As Lanny's ship clove through the night dark seas, I sat in the prow, watching the familiar constellations wheel above me. It was brisk, but the salt tang in the air was invigorating, and I breathed deeply. A man could get used to this, I thought, letting my chin rest on my tucked up knees. Everyone else was asleep except for Temara, perched on my shoulder as usual, her tiny flute piping a slow melody tonight. She often rode on someone's shoulder, but seemed to favour me especially of late, much to the amusment of the others. Ashton had joked she'd found herself a new familiar, which had caused us all to laugh, but deep down, I was more pleased than I was willing to admit Temara had attached herself to me.
Finally, her melody faded and she tucked her flute away. "You don't say a lot about yourself," she said. "I'm not one to pry, but, well, the others trust you implicitly. You've shouldered your fair share of the work, you're no slouch with that horrendous sword, and you're a passable hunter."
I shrugged, gently, so as to not disturb her perch. "What would you have me say, sprite?"
Temara thwapped me on the cheek. Because of her small stature, it felt like nothing more than the brief brush of a butterfly's wings, but I knew she'd put all the force she could muster into it. "I'm serious," she said crossly. "Honestly."
"I'm sorry," I said contritely. "I just ... don't like talking too much about my past. It hurts, and I'd rather leave it where it is. Besides, you're a fine one to talk about keeping secrets, sprite. You've said precious little about your own family."
"That hurts too," Temara said curtly, before sighing. "But you're right. I'm sorry. I shoudn't have pried."
"It's alright," I assured her. "Listen, I'll tell you a story."
Temara nodded and nestled herself more comfortably on my shoulder, and I had to smile. She was feisty, but she was also genuine. That counted for a lot, in my opinion. "There was a man who grew dissatisfied with the way the world was," I said by way of opening. "Everywhere he looked, there was sorrow and strife, and the rulers of each country and nation didn't seem to give a damn about lifting a finger to fix it.
"So the man decided to do something about it himself. He set out researching all the dark magic he could find, but none of it suited his purposes. He dug deeper, but nothing he found could satisfy his need to put the world to right by whatever means necessary.
"In the end, he gave it up as a lost cause, deciding that if no such spell existed, he would make one himself. So he began talking to the dark elves, who told him that he must go to The Place of Unbeing if he wanted to know how to erase the world and remake it in the image he wanted it to be. They warned him such knowledge would come at a price, but he didn't care. The world had grown too dark, and since no one wanted to do anything about it, he reasoned he'd be the best candidate to actually get off his arse and do something other than watch the world go to wrack and ruin.
"He went to The Place of Unbeing, and there he saw things which would shrivel your soul to hear tell of. He learned secrets of unmaking, undoing, and unbeing, and he forged a sword of unmatter, a sword which would cleave the world in two. But when he tried to use the sword, nothing happened. So he went back and this time, learned the secrets to making a fortress of unmatter. He went to the Lake of Tears, and with the power of unmatter flowing through him, he lifted an island out of the lake's waters, and he created a fortress of deadly dark beauty, a fortress from which he would make a weapon such as the world had never seen. And on the day of the longest night, he made his weapon.
"It was shaped like a cannon, though its reach was mightier. He intended to fire the cannon into the very core of the earth, thus splitting it in two and destroying it from the inside out. From there, he would then remake the world the way he wanted it, where no one would want for anything, and where everyone's deepest wishes would be fulfilled, no matter how big or small."
"But why would he want to destroy the world?" Temara asked in a small voice.
I smiled sadly. "Because he believed it would be the only way to fix the world's problems," I said, gently stroking her silver-gold hair with the tip of my finger. "He thought that if he destroyed the world and then remade it, it would put things to rights."
Temara was silent for a while. "Why did he change his mind?" she asked.
"Because he saw that there are other, better ways to fix the world," I said, not surprised she'd guessed the true intent behind my story. "He saw a small band of heroes, who insisted they weren't heroes, solving problems by gathering people together and asking them to thrash out a solution. He saw them mending feuds, reconciling people with families, mending broken lives, hearts, marriages, and nations. He saw them mend the ills of the world, one mission at a time, and he realised destroying the world wasn't going to solve its ills, but leave a vaccuum which would likely be filled with something worse than that which he was trying to destroy."
"What are you going to do?" Temara's voice held no judgement or censure, and I felt as if I might possibly crack in two from the mingled pain and love that flowered inside my heart.
"For now, I'm going to get some sleep," I told her. I'd spread my blankets out earlier at sundown, and sleeping on the deck of a ship had always been a secret desire I'd never thought would come true. "After that, well, who knows?"
Temara fluttered off my shoulder. "You know," she said, "there's so much inside you that could be turned to more noble uses." Then she flew off, and I sighed. I knew she was right, but the weapon was still waiting to be fired. It had a target locked and set, and all I had to do was call it to arms in my mind. I had the spell ready, but as I watched Temara disappear down the ladder, I knew I wasn't going to be enacting the spell, at least not tonight.
For a while, I believed myself to be alone as I wrestled with my thoughts, but as I finally prepared to get some sleep, Lanny's voice spoke out of the darkness, with none of its usual bluster. "You know," he said, having been stood behind me for some time, "I could kill you for what I heard tonight."
I drew my sword and laid it at his feet. "Go ahead," I invited.
Lanny made no move to pick the sword up. "Tell me why I shouldn't," he challenged.
I shrugged. "You've no reason not to," I said. "And every reason to want to. I don't blame you. But I meant every word I said."
"Huh." Lanny regarded the sword at his feet. "Is that...?"
"The Undoing," I said. "Yes, it is. And if you ran me through with the intent to kill me, it would absorb me into itself, before reciting the spell I crafted to fire my weapon into the earth's core, splitting it in two and destroying the earth from the inside out. But with me dead, there'd be no hand to form a new earth. So you'd be condemning the peoples of the world to death with no hope of resurrection."
"Like you're planning on doing?" Lanny snarled.
I shrugged again. "I'd be giving them a second chance at life, and making sure there were no ills to trouble them."
"That's a shit life," Lanny said. "You'd be dooming them to a mindless utopia. Life's not meant to be lived like that. You need shit days to balance the good days, and good days to balance the shit ones. And sometimes you need days that are neither good nor shit. You're meant to have shit in one hand and good in the other. Else you'd die of boredom. Your proposed utopia would have half your fucking citizens slitting their throats before the first day is out, and the other half wondering what the fuck is going on, and why everything is suddenly coming up roses when it'd been coming up shit just the day before." He grunted. "Gods be good, man. You're even more insane than I am if you think that plan would ever work."
"I did think it, once," I said. "But then I started spending time with Ashton and the others. I see it all now much more clearly than I did before. Which is why I'm not using the spell tonight."
Lanny lifted the sword, grunting again at its weight. "You're a mad fucker," he said. With a surprising agility, he reversed the sword and offered it to me hilt first. "Out of respect for your good manners, I'm not going to tell Ashton. Nor am I going to run you through for hurting Temara. I love that girl like she was my own daughter, and I don't like dumb cunts who think they can trample all over her like that."
I took The Undoing back and sheathed it. "I love her too," I said. "More than I ought to, but enough to not put her through the inevitable pain when I do that which I swore I'd do... to myself."
"You'd turn your own weapon on you?" Lanny sounded surprised.
"Yes," I said. "Well, I'd have to be inside my citadel for it to work, but basically, by turning the weapon on myself while in my throne room, I negate its destructive properties against the earth, instead returning it, my castle, and myself back to the unmatter from which we were all created."
"You too?" Lanny surmised. "Just how old are you?"
"Old enough to still need a good night's sleep," I said, perhaps a bit more sharply than I'd intended.
Lanny, to his credit, didn't take umbrage at my tone. "Tell the others," he urged me. "They're probably on to you, but at least make it a clean ending when you do yourself in. Don't leave them wondering if 'the Eternal Consumer' is going to turn up somewhere they least expect it. Let them know the buck stops with you, so they can at least be sure you won't be coming back."
I shrugged as I rolled myself in my blankets. "We'll see," I said, my tone indicating the interview was over. Lenny had the air of a man who wanted to say something more, but he wisely left me to it, and I finally let sleep claim me. But even as I dropped off, his last words to me ran around like mice in my brain, chewing on every last ending, ensuring that tonight, at least, my sleep would not be restful.
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