Chapter 470: The Stranger At The Fire (Bonus GT)

I had just glimpsed the end of three lives, and while they were shocking, what caused me to shiver was that there were most likely millions of similar cases inside this crystal. I knew from the warband that the conflict in and around Serrath had been going on for twenty thousand years, and that was just what they knew. It could have been going on for even longer... and this crystal was a record of all of it.

These were tangible moments in the lives of millions, encased in a single shell, and it was in my hand. What is this crystal?

As far as I could tell it was not a battery, though I could be wrong. This thing was filled with endings, and they were not gentle ones either. Whoever made it did not want people who died in bed. They wanted the instant a life is torn out of somebody who was not ready to give it, and they had been taking them, one war at a time.

They thought they were fighting over a pass, a way to make their lives a bit easier, but with the powers of the gods, Serrath did not need to exist. Mountains could be flattened, seas could be made into dry ground... this problem was kept exactly as it was in order to gather the suffering of millions.

I still do not know what it is for, but I now know what it is made of. I had seen three of them, and I am not going back in for a fourth unless somebody gives me a reason I cannot argue with.

There is also the fact that my soul was already leaning towards my flesh, and this was a bad time to go walking around inside other people’s deaths. I did not want to push myself to a place where I had no option but to allow that to happen.

I looked at the edge of the valley, and I knew that whatever was coming was now very close.

I sighed and placed the crystal in my pocket. Some things you carry the old way.

∞

The crows hadn’t stopped arriving, even after all this time.

On the first day they were a smudge on the northern horizon that could be mistaken for smoke. On the second day the smudge had spread across a third of the sky, and I could hear them, a low seething sound that never stopped; it was enough to drive a lesser person insane.

By the third afternoon they were everywhere, and I was surrounded. If I wanted to leave, I would have to cut through them. They covered the ground and filled the sky to the north and east in a wheeling column that went up until it disappeared into the light... millions of them.

Not one of them made a sound after the second day. On the third day there was just complete silence, for an entire day, on every branch and rock and inch of open ground within a mile of me, all of them facing me.

Gosh, I did not know I was so popular.

Since they were not attacking, I focused on what I was doing and disregarded their stares. They were normal crows as far as I could see, but they were filled with an odd vitality that meant they did not need to eat or sleep, and probably made them far more durable than the ordinary sort.

I imagined that these crows would be enough to strip a city clean if given the chance.

After counting past three million, I stopped. Any more and it became useless, so I built a fire. It occupied my hands, and besides, with so many crows the light of the sun had vanished, and I did not want to be surrounded by darkness; it brought back too many bad memories.

Perhaps I should have cut my way through these birds and left, but what use was running from something that would always come?

It was better to wait and see the face of the enemy.

After all, I am here to die.

I sat back down, cross-legged, with my hands on my knees and the fire in front of me. I closed my eyes and waited for the end, and I tried not to think about the fact that Death was here in this age with me.

∞

I did not hear him when he arrived. He may have been there from the moment I chose to close my eyes, or he may have just appeared. I did not know. All I knew was that as I opened my eyes I saw a man standing at the edge of the firelight.

He was tall, and he was wearing a white robe with a hood. I don’t know why a part of me had been expecting black. Maybe it was because I assumed the master of all these crows would be in black.

Under the hood was an ordinary face, if I should say so myself, and when he saw me looking, he pulled the hood back, and I could see that he was bald. I searched my memory for anyone like him and found nobody, but what struck me were his eyes... well, because he had none, just a deep void, and I swear for a moment it was as if I saw something moving inside that darkness.

I was instantly reminded of Raktanāgeya, the blood god. That massive serpent had worn the body of a Beastkin, and when it had no use for it any longer, it was simply discarded like trash.

So it was most likely that I was looking at another god.

Then he bowed. "Traveller. Can I join you at your fire?"

I looked at him for a few seconds. Overall, he was not the strangest being I had met. It was becoming harder to shock me, after I had seen the living patterns that lived in the void.

"Sit," I said.

He nodded at me and sat, and only then did the crows that had been staring at me turn their heads, all of them, to look at him instead.

I noticed that the light from the fire did not touch his robes. For a while there was silence, and I made no effort to break it.

Finally the stranger spoke. "Cold night," he said.

I looked around, and nodded. "It is."

"You have enough wood?"

"Enough for a while."

He nodded and looked at the fire with me, and we fell into silence.

"You are not from around here," he said.

I paused, then said, "No."

"Nobody is." He chuckled. "Not anymore. Everyone is from somewhere else now. The war has made nomads of us all."

I did not answer. He did not seem to need me to.

"I have been walking for a long time," he sighed. "Longer than I care to count. I do not sleep much. I do not eat much. I just... walk. And every now and then I come across a fire, and I ask if I can join them. Most of the time they say yes. Sometimes they say no. I do not blame them either way. These are not good times to be trusting."