Chapter 12: Interlude III

Day turned to dusk, settling over the darkwood. Ithana had excused herself to tend and feed her baby, and now she returned to the Undying’s side, having settled Eslen in his crib. She sighed, shifting in her chair, watching the woman’s scarred face by the hearth-fire’s dying light. Valhera had requested that Ithana bring her paper, a rare thing in Khaldara, for few direlings could read or write. But now, she drew, dragging charcoal taken from the evening’s fire.

“I knew, even then, that the gods were not what people said they were,” Valhera said, not sparing Ithana a glance. “I knew that, if Elthys had been dead for centuries despite popular belief… there were things about the Dead God that his worshippers did not know. Perhaps nothing so drastic, but… my life had taught me to be skeptical of others’ faith.”

“A woman’s faith is for her alone,” Ithana said, and Valhera looked up from her page.

“I know, now. As much as I disagreed with my father, I don’t fault him for finding purpose in something beyond himself. I suppose… it doesn’t matter that Elthys is dead if her legacy still drives men to be better.”

Ithana held her stare for a long moment. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Maybe. Can it really be that simple? Few things are.”

She drew another line, frowned, and smudged it with her thumb. Ithana took breath to reply, but hesitated.

“Everything that lives stains the world in some way, for good or ill,” she finally said. “Elthys and Gilgaroth are dead, yes… but their power remains. And with that power, people can do good. People may find peace.”

Valhera nodded concession. “That’s true. You see remnants wherever you look. Dreamers can speak with the dead. Hemma, Lady Gazmere—they could restore the living. They can harness what’s left of the greatest powers to ever touch our world.”

Ithana sensed that there was more to the thought. She waited as Valhera made another stroke, then another, and the Undying’s face grew grim.

“But that power is finite,” Valhera said. “Eventually, it will run out. Already, it… has been running out.”

“Life may continue.”

“But in what state? Most of us are sterile. Death remains, but… it isn’t what it once was. It won’t be long until this world kills us all and toys with our walking corpses, laughing at the few who are left, trying to fight.”

Ithana was silent for a long while. She touched her chest as if to say a silent prayer, but the gesture felt wrong in the face of the Undying’s tale. “What about you? Are you trying to fight?”

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“I’ve been fighting for so long. Too long.”

“And yet you’re not done. You don’t believe… that all is lost.”

Valhera’s stare burned for a moment, some mixture of anger… and resignation. “Sometimes, you fight because that’s the only thing you know. You fight because… that’s all you are. Maybe you fight because you know there’s nothing else. And… you do it out of spite.”

Ithana sighed, leaning back in her seat. She watched the Undying draw, charcoal gripped in her shaky left hand. She wondered if what the woman said was true, regarding Gilgaroth. That there were things about the Dead God… that would shake her faith.

“Even these days, I hold onto faith, Valhera,” she said, folding her arms. “The truth isn’t always the only thing that matters. That, itself, is a truth that you learn, working with the dead.”

“Delusion can only keep you afloat for so long.”

“And yet, all things have their end.”

Valhera fell silent for a while as her drawing hand froze. She stared at the image before her, then closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“You’re right. Nothing lasts forever. Not even… faith.”

Ithana found words insufficient, then. She watched in silence as the Undying lay still. She expected to see tears starting to form, tribute to the woman’s grief and regret. But when Valhera opened her eyes, she revealed pain of a different sort. She had the look of a woman sleepless for weeks. Weary… and numb to the world around her.

Ithana put a hand on her arm. Valhera bristled at the touch, but allowed it. “There is faith, I think… intrinsic in endurance,” she began, and Valhera’s eyes returned to her drawing. “It is, maybe, not the hope that things will be better. But the belief that the pain, the burden of life… is worth it. Somehow. If you didn’t have that… I doubt you’d be here, before me. You wouldn’t be telling this story.” She paused, watching her patient with soft eyes. “You would be dead.”

Valhera shook her head. “I’m not here for solace,” she said, quiet as a whisper. “I’m not here to rekindle what I’ve lost. I don’t tell this story in the hopes of redemption… or repentance. I’ve had faith, Ithana. And as surely as I had it… I watched it die.”

She stared at her drawing, ten thousand emotions crossing her face—the look of a life remembered. Then, she handed the parchment to Ithana. On that page, manifest in charcoal’s black, was a woman’s face. She looked kind, Ithana thought, a smile wrinkling her eyes, dark horns rising from darker tides of hair.

“It’s time I tell you about her,” Valhera said. “The woman who changed me. Who let me believe, even for a moment, that there was good left in the world. That I had good left in me. That I could, despite the blood, the demon-fire, love and be loved. That faith had its place… even in a heart like mine.”

The Undying sat in silence a while longer, seeming to fight some inner turmoil. And, as she once again glimpsed the rendered face, one emotion seemed to break past the rest. It manifested in icy, silent tears. In her unsteady breath as she made to continue her tale.

However, when she spoke, her voice was level. Her eyes became hard, like sky-blue stones. “Her name is Aryssa,” she said, a memorial tone. “She was my poet… and I was her warrior.”