NOVEL NEXT Episode 73: The Price Of A Life
EPISODE 73:
THE PRICE OF A LIFE
The first thing Vash noticed was the sound of running water. Slowly, his other senses took in his surroundings. His skin felt the warm sun and the slight summer breeze. He smelled the clean, damp scent of the river, as well as the distant smell of cooking fires. Underneath his head was something soft and warm; after a moment he realized it was someone's leg. Slender fingers smoothed his hair back from his brow. Vash noticed another scent.
Jasmine? He thought, not quite placing it. The scent was floral, with a musky undertone, similar to jasmine, but decidedly different.
Vash opened his eyes. He recognized Cass' face at once, but she was solid, a real person and not a ghost living in his head. Being solid and not glowing blue made her features stand out, and for the first time, Vash could appreciate how beautiful she was.
Cass had long dark hair that fell over her shoulders in black waves. Her skin had the coppery tone that Vash associated with elani, but darker than Corwin and the others that he knew. Cass had startlingly blue eyes, the only remnant of her spirit self. Her soft, full lips quirked up in a smile when she saw his eyes open.
"Good morning." Cass said, letting her hand drop from his brow.
Vash blinked, realizing that she was speaking aloud and not just a voice in his head.
"Sounds a little different coming from outside your skull, doesn't it?" Cass said, her smile turning mischievous.
"What happened?" Vash asked, rolling up onto his knees. "Where are we?"
The world swam for a moment, and Vash had to put out a hand to steady himself.
"I think you know what happened," Cass said, her smile slipping, but she seemed to be determined to put on a brave face. "Where are we? Looks like we're back on your little beach memory."
Vash remembered the world going dark and getting very far away. He remembered taking Cass' hand, then the pain stopped.
"I'm…dead?"
Cass nodded sympathetically. "I've been through this a few times with other people I've bonded with over the years. We're on the very outskirts of the Land of the Dead."
Vash looked out over the river.
That's not the Summerwine. He thought.
The water was so dark it was almost black, though Vash could make out some pale shapes in the depths. Roughly fifty feet from shore, a wall of mist arose. The mist obscured everything on the far bank, blanketing the world beyond Vash's immediate surroundings with a deep gray-white cloud.
"That's the River Onaeras, isn't it?" Vash asked, knowing the answer. The Dreamless River separated the Land of the Dead from the Land of the Living. A small strand of liminal space existed between the two, where the recently dead waited for the Mordis to come collect them. Some thought that this place was where dreams came from. A place where Olom, Lord of Fate, gave you a glimpse of the future.
A thought suddenly struck Vash. "Is this where we met Matris before?"
"Hard to tell." Cass shrugged. "I'm no wizard."
Vash looked at her, a nagging suspicion arising. "What are you, Cass?"
"Someone who was very unlucky." She sighed, but Vash could tell she was being evasive.
"Why do I feel like you're hiding something?" Vash asked, shaking his head. "What's the point? This is the end of the road for me, why not be honest?"
Cass laughed. "If you think that death is the end of this road, then you have a very rude awakening coming to you."
A dozen questions came to Vash's mind, but a shadow looming out of the mists caught his attention before he could ask them. The shadow was hazy at first, but slowly coalesced into the tall shape of a man. He was thin, almost skeletal, and wore the dark gray sackcloth robe of the Cult of Mordis. The man stood at the back of a long, flat-bottomed fishing boat, guiding it with a long pole. Vash recognized it as the kind of boat used by fishermen in the shallow marshes of the Summerwine.
The silent figure regarded Vash and Cass as he approached the beach. He had a gaunt, angular face with deeply sunken eyes. His pale skin was hairless, no beard or stubble, no eyebrows, and even though his hood was up, Vash could tell that the man was completely bald.
"Is that who I think it is?" Vash asked Cass quietly.
"You should be flattered; he rarely comes to make collections in person." Cass murmured back.
A chill ran up Vash's spine. Mordis, the Keeper of the Dead, pushed his boat up onto the wet sand of Vash's beach with a soft scraping sound. The gaunt figure looked down at Vash from his perch, leaning against his long pole.
"Do you have any idea how often I've started crossing that river to fetch you?" Mordis asked, his voice a soft baritone and surprisingly pleasant.
Vash swallowed hard, trying to will some moisture back into his mouth. "It has been a challenging few days."
"Days?" Mordis asked in mild incredulity. "This madness has been going on for years, Liellovash."
Unsure what to say, Vash shrugged. "I'm sorry that I've been an inconvenience?"
The god of the dead sighed heavily. "Fate often determines the length of a person's life. Free will might adjust that length slightly shorter or longer, but it's not that great of a change. You…your fate reads like a labyrinth designed by a madman. From the time you were a child, you've twisted, turned, and defied fate. My brother Olom calls you his 'pet project' and keeps your weave close at all times. I would have gotten annoyed after the first decade, but he finds you entertaining, apparently."
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"Is that a good thing?" Vash asked, not sure how to respond.
"Do you think that being the personal entertainment of a god is a good thing?" Mordis asked, his tone dry as a tomb.
"I suppose that explains a few things." Vash said, thinking about every strange event in his life so far.
Mordis snorted derisively. "Much of that was your actions or those of other mortals. We gods are not as involved as you seem to think."
Vash fell silent as he absorbed all this.
Mordis waited, unmoving and unconcerned as a statue.
"What happens now?" Vash asked finally.
Mordis straightened. "Now you get in my boat and we cross the river."
"What happens after that?"
"The next part."
"Which is?"
Mordis shook his head. "You will find out when we cross the river."
Vash looked out across the river. In the swirling mists, he could barely make out the vague shape of the opposite bank. It looked both tantalizingly close and further away than he expected.
I could leave much of this behind. Vash thought. Though, it's not like I have a choice in the matter.
He turned back to Cass, who was watching him with a kind of sad interest. "What about Cass?"
"What about her?"
"Isn't she coming with us?" Vash asked.
"No," Mordis said with grim finality.
"It isn't really an option for me, Vash," Cass said. "I'll be all right. I'm sure I'll find a new vessel soon enough. The Dungeon is full of Therium, so it won't be too difficult to build one. Maybe a decade or two."
"That doesn't seem right." Vash said, shaking his head. "You've done so much to help me."
"Put in a good word for me on the other side," Cass said, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder fondly.
Vash struggled to put his feelings into words. He had just gotten Cass back, and now he was losing her again.
You're losing everything, dummy. Vash thought. He heaved a great sigh and turned to face the god of the dead.
"Ready?" Mordis asked, though he didn't seem to be in a great rush.
"No, but that doesn't seem to matter at the moment." Vash said.
Mordis simply waited.
Vash looked back once more. His beach, his secret place, he glanced at the urn that held his mother's ashes. I wonder if anyone will find them? I hope nobody disturbs her.
Taking a deep breath, Vash turned and approached Mordis' boat. As he stepped onto the boat, he felt a great weight lift from his shoulders. He realized it was all his worries and fears being left behind. Vash smiled and looked towards the far shore.
Tug, tug.
Something in his pouch gave a sudden pull back towards shore. Vash felt compelled to follow it.
"What was that?" Mordis asked suddenly suspicious.
Vash undid the laces of his pouch. Nestled at the bottom was the two-headed coin. Vash pulled it out and immediately felt the tug back to shore.
"Son of a bitch." Mordis rumbled.
"What?" Vash protested. "I didn't even know I still had it."
"Who gave you that?" Mordis asked, his expression dark. The mists across the river shifted in color, darkening to storm clouds. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.
"A man who called himself Matris." Vash said. "He gave it to me the last time I was here."
Mordis' brow wrinkled, and he looked up to scan the beach. "You've had your fun, I suppose. Come out now."
"It's not really fun in the strictest sense of the word." Matris said, stepping out from behind a boulder down the beach from Mordis' boat. "But it is enjoyable seeing the look on your face, brother."
Matris' eyes twinkled as he gave a conspiratorial wink to Vash.
"More gods?" Vash groaned.
"Just the two of us, for now." Matris said. "If you went across the river, however, I believe there is a certain ancient hunter that might want a word or two with you."
Kyrinos. Vash felt his blood run cold.
"You know you are forbidden from discussing my domain." Mordis said, a cold anger growing in his tone.
"Terribly sorry, brother. It won't happen again." The being that called itself Matris said, sounding sincere and mocking at the same time.
"Olom." Vash said. "Lord of Fate."
Olom, formerly Matris, smiled at Vash. "Took you long enough. I even put my sigil on the coin. An older version, sure, but you should have recognized it."
"I should have known." Mordis growled. Vash had the sense that he was getting truly angry. "No last-minute reprieves this time? We're going this route, are we?"
"He might need it later." Olom said. If Mordis' anger bothered him, the Lord of Fate did not let it show.
"It's a risk."
"It's necessary."
"Have things really gotten that bad out there?" Mordis asked.
"The Guardians are failing." Olom said, voice serious. "It's time to make some choices."
"That didn't work out well for us last time."
"There's always hope." Olom said with a grin.
Vash watched the two gods speak in riddles to one another. He was confused, but starting to think that he might not be crossing the river after all.
"What's going on?"
The gods turned to look at him, Mordis' annoyance plain on his face. Olom gave him a wry smile. "So, when we talked earlier, I may have given you something to…bend the rules a bit."
Mordis gave a grunt of annoyance and shook his head, but remained silent.
"Your body sustained damage beyond repair." Olom said. "There's nothing that can be done about that. However, there is a Talent that allows a person whose Core is strong enough to rebuild their body as long as their spirit has not crossed into the Land of the Dead."
"Remanifestation." Cass breathed.
"Indeed," Olom said, giving Cass a look that wasn't entirely friendly. "It isn't something one can use very often. The formula of Remanifestation is struck from your mind when you reform, as will quite a bit of what happened here. To relearn the formula, you must present my coin to Mordis if you should fall again."
"Won't he remember?" Vash asked, looking over at Mordis.
"It is not in my nature to help the dead return to the material plane." Mordis said coldly. "So it will not be information that I will hand out freely."
"The coin is vital." Olom said, tapping the coin in Vash's palm. "If you lose it, that's not a problem; it's soul-bound to you and will return. If you give it away to someone else, however. Then the power passes to the person you gave it to."
Vash looked down at the tarnished bronze coin in his hand. "But I won't remember any of this. So why tell me?"
"There's always a chance you'll remember some of it. Like remembering a dream." Olom said. "Speaking of which. I think it's time to wake up."
Vash looked at him, confused. "What do I do?"
"Come here, Vash," Mordis said irritably.
Vash approached the towering god of the dead, standing in the shallows of the river. The water was cool and tugged gently at his feet. Mordis kneeled, looking down at Vash. He laid his palm on Vash's forehead.
There was a flash of light as a complex formula exploded into Vash's mind. He scrambled to take hold of it. The edges of the form were slippery, always changing, and Vash knew this wasn't something he could hold for long. Vash reached into his Core and found a well of mana as vast and deep as a running river. Unbound by mortality, the power of the universe at his fingertips.
Drinking deep of the river of power, Vash fed mana into the formula that he could barely hold in his mind. Golden light erupted around him, and he felt motes of himself flake off, floating away back to the material plane.
"I don't like this," Mordis said irritably. "It didn't work with Shadowbane, it won't work this time either."
"It's worth a try," Olom said, then glanced towards Cass, who still stood on the beach. "At least we removed her from the board."
Mordis looked confused for a moment, then brightened. "Ahh, clever. New body severs the bond. That's a relief."
Cass. Vash thought, turning to look at her through a golden veil of rising motes. No, no one gets left behind.
Vash charged up the beach from the water, past the confused-looking gods. Cass looked shocked when he headed directly for her. Vash used what he had learned and added to the Remanifestation formula, stretching his aura to envelop Cass. She let out a shocked gasp as the golden light surrounded her as well. Vash reached her in a few steps and wrapped his arms around her.
"What are you doing?" Cass asked, surprise and fear in her voice.
"Taking you with me," Vash said, pushing as much mana as he could into the Remanifestation Talent. The golden light flared, and Vash felt himself dissolve into millions of pieces. His mind went blank. He tried to hold on to what had happened, what he had learned, but his memories faded and slipped away, like sand through his fingertips.
Then there was nothing.