thing that mattered was finding the proof.
Even if it means they must die for it. She thought sadly, studying the both of them. It won't come to that though.
But if it does…
The nurse was staring at the boy like he was her own son. And the whole world could have seen it. The nurse did a miserable job of concealing her emotions. Though she likely hadn't been taught to do otherwise and moreover didn't care to.
Pyrrha found herself jealous of that.
"It's healing well." The nurse's musings snapped Pyrrha back to reality with a jolt.
"Is it?" His face was thankfully hidden behind bandages. "How can you tell?" Pyrrha herself kept her own voice even keeled as she had been trained. Careful to present only what she wanted. She might as well have been sitting at the poker table, going all in. It was unconscious at this point she'd been doing it for so long.
"That faint green glow," Nurse Kaia explained, "that's the antibacterial gel at work, that green glow means the mold's alive and thriving." Pyrrha could hardly make out but a hint of green, fainter than a firefly's flicker, but trusted Kaia's expertise all the same.
The nurse retrieved a water bottle from the hospital's blue bag, placed the narrow straw-like tip of the bottle between the Private's lips and squeezed an orange solution into his mouth. "And judging by the shine of it I would say he's doing quite well." She continued.
"Good to hear, the sooner we can get him out of these hills and away from unfriendly noses the better." She'd already survived one visit from her colleagues at section III and wasn't eager to survive another. She'd hid down here with Perseus as agents stormed the hospital, searching high and low for their missing private. "Maybe they'll decide he's dead and leave us alone." She added glumly and under her breath, knowing the chances of that were quite low, especially if the Salamander was involved as Cassander suspected. The spy master was never one to quit so easily, not when it meant a threat to his seat.
"Mmhmm" Kaia nodded in a way that made it clear she was only half listening. She was at work peeling back ruddy bandages and rewrapping the wound anew.
Pyrrha averted her gaze; she wasn't ready to stomach that sight yet and instead glanced around the clutter. She'd felt guilty sticking the boy in a dump like this. Sticking anyone into this dank excuse of a hospital room would have been hard enough, but the wounded, broken boy had been especially tough.
But she had had no other choice, all the others had been found and either made to fall in line or in Private Cecil's case… Well she couldn't stomach to think that thought either, she'd spent all the tears she could afford.
Caspian's all knowing stare hadn't faltered a bit, still bearing into her with those blooded eyes. Seeing her as she was.
Kaia withdrew and though the bandages were now the color of ivory rather than a begrimed patina he looked no better for wear.
She studied the boy that lay outspread before her, resting like a felled oak on rusted linen. She'd of course already read his whole file. Private Perseus Orestes was a young man, 16 years old. Born well after the Great War and only 2 years after the XXI Concert of the Comets even. Too young to join the royal army but he'd apparently lied his way in easily enough, or just as likely the army hadn't given a shit. Born just beyond the Etruscan city of Old Evander and not in a nice part, he was smart, real smart according to his schooling, his grades and exam scores were off the charts, though she hadn't failed to note a fondness for truancy. His files described a handsome and ultimately well liked boy. But she didn't see that boy. She saw the shadow of him. Bandages covered the left half of his face and the right side sat gaunt and haunted, his sunken eye surrounded by a dark circle and a drooping bag. A bit of drool rolling down the side of his chin. The nurse had already told her what happened to him, what hid beneath the bandages, she hadn't yet found the strength to look for herself.
He was nothing more than a child, a child convinced he was a man, convinced he needed to kill other children and win wars, convinced he had to be a hero. He'd been fed the classic lines and lies, accolades and acclaim were to be his. Respect and honor. Instead all he'd earned was a scar and a broken skull.
"When will he wake again?" Pyrrha asked the nurse.
"Hard to say," Kaia replied, "He's been in and out of it for days now, never really…" She searched for the right word, "coherent." The nurse stroked his cheek and wiped the drool from his chin.
"Will he ever be?"
After a beat the nurse replied somberly, "I think so." A pregnant pause followed, hanging in the air, Kaia's tone was unsure and her expression was damn near doubtful.
Though the two looked nothing alike, she couldn't look at the private without seeing Caspian. Caspian had been just a little older, just shy of 18, Lords, that must've been 10 years past now, I'm getting old. "I'll wait here til' he wakes again." Pyrrha told the nurse, she sat down on some boxes, a cloud of dust burst out as she sank into her seat, sending a busy little spider to scramble around his web.
"It could be days."
It could be never you mean to say. Pyrrha thought. "Well… I'll wait as long as I can manage."
"I'll wait with you for a bit, I've nowhere to be." Nurse Kaia joined her on an adjacent box.
The pair sat silent and still as they waited for the boy to wake. He would stir thricely, murmuring confused words, eye fluttering open only for it to squeeze shut before slumping back down to sleep, the skin of his face moving rubbery with his dreams. It would be hours still before he'd wake with any semblance of consciousness.
They waited most of the night, exchanging few words. Despite Kaia's conversational attempts Pyrrha was in no mood for talk, the nurse would just have to settle for awkward silence and avoidant glances.
It was during the devil's hour when the boy finally woke. His eye slowly flitted open, blinking back to life, for a long moment he stared up at the dusty popcorn ceiling above. She could see a cognizance in his eye that hadn't been with him before. His hand raised to inspect the bandages that covered half of his head. Pyrrha searched for the defeat, the understanding to wash over him as his fingers ran across the gauze. She found none of it. You'd have made a fine praeotr.
He gave his company no notice, no real indication he even realized he wasn't alone. "Private Orestes?" Pyrrha asked softly as to not scare the boy. "Can you hear me?"
The boy opened his mouth, Pyrrha and the nurse leaned forward as if they were about to hear a prophet sermonize. Had it been a sermon it would have been a short one, one word long. "Water." He rasped.
Kaia leapt into action, quickly pulling a water skin out the blue bag and shoving it to Perseus's cracked lips "Here, drink, and slowly, we don't want you to get sick." she managed to sound desperate, commanding, and scared all at once. His weak hands reached up to take the skin from hers and shook as he attempted to pour the water through his lips, it splashed and dribbled across his face. Kaia moved to help steady him, gently cupping his hands so that he better could drink.
A bit of the water must've gone down the wrong pipe, he coughed and sprayed small droplets of water across his bed and nurse. Kaia held onto his shoulder as the boy seized in pain.
By the time the coughing fit had passed his face was red as a tomato and loud, strenuous breaths struggled to escape his mouth.
"Thank you." He managed to wheeze quietly to the nurse in between laborious breaths. Kaia nodded and retreated back to her box.
And Pyrrha rose from her own "Private Orestes, I'm Pyrrha-." She began again.
"Aspirin… opiate… anything." The boy interrupted with another croak. He was clutching a tuft of hair tight as he said it, nails digging into his palm.
Again Kaia was quick to her feet, producing a couple pills for the boy, "Have you got a headache?" She asked.
"No, I just like the taste." He growled weakly. The jest caught Pyrrha off guard; she hadn't expected humor from the boy, even if his quip was as dry as the Shiloh. So, is he finally lucid then? She wondered. Or is this just an unraveled psyche reaching out?
"Private Orestes, I'm Pyrrha Hylian." She tried once more. "How are you feeling?" She made sure her voice sounded laced with genuine concern. It wasn't a hard thing to do.
She waited for a response. The room itself seemed to hold its breath, anticipating the fragile emergence of his thoughts and of course his story. The truth of what happened up in the Mountain called Mother. That's why she was here after all, she couldn't lose sight of that, whatever the boy's condition.
Instead, the little soldier ignored her still, his finger crawling up along his broken face. He let out a deep sigh as his shaky fingers felt the bandages along his chin "I'd like to see it," he said finally, though he still didn't deign to make eye contact with either her or the nurse.
Kaia gave Pyrrha a worrying glance and a subtle shake of her head.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, not yet at least." Pyrrha said, according to Kaia the wound was as grisly as they come. At least I can spare him that sight for a few more days, let it heal more.
It was as if the boy read her mind. "I imagine I'll see it sooner or later, let it be sooner, mayhaps then I'll be able to put it from my mind sooner."
A wound like that you're not likely to put from your mind ever. "Are you sure?"
"I am."
Pyrrha gave Kaia a nod. "Alright then, sir."
In the dimness of the basement room the unwrapping of the bandages felt almost ceremonial. It was in hushed stillness that Kaia's fingers worked, around and around, layer by layer. Pyrrha felt as though she were back in her childhood cathedral, kneeling beneath bare candlelight and watching a solemn priest at work.
Her own head bowed, looking away, partly in reverence and partly in aversion and she felt like a child for it. I'll look at it this time, she promised herself, I'll study it and memorize the terrain.
With the final layer of fabric peeled away, the true extent of the boy's disfigurement was laid bare. Pyrrha's heart sank as she beheld the severity.
Kaia offered Perseus a looking glass. He accepted with his left hand. A southpaw? Her gnostic grandmother would've beaten that habit out of her quick. His expression remained stoic and impassive while he poured over his new face. It was only his eye that betrayed panic as it frantically darted across the ruin. The whole left side of it was scarred a mottled pink, and half of his forehead had turned concave. The hair on that side was sparse and spindly in a harsh contrast to the thick black curls that hung off the right side. The whole of his jaw had been split open and had needed to be sewn shut leaving him with an ugly jagged line that traversed from chin to temple.
But most haunting of all was the empty eye socket. And the ghoulish green glow that emanated from the pit.
It looked downright hellish.
However he felt he did a good job of hiding it, she watched his face, searching for some hint of emotion, anger, sadness, acceptance even, but his expression revealed nothing, he might as well have been a Praetor himself. You poor bastard, you don't need to be strong. You can… cry.
She wanted nothing more than to hug him, to cradle him, to tell him it's going to be ok. But she knew couldn't.
Caspian glared at her back.
The young soldier gingerly traced his ring finger along the length of the scar, finding its end at the butt of his chin, before then rubbing his misshapen brow bone. He let out a raspy sigh and set the mirror down by his side, "thank you." He told the nurse with even keel. She replied with a courteous bow and sank back into her seat leaving the two of them to talk.
"I'm very sorry about what happened, Perseus." She said. He adjusted to sit a bit straighter and turned the scarred side of his face away as if to hide it from her, finally, a hint at the boy's thoughts.
"Yeah, me too."
She hadn't a clue of what to say to that so she moved right past it. "Do you remember much of it?" Pyrrha watched Perseus closely, he sat so still he might as well have been a statue.
"Not well ma'am. There was a fight of sorts up in the mountains."
That was putting it simply, you killed a man, then were almost killed in turn. She waited a moment for more detail to follow. None did.
She was getting the sense that she was going to have to lead this conversation and with a little finesse, perhaps ease into it with a bit of easy chat, test the waters so to speak. "Sorry about the room," she said, gesturing around the dilapidation. "I know it couldn't have been too comfortable."
"I haven't had much time awake to really appreciate it." His face remained as still as always, and his voice equally flat.
"So I've noticed. We were awfully worried about that."
He had no response to that.
"So how are you feeling? The nurse said you'd feel awful." She wasn't even sure you'd wake at all. And judging from Perseus's state up till an hour ago, she'd been so inclined as to believe her.
"She's really putting her nursing degree to work isn't she." He ran another finger across his disfigured chin, "I feel like I've been kicked by a horse."
Pyrrha leaned forward, eager to get to the subject of the skirmish.
"Though I'm pretty sure I'd remember horses up there." His affect made for bad delivery of his little jokes.
Judging by the dent in your forehead I'd say you ought to remember little and less of the mountain. But she only needed one piece of information. Who started this damned skirmish?
"Not everyone could survive an injury like that. In fact, I've seen men die to less. In a way you're awfully lucky." She added.
To that he just scoffed.
Her attempts to connect with Perseus were proving feeble, perhapsI ought to come at this from a different angle.
In a precisely measured tone she changed the subject yet again. "I imagine you'll want to let your parents know you're alive." She knew full well neither he nor his parents would relish in any sort of conversation. And still, to her disappointment, Perseus betrayed no emotion.
"Yes, I'll-" he swallowed a breath, "I'll need to get in touch with them." And after a pause, he added, "and soon."
"They must be awfully worried."
"I imagine so."
"Were they upset when you left for the army? 16 is awfully young to leave home." Her segue was awkward but it did the job well enough.
"15, I was 15 when I left and no, my mother thought it would be good for me." He paused for a moment to scratch at his wound. The stitches that covered his lower face must have been itching like hell judging by how much he scratched. "And my father was proud to see me follow in his footsteps, he was a war hero, earned himself some medals in the Great War fighting out in the Tusks, I was going to be too."
The boy's lie was far more telling than any of the truths she'd yet heard. The boy's mother was a whore with the Chatter, Pyrrha very much doubted that she'd cared much about 'what was be good for the boy,' and he'd never known any father, he'd left the boy's mother likely seconds after he spilled his seed in her, she'd read as much in his file. But it was good. Finally something, he's a proud one, she thought, she could use that.
"You still have a chance to be a hero, you know." That'll make him hungry to help.
"Mmh."
"It's true." Pyrrha moved to touch his arm, he flinched back. "You're young, this isn't the end of your life, hell it's really just the beginning."
Silence was offered in return.
She wasn't sure how to proceed, dive right in, why don't you, "I'd like to ask you some questions about the border clash."
"Ok?" It was both a statement and a question.
"What can you tell me about what happened? Up there on Mother?"
"I- I don't quite remember, It's fuzzy."
Liar, she thought to herself. "Perseus, I know it couldn't have been easy, but I really need your help." She employed a motherly tone in the hopes it would crack through the boy's wall.
Perseus turned to face her with his hollow green eye staring deep. At her back Caspian was doing the same. He studied her for a moment with that eye before asking "Are you a superior officer of mine ma'am?"
She licked her lips and leaned away, "uh, yes and no." He raised a questioning eyebrow and he cocked his head ever so slightly to the side. "I'm actually with section III." She told him.
"A spy," he said flatly, "are you here officially or…." His question trailed off.
She Debated a whether or not honesty was the best policy and decided uneasily. Alright, let's see how much obedience this kid really has. "Unofficially" she answered truthfully. For the first time she saw a gleam of emotion on his face, just a flicker but enough, a phantom smile that bounded across his face, good she thought, looks like the prospect excites him. She waited for Perseus to respond. Finally he spoke, just a single word.
"Interesting."
"I suppose so. Now, can I ask you those questions?"
"Yes." And after another pause he added "ma'am."
"How did it begin, the skirmish?"
The boy pondered for a moment, "A large mob of us had approached the Thracian line just on the other side of the border, shouting curses, sometimes lobbing a handful of pebbles across." He swallowed, "the Thracians returned in kind, hooting and screeching back as their reinforcements matched ours. We, of course, weren't allowed guns up there, high command feared we'd start killing each other, they underestimated us didn't they." Still he betrayed no hint of a joke. "We were waving sticks and rocks and bats, laughing and mocking. And then we received the order to attack-,."
And there it was, the truth, what she needed. It had come so easy. So Cassander was right, "so YOU received the orders to attack?" She clarified.
"That's right, some Sergeant told us command wanted us to cross the border, we were happy to do so, we were going to be heroes" He looked away, hiding his scar once again. "The truth hit us hard, didn't it." He scratched his chin, "it went from a game to a bloodbath in just a second."
VII
Perseus
You still have a chance to be a hero, he was no hero, never would be, he was a pathetic wretch, he knew it, she knew it, anyone who gazed upon his mangled face would know it. He stared at the glowing empty eye in the little mirror the nurse had left laying on his bed, he couldn't bring himself to look at the spy woman, the look of pity and sorrow which she would return was too much.
"What was his name? The Sergeant?." The spy woman asked.
"Sergeant Temicus. I'd never met him til that day." And yet he'd sent me to die, to kill and to die.
She threw a whole torrent of questions his way after. He answered them curtly though to the best of his ability, hardly really hearing any of it. Finally, she abated.
She rose from her wooden box and walked over to Perseus's coffin-like bed. "I have an associate, he works in section III as well." Her tone was full of that pitiful desire to help. He hated that. She sat at the edge of the bed, he hated that too, he hated her presumed comfortability, he hated her pity, he hated his broken body, he hated both the Sergeant and the Thracian that had gifted it to him, he hated the headless man, and he hated the stone itself. Most of all he hated himself, the ineffectual waste he was. He hated it all, why can't it just fade away, everything gone. He could crush the world in his hand and not think twice of it. Turn to dust and blow away.
"He'll be very interested in everything you have to say." The spy woman continued, "I want you to come with me, To Etrunan" Her words were brimming with a fragile hope. He still couldn't bear to look her in the eye, his broken face, his empty soul. "I think we can prevent a war, THE war, the one the Comets sang of, I-"
"No." He cut her off. I'm no hero, I just want to lay down in this bed and let my organs fail, I want to bloat from the buildup of gasses and burst. I want the insects and foxes to pick me clean. I want to do anything but think. Anything but feel, anything but this.
She stared at him sadly, with that look of pity, he could see it easily without even needing to put eyes to it. Eye, he reminded himself.
"Go. please." He said sadly.
She did as asked and thankfully without a word.
VIII
Pyrrha
She stepped out into the warm sun of the highlands. The small military hospital sat in the grassy foothills of the great mountains, its ugly hide staining the hill's dusty greens. The old king, in his paranoia, had ordered thousands of strange military assets to be built across Etruria, this dingy old hospital was one of them. It was a blemish on the otherwise picturesque landscape.
The banner of The Black Dog of Etrunan snapped and clanged loudly atop its flag pole as the wind pulled savagely.
She'd just finished informing Cassander of what she'd learned, about the sergeant, he'd been his casual jokey self, he'd probably laugh with the Dog as it tore his throat out. He'd urged her to leave quickly and quietly.
She'd insisted she stay.
She lay down in the cool crusted grass and soaked in the warm air that gently caressed her skin, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. But it didn't warm her inner coldness
War is coming, she thought glumly despite the comfort of weather and scenery, and I've no way to stop it. Stopping a destined war was, by definition, a task destined for failure. Truth is rarely a welcome companion.
Caspian was surely near no doubt, watching her wallow. Her ever despondent satellite.
The sun was gradually meandering below distant hills, golden streaks of the dying light painted the tired gray hospital a vibrant yellow. A burnt orange sky darkened as the beauty of the setting sun was chased away by the shadows of night.
She began to cry, slowly at first, but before long tears were freely cascading down her cheeks, falling like rain in late spring. Each droplet shed fell with loss, loss for Perseus, for Cecil, for the hundred other dead boys rotting up in the mountains. Tears were shed for the blood that stained the Gaullic fields, and for the blood that was to come in the next war. The hues of the dusk transitioned from a vibrant orange to a somber purple. And she cried for Caspian. For her long dead and ever beloved Caspian.
'When the old toil in the garden, the young shall feast.' It was said. Though in this day and age, the young were but lambs for the slaughter, their lives given in sacrificial offerings well before their time so that old men could reap the blessings and devour ever greedily the spoils of the garden, leaving behind a withering plot, its fruits half eaten and the pits rotting away. Let the children fight over the scraps.
Well, I'll fight whether the fruit is rotten or not. The purple hues of night deepened. She turned to look over her shoulder for him, he was there as always. Her Caspian. His neck still crooked at that grisly angle, his eyes still full of blood, and white foam leaking from the corners of his mouth.
She gave the ghost a weak smile.
IX
Perseus
Back to the lonely pitch dark Perseus fell. Back to his mountain.
She has the wrong person, I'll never save this world. He knew. He had neither the heart nor strength, nor the desire even to save the world, hells, he hardly even cared about this wretched world, what's there even to save, this place is nothing, it's mud, just like me…