Tallah [Book 3 Complete]

Vergil's face burned. His ears probably smoked by Horvath's third complaint.

He also didn't appreciate being forced to watch all of it happening from behind his own damn eyes. And he couldn't even close those to not see the looks of shock on everyone's faces. If he could've mentally drawn back into a ball and disappear from the world entirely, now was the moment to learn how.

"I don't—That's not—" he tried to protest, but no actual words came out. Only Horvath's rambling complaining. "Stop! Please—Don't tell her—It's not like—"

It was no use. Horvath had taken full control of Vergil's mouth, and he was going to say all the things that weren't his business to air out.

A crowd had gathered to watch his histrionics. At the head of those there was Licia, staring as open-mouthed as everyone else. He caught sight of her in the corner of his vision before Horvath turned his gaze back on Tallah.

Right, now she'll think I'm completely insane. They'll all think I'm insane.

He didn't know why that bothered him quite as much as it did. He hadn't spoken to the elendine at all since the troll, not really, and he got the feeling she was crossed with him. Still, this wasn't how he wanted her to see him.

And the sorceress would be so angry with him! And so embarrassed with his failure to contain the dwarf. Vergil had promised things were under control, that she shouldn't worry about him, that he wasn't going to be an issue for her.

He was being an issue. It was on Tallah's face just then.

Horvath was set on pissing away all that Vergil had worked hard to gain for himself. Friends that he'd somehow gathered around himself. Respect earned with the soldiers of the Rock. Even Tallah's grudging approval. All of it was going to vanish after this pathetic display.

His stomach knotted in impotent rage.

'You've done nothing on your own, for you are nothing,' a voice sang in his ear. 'This will never change. You will always be nothing more than chaff.'

Vergil didn't turn his attention away. The voice was that of the white faced daemon, but tinged with exhaustion and poorly-concealed pain. Horvath had subdued the creature and Vergil expected that had taken quite the toll on it. The dwarf wouldn't have left it out of hand if he still believed it a threat in any way.

Still, Vergil wasn't going to confront it. Not now. Not before he was ready, and he needed Tallah's help for that. Or at least for her to teach him how to look inward.

'You hide from unpleasant truths. Without the stonesmith your soul would never have endured.' Malicious glee coated the words. 'You are nothing. You will always be nothing. Destined for nothing. A worthless husk that thinks itself… human.'

Vergil understood enough of his own circumstances to know the creature wasn't lying. It didn't need to. Without Horvath's fist around its throat, it would've had free reign to do with Vergil as it would have pleased, and he never would've even known it.

Even as he thought the words, he found himself shunted back into full awareness, the burning sensation on his face and ears increased twofold. A chill wind caressed his skin and a mouthwatering smell of food tickled his nose. He stopped dead mid-ramble, swallowing the words he'd been screaming at Tallah.

A wild look about revealed a huge crowd gathered. Even Arin was there, at the edges, two cups in hand, mouth hanging open. Vergil wished just then to bite his own traitorous tongue off.

"Back with us?" Tallah asked, voice not as angry as he would've expected it.

'Shut the feck up, corbi,' Horvath growled in the back of Vergil's mind. The sound of something being batted about appeared in his mind, then a strangled cry, and Vergil felt a ghost caress slipping off his mind. The creature had been trying to slither in. 'Stand straight, sprig. Ye ain't a willow.'

He did.

"It's me," he said, swallowing thickly the froth in his mouth. "He's said all he had to."

Licia took a few steps towards him, met his eyes, then stopped. She cocked her head to the side, worry in her dark eyes. Something must have shown on his face, that she smiled ruefully before mouthing the words to "Come see me". A wink accompanied them before the elendine turned away and disappeared into the dispersing crowd.

"Quite the friend you've made of him." Tallah relaxed visibly and turned her glare towards the lingering onlookers. "See to your meals. Rest up. We march tonight."

Vergil wanted to shrink in on himself as he felt Arin's gaze on the back of his neck. Maybe he was imagining it. He didn't dare turn around and check what the soldier was doing as Tallah ushered the crowd away. Some mutters did reach his ears, but no words were intelligible.

Instead, he coughed and tried to get some control over his voice.

"Sorry about all that," he said with as much dignity as he could muster. "I don't know what's come over him."

Tallah turned a look on him that he couldn't quite understand. Part wonder. Part annoyance? Maybe?

"Why are you apologising?" she asked, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she tightened her glare. "Did he say anything untrue?"

He wilted under her hard glare. "I… uh… I don't… You know…"

"Oh just spit it out," a new voice cut in as he stumbled over the words.

Sil was climbing up the hill, and Vergil was ready to sink through the ground. The healer wasn't smiling. Which meant she had listened to Horvath's rant too, and was now probably just as annoyed as Tallah with his failure to keep the dwarf under control.

If Horvath couldn't be controlled, then Vergil wasn't reliable. He would be useless to them.

"Just admit we've been mistreating you," Sil said. "I don't need that mad bugger to come out and give me my own talking to. I'm sure he's got plenty of grievances with me too."

"I don't—" Vergil stuttered.

'Aye, I do,' Horvath growled.

"Don't!" Vergil snapped, cold sweat breaking across his back. "No more!"

Sil came to stand by Tallah and looked at him with worry in her eyes. "I promise I'm chastised," she said. The honesty in her voice shocked him.

"Y-you are?" he stuttered. "Why?"

Tallah wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He flinched but her grip was tight as she led him to sit back down on the rock. Sil sat next to him, stretching out her legs and letting out a slow, tired breath.

The camp stretched out beneath them, hidden in the long shadows of mid-morning. It was pleasantly cool still, the sun hidden behind a long stretch of lead sky. Rain threatened with the rumble of distant, echoing thunder.

People clustered together in small groups, just as he and the two channellers did now. He felt a stab of pride at seeing so many survivors still with them. Maybe his contribution had been small, but he'd still fought tooth and nail for each one down there. He'd played a part… and recognized Horvath pushing his self-esteem. The dwarf wasn't subtle.

"We've not been kind to you," Tallah said suddenly as she stretched. A symphony of pops and crackles followed. "We need to do better by you."

"That's not true," Vergil protested, stiffening. He didn't want to complain. There were more important things to worry over than him.

"We. Have not. Been kind," Sil repeated Tallah's words, emphasising them patiently, same as when she'd been teaching him things in Valen. "And you've gone beyond any expectation we should have had of you." Her arm joined Tallah's around his shoulder, from the opposite side, as she scooted closer. "You are not going to accept our behaviour anymore."

"What does that even mean?" His voice squeaked. "I'm fine, really. I was learning with you two. You don't need to apologise for anything."

"I'm not apologising. What's done is done." Tallah looked at him with a smile quirking her lips. "And now I'll teach you to stand up for yourself," she said. "Say it with me."

His head swivelled from one side to the other. "What?" he asked, voice barely above a squeak.

"You two," Tallah began.

"You two," he parroted, eager to be done with this.

"Have been."

"Have been."

"Cunts," she finished.

"C—" Vergil stuttered and coughed. "That's a bad word," he protested.

"Bastards works just as well," Sil said. "Cruel. Harpies. Crones."

"Bitches," Tallah provided. "Fools even, if you're feeling charitable."

"Fools is fine," Vergil said quickly. "You two have been fools. There. Can we stop now?"

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"Say it with feeling," Sil admonished and squeezed his shoulder tighter.

"Oh for fuck's sake," he snapped and tried to pull away. They dragged him back. "You're both insufferable."

What did they want from him? The dwarf had said all those things, not him—though part of him admitted to everything. And they were wasting time now, rather than deal with all the issues they were supposed to deal with.

Tallah laughed and beamed a smile at him. "There we go. Now that's better."

He leaned forward and pressed his face in his palms, groaning. At least the crowd had dispersed entirely and there was nobody else to stare at him. It was odd to sit like this, just the three of them again. The last time that had happened had been in the Brandy's taproom, and that felt a lifetime away, what with so much having happened so quickly. It had been less than a tenday since they'd dropped at the Rock, but it both felt like it had been a lifetime, and no time at all.

"What's happened to you, Vergil?" Tallah asked, voice kept low. "Do I need to sic Anna and Christina on the dwarf?"

How would that even work?

'Haw! Let 'em try. I ain't above splitting their lips,' Horvath cackled in his ear. The image of the brawny dwarf being given a stern talking to by two women like Tallah was… terrifying somehow.

Vergil drew in a great lungful of air and shook his head. "He's a friend. No lie there."

"Oh, I could see that," Tallah said, holding back laughter. "Would've been good if he'd left you do the talking instead. Quite the eager mother hen you've got squatting in your brain."

His ears lit up with the heat of the sun. It went down his face and his neck as he sputtered for an answer.

"Tallah," Sil admonished. "How are we teaching him to stand up for himself, if you poke him like this?"

"What do the two of you want?" Vergil asked, straightening to glare at each in turn. "Don't you have an army to lead? People to heal? Anything else but dot on me?"

The dwarf was far from the only mother hen of the group.

Tallah leaned forward and gave Sil a shit-eating grin. "Poke him enough, and he gets mouthy. Mission accomplished." She gave him a pat on the back. "I'm resting. Liosse and Vilfor can take of things for a while. I want to know what's happened to you. And I want a straight answer. If the dwarf wants me to treat you like the adult you are, then you need to open up and be upfront. I can't afford a wild horse at my side. Sil's enough of one as it is."

"Excuse me?!" Sil bristled.

"You're excused. Let Vergil talk." Tallah's tone had fallen to something more amiable than he'd ever heard from the sorceress. There was still the impatience beneath the surface, but her concern felt… well, heartfelt. "In your own words, Vergil. If you're ready."

Vergil drew in a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly. Right then, time to face the things in his own head.

"Do you remember how you found me?" he asked. "Back in the warren?"

"Vividly," Sil said.

"Not particularly," Tallah said at the same time.

"I was put there. Everything you got from my memories… it was all fake." It felt good to say this aloud. It helped him come to terms with the unfortunate implications. "I had been put there maybe a day earlier, to wait for you."

"I almost killed you back then," Tallah said.

"You wouldn't have managed. Likely, you wouldn't even have singed me. That was part of what was going to make me interesting. I was a honey trap."

He tapped a hand to his chest, where he remembered the tumour being on his doppelganger. He'd not given it much thought back then, slipped away from his mind even before he'd hit the ground then, swept up in the terror of meeting Tallah and Sil.

How different that all felt now.

"Who put you there?" Tallah asked.

"I saw your memories," Sil said, incredulous. "They felt complete."

"They were supposed to. That was the point of me, to be an instrument, sent specifically to control you. And, I think, also Panacea. I'm not entirely sure on that. Horvath hasn't gotten that far with his questioning. He's kept busy keeping me alive."

"I don't understand," Tallah said. "Where does he fit in?"

Vergil took a deep breath and tried to organise his thoughts better. They were all coming out in a rush and it was hard to know what to talk about so it would all make sense. It barely made sense to him.

"So, you know how Panacea said she summoned me here? How I was a failed attempt and she'd been looking for me all winter?"

"Yes," Tallah said, dubiously.

"Well, I didn't die on the Gloria and come straight here. I was… somewhere else between the two. All I remember of that place is a black sun in the sky, and a place so dark that I can't even imagine its shape. Cold walls. Long silences. Singing chanting in the background sometimes, passing through the walls. Ice on my wrists and neck. A lot of pain. I was there for a long time." He tapped his chest. "That thing you saw on my soul? It's from there. They put it in me to control me."

"Who's they?" Sil asked, leaning in closer to listen. She had a far-away look on her face, as if she were revisiting the memory of that day when they'd met.

"I… don't really know." Vergil shrugged.

"Ryder?" Tallah suggested. "Both the goddess and the guardian spoke of you having a taint."

"Maybe? I don't know." Vergil sighed, thinking of everything he'd remembered. "We haven't gotten that far in questioning the thing. I was supposed to make contact with you, be interesting in some way, then the thing would've tried to goad you into doing things for it."

"Like?" Tallah asked.

"Don't know yet. I'm still piecing everything together. This all came to me when I ran into the white-faced daemon at the siege. Didn't really have time to think since."

"One answer, ten questions." Tallah sighed heavily. "This never changes with you."

"I'm sorry," Vergil said.

Sil slapped him upside the head. "Stop that. Stand straight. Keep going."

"Thing is, when you used the helmet on me, you broke that plan before it even started. The thing that was latched on to me suddenly found itself under attack by a mad dwarf." He tapped his temple. "And Horvath found Argia's chip to drain into. So they've been fighting one another up here ever since. Which left me free. And pretty much a vegetable."

He picked up his helmet by a horn and waggled it at them. "This thing's empty, by the way. Horvath's out of it. We only need it for the power boost. Soon not even for that."

"I always did find it strange how pliable you were," Sil said. She had her mace out and was turning it in her hands, staring away. "Always attributed it to the trauma, not to something more. Even Aliana didn't sniff this out. Incredible work has been done on you."

Tallah let out a chuckle. "You've got Christina in a tizzy, with Anna right next to her braying for me to dissect you." When he flinched, she added, "I won't do that, much as she'd like. You're a confluence of incredible luck and mind-shattering misfortune. I smelled destiny on you when I found you. Wanted to destroy you for it. Funny how right I was, and how wrong."

Vergil raised his hands in weary exasperation. "I was not supposed to be… me. Just a vessel. Now I don't even know who or what I am."

To his great shock, Sil burst out laughing. It wasn't just a giggle, but a full-blown belly laugh that teetered on the edge of hiccups. Both he and Tallah just stared at her, then at each other, waiting for the healer to calm down and reveal what she was on about.

"There is a sick sense of humour in the universe," Sil managed to say between burst of the laughter. "There must be something guiding it. You're Vergil, boy. Always have been."

"But—" he protested.

"I'm a dead woman with holes in my memories, built by Aliana and this bitch's ideas." She pointed accusingly at Tallah. "And now I don't even believe in the things that I used to believe in with all my soul, now that I've met my fucking goddess. She's a machine spirit come from the stars, by the way. Can you imagine how mad that is?" There were tears in her eyes, and it was impossible to know what kind. "So, Vergil, who am I?"

Before he could reply, Tallah spoke on his other side. "I think I'm merging with Christina. Not sure yet, but there are signs. Soon I may not be myself anymore, or not wholly myself, if we're worried of who we are and what's happening."

Now it was Vergil's time to burst into laughter. What a group they were!

"You've grown into your skin, Vergil. You are who you choose to be, and there's not a force in the universe that can change that now." Tallah squeezed his shoulder warmly. "Whoever you were before you got here is pretty much gone. Does it matter? Do you mourn that boy?"

He thought back on his life on the Gloria Nostra and couldn't think of a single moment, of those left to him, that he cherished. The memories of that time were there, yes, as a basis on which the others had been erected, to provide the depth of his character, to fool mind probing. But he didn't really care for what had been before. He wasn't going back to the Gloria and, even if he could go back, he didn't want to be anywhere but here, now, and with the people surrounding him.

"Where were you going to tell me you're remembering Dreea?" Tallah asked over his head, aimed at Sil. "Is that the thistle in your trousers? Dreea wanted it done. I only provided creative input for Aliana's work. Don't put on me what your past self chose of her own will."

"How did she choose that?" Sil asked, mirth still coating her words. "I have part of the coward needling me. Doesn't seem the sort to choose her own death."

"She looked into the doppelganger goblet. It's how you got the acid scar."

"Ah. That would've done it." Sil shrugged. "I'm not even mad, Tallah," she said, still wiping away tears. "If this bucket-head can still get up, stand tall, and go on with things after all he's had done to him, I can stomach some existential horror."

"So… what do we all do next?" Vergil asked. "Shouldn't we be moving forward? The daemons will come after us. I don't think some rocks will stop them."

Thunder rumbled above, the storm looming darker by the passing moment. It would hide any creatures approaching from the collapsed ravine. Vergil had no idea how long the thing was, but could guess if he thought on the time Tallah had needed to fly over it and then return by shard.

"They're not coming. Not yet," Tallah ventured.

"You can't know that."

"No. But I can make an educated guess. Mol'ach wasn't interested in killing us, not outright." Tallah raised a hand and pressed it to the spikes on Sil's mace. Blood welled up from the punctures, rising like a spike in her palm. "If that thing would've wanted us dead, it would've just let the daemons swarm us."

The spike of blood on Tallah's hand took the shape of two miniature women, both looking at Vergil with hands on hips.

"What are you doing?" Sil asked on the other side.

"An experiment," Tallah answered. "We will create a link between Vergil and myself. What he's just confirmed for us is that we have a white-faced daemon of our own, subdued." Her smile was wolfish, all teeth and barely restrained anger. "What we don't have is information. Your goddess is truly shit at giving us anything to work with. And she stole the one thing that could've shed light on all this insanity."

"Tallah, ask permission first," Sil admonished.

And Vergil was surprised to see Tallah's ears redden suddenly.

"Quite right," she said, almost apologetic. "Vergil, do you consent to this? It might hurt. We've never done it before and we've some reservations."

"Oh, fuck yeah!" He almost leapt to his feet, ready to cut himself just to give the two ghosts better access within him. "Skin it alive for all I care. I don't mind if it hurts, just let me understand what I came here to do."

"Want to finish the job?" Sil asked him with more than a little sarcasm in her voice.

He felt a grin split his face almost ear to ear. "Fuck no! I want to bring their plans to the ground, burn them to ashes, and salt what remains. I want revenge for all of it, Tallah." He pointed a finger at the sorceress. "If you really mean that you're sorry for how you treated me, then help me get this. I am tired of being used. I want to strike back."

"It might involve a god. You realise that, right?" she asked. Her silver eyes met his and they sparkled with mischief.

"So what if it does?" He laughed. "Gods can bleed just as red as you or I. Else they wouldn't be afraid of showing their hands holding the strings."