Zachary Jernigan - No Return

Playfully, he dug his fingertips into her taut belly. She did not move an inch, and he smiled into her shoulder. Every time they moved even slightly, flowers rustled beneath them. Though winter’s chill had not yet left the earth, his ebon skin absorbed the sun’s heat and radiated it like a furnace, keeping her warm.

“After dinner, the healthy men went scavenging for weapons and loot. I searched further afield than the rest. I remember that our fires seemed very far away. The moon loomed above me, casting everything in ghostlight. I suppose I was afraid. Then, I saw a flash of white. It stood out because the chimera fought in dark grey armor and blackened their swords. Seeing the glove up close, it felt as if it sang to me out of the night, and I had the inexplicable urge to possess it. It came away easily and pooled in my hand like cool liquid.”

“It did not scare you?” she asked on cue, voice low and serious.

“Yes, but I knew immediately that I was meant to possess the glove. I could feel it clinging to the palm of my hand, conforming to me. I took it to my tent and with great reluctance spread it on my desk to examine it. You see, I did not want to let it go. It had only three fingers, a fact I had not considered when I took it from the chimera. Nonetheless, I could not resist the urge to slip it on.” He held the gloved hand before her face and split four fingers so that they looked like two. “I cannot properly describe the feeling to you. Have you ever fallen a great distance?”

She shook her head.

“Have you ever killed someone? Or felt close to death? It was very like these things combined.”

She shook her head again, and he sighed contentedly. The script still amused him, and not all of it was a lie. The sensations he described were accurate.

“It is just as I thought. It will have to suffice to say that I had never felt such fear and exhilaration. Nor had I ever approached it. I blinked and the glove fit my hand perfectly. I could tell it wanted to be more than just a glove. It wanted my whole body. Some time still passed before I allowed it to cover me completely, to become armor, and this was an experience of another degree of magnitude. Only experience would prove that I could wear it without losing myself to the sensations.”

“What about your men? The war with the chimera?”

“As I recall, after finding the glove I abandoned my men on Pergossas. I requisitioned a small keelboat and sailed into the Eenos Ocean.”

“Why?” she asked, tearing petals from an unopened rosebud with her fingernails.

He shrugged, chest pulling against her back. “I wanted to be alone.”

“What happened to your men?”

He paused. Her question should have been, Where did you go? She rarely deviated from the script.

He dismissed it as nothing. “I suppose they died,” he answered. “Our brief victory meant little. The chimera had been expecting replacements from Belloja for some time. We had no chance. Why do you ask?”

“You had the glove. With it you could have helped the men.”

“No.” He disengaged his armored hand from hers and lay back on the bed of flowers. He knew she had no real interest in whether he helped or hurt men. “I did not yet know how to use it, or indeed if it could be turned to violence.”

She rose and stared down over her shoulder. She did not look directly at him, instead focusing on a distant point in her mind. “But you,” she said. “You know how to use the glove now. There is no limit to your power.”

“Hardly,” he said. “It only seems that way to you because you have so little power.”

He meant the comment as a joke, but her expression showed he had failed. Her brows came together and her lips set in a straight line. Anger, a common enough emotion for her.

Her temper collapsed suddenly, and her eyes became wet.

This, he had never seen. He wanted to be somewhere else, away from a situation he had so clearly misjudged.

“Eloue. What is it?”

Her eyes found his. “Are you ever going to share it with me?”

“No,” he said.

‡

On the surface, it was not an occurrence worthy of note. Many people had expected Adrash to share his power, and were disappointed when he did not. Eloue’s desire for power did not disappoint him. Rather, her vulnerability did. He had not expected it, and his response shocked him. He recoiled from her and left Herouca with a feeling uncomfortably close to fear.

He had not felt fear in a long time, indeed.

Her voice lingered in his mind—her touch and smell and taste, but mostly her voice. On regular occasions he woke from deep sleep, sure he had heard her calling to him. He began to suspect more than her vulnerability had driven him away. He examined his memories of her with the perfect recollection of a young god, and in examining heard what a normal man could not hear: Layers of sound, dense and sharp, pulsating like the stars at the limit of his vision. Eloue’s true voice was bliss and terror—the twitch of muscles in a man’s leg before coitus and the sound of the void freezing his lungs. It both invited and repelled.

No, he had not loved her. He came to realize affection had never drawn them together. No cute lie or routine bound them. Instead, a force beyond reason had compelled Eloue to him, and he to her. After several years away from Herouca, he could not deny this fact any more than he could deny his armor’s overwhelming need to be worn. Perhaps, instead of running he should have stayed and bested his fear. Had he turned his back on a great gift, an arcane magic?

More troubling still, he wondered if he had left a great weapon in the hands of an enemy.

He grew tired of thinking about it, tired of being intimidated by the unknown.

When he returned, Eloue was already dead, her home a slag-pile. Powerful magic had been brought to bear by a competitor or jealous suitor. Adrash had no interest in retribution, for her death freed him of his burden of thought. He bestowed his blessings upon the people who worshipped him and moved on. He visited the Royal Courts in Knos Min, from which his descendants, or those who pretended to be his descendants, ruled.

But the whole affair troubled him vaguely, as if something had soured in his stomach. He vowed never to set foot on Herouca again. It was only one island, and being there reminded him of his idiot fancy and miscalculation. He had squandered a possibility.

With effort, he managed to forget Eloue’s voice. He traveled his realm and found lovers to replace her—women and men who had never heard of Herouca, some of whom had never heard of Adrash. Far from the epicenter of his influence, on islands unlinked to Knoori, where the men had long ago forgotten the magics needed to cross the ocean, he begat children and raised dynasties. When a place ceased to inspire him, he left.

‡

Four millennia after men spilled forth onto the world’s surface, even the most advanced peoples of Jeroun had lost the ability to navigate the shallow sea and defend themselves from its creatures. The islanders disappeared due to disaster and famine, but Knoori’s population continued to grow, flourishing under the stern eye of Adrash.

He made Zanzi his home. Situated at the center of what would one day be called the Aroonan Mesa, his villa overlooked the million homes of The Golden City, the largest and most beautiful metropolis in Jeroun’s history. From there he traveled the continent, vanquished the last of the fire dragons, brought low the mage-kings who had installed themselves in various locales, and monitored the use and trade of elder corpses.

He reasoned his strength was not so great that another might not rival it. Though they lived in a state of suspension, the elders of the Clouded Continent were powerful enough to keep men from seeing their land, and Adrash from setting foot upon it. If the near-dead could do so much, perhaps a man might one day do more. And if the elders one day woke, who knew what powers they could bring to bear?