Greg Keyes - Lord of Souls

Attrebus never saw the thing that cut open his belly and sent his guts spilling out into his arms. It happened in the dark, and the only things he remembered other than the agony was the stink of his bowels and something like rotting ginger-and Sul dragging him along, cursing in a language Attrebus didn’t understand.

Now the pain-for so long the only thing real to him-was fading as his body finally understood it was done.

It was possible he was dead already-he wasn’t sure what death was supposed to be like. He hadn’t paid that much attention to such things when he should have.

He started, as from a dream of falling, and for a moment he thought he was falling, because all of his weight had vanished. With an effort he opened his eyes, but there wasn’t much to see; the air was full of ash, a gray cloud that extended in every direction. He saw his companion Sul a few yards from him but steadily drifting off. Presently the dust would make him a shadow, and then nothing at all.

It was hard to breathe; the gray powder cloyed in his nostrils and mouth. After a few more breaths he realized that soon enough his lungs would fill up with the stuff and that would be that.

It was so hard to care. He was weak, tired, and even if he lived, the things he still had to do seemed impossible. No one could blame him if he quit, could they? Not now.

No one would even know.

And so he drifted, the ash caking his blood-soaked gambeson and hands, enclosing him like a shroud, preparing him almost gently for the moment his heart finally stopped.

In the darkness behind his eyes little sparks appeared and died, each dimmer than the last, until only one remained, fading. In it he saw the face of a young woman, tiny as with distance, and from somewhere heard a vast chorale of despair and terror that seemed to fill the universe. He saw his father on a burning throne, his face blank, as if he didn’t realize what was happening to him. The wavering colors expanded, pushing the murk away, and the woman appeared again as his father faded. He knew her features, her curling black hair, but he couldn’t remember her name. He noticed she was holding something up for him to see; a little doll that looked like him, but couldn’t be him, because it was stronger, smarter, better than he was, made in the image of a man incapable of giving in or giving up.

She kissed the doll lightly on the head and then looked at him expectantly.

And so, beginning to weep, he cracked his dust-caked lips and summoned the air that remained in his lungs.

“Sul,” he croaked.

The other man was hardly visible, a darker patch in the ash.

“Sul!” This time he managed to shout it, and pain lanced through him again.

“Sul!” Now it seemed to thunder in his ears, and everything spun. He thought he saw a sort of orange flash out in the gray, a sphere that appeared, expanded, passed through him, and then went on beyond his sight.

But it might have been the agony, taking him away.

Yet the light remained, the images continued. He saw the doll again, lying near this time, on a little gray bed. Its head was porcelain, and not unlike a hundred such likenesses of himself he’d seen over the years. The cloth of the torso was torn open, and the stuffing was coming out. As he watched, huge hands took up the doll and poked the stuffing back in, but there wasn’t enough to fill it, so one of the hands vanished and returned with a wad of gray and shoved that in, too, before sewing up the doll with a needle and thread. When all the stitches were made and pulled tight, a knife came down to cut it.

He screamed, as air sucked into his lungs and a thousand pins seemed to sink into every inch of his flesh. He tried to vomit, but nothing came up, and he lay there sobbing, knowing nothing could ever be the same, that nothing would ever seem as bright or clean as it might have once. He cried like a baby, without coherent thought, without shame. A long time he did that, but in the end there remained something so hard and insoluble that it could never be made into tears and drained away. But he could feel the bitterness of it and make it anger, and in that he found at least a shadow of resolve, something he could nurse and make stronger in time.

He opened his eyes.

He lay inside a room like a gray box, with no discernable entrance or exit. Light seemed to filter through the walls themselves-he cast no shadow. The air had a stale, burnt taste, but he was no longer choking, and his chest rose and fell.

He sat up and his hands went reflexively to his belly. He realized then that he was naked, and he saw that a thick white scar ran from his crotch up to the base of his sternum.

“Divines,” he gasped.

“I wouldn’t invoke them here,” a feminine voice warned.

He swung his head around and saw her. She was as naked as he, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her hair was rosy gold, her skin alabaster white, her eyes twin emeralds. She had the slender, pointed ears of an elf.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“In Oblivion,” she said. “In the realm of Malacath.”

“Malacath,” he murmured, touching his scar. It was still tender.

“That is what he calls himself,” the woman said.

“My name is Attrebus,” he said. “Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

“You may call me Silhansa,” she replied.

“How long have you been here, Silhansa?” he asked.

“Not much longer than you,” she said. “At least I think not. It’s hard to tell, with no sun or moon, only the endless gray.”

“How did you end up here?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

He paused, to give her a chance to ask something of him if she wished, but when she showed no sign of doing so, he pressed on.

“How do you know this is Malacath’s realm? Have you seen him?”

“I heard a voice, and he said his name. That’s all I know. But I’m frightened.” She paused, and she looked as if she had forgotten something. “What about you? How did you get here?”

“It’s a long story,” he said.

“Please,” Silhansa said. “Your voice calms me. What brought you to this terrible place?”

“I had a companion,” Attrebus said. “A Dark Elf-a Dunmer-named Sul. Have you seen him?”

“Yours is the only face I have seen since coming here,” she said. “Tell me your story, please.”

Attrebus sighed. “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Balfiera,” she replied.

He nodded. “So we’re both from Tamriel-that helps. I’m from Cyrodiil, myself.” He scratched his chin and found a beard. How much time had passed?

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to explain. Not long ago, a thing entered our world from Oblivion, an island that floats through the air, with a city upon it. Wherever the island flies, all those beneath it die and rise up again, undead. My companion and I were pursuing this island.”

“Why?”

“To stop it, of course,” he said, understanding how arrogant he sounded, how stupid. “Stop it before it destroyed all of Tamriel.”

“You’re a hero, then. A warrior.”

“Not a very good one,” he said. “But we tried as best we could. Before I met him, my companion Sul was trapped in Oblivion for many years, and knows its ways. Umbriel-that’s the name of the island-was too far away for us to reach in time-”

“In time for what?”

“I’ll get to that in a moment,” Attrebus said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt, but this is a strange tale.”

“No stranger than being imprisoned by a daedra prince.”

“You have a point there,” she allowed.

“To make it brief,” he said, “Sul took us on a shortcut through Oblivion to get ahead of Umbriel.”