Chapter 185
Then the Years
The loops began--they were rough and uneven, sotis lasting a few weeks and sotis a couple of months. Sylas wasnt particular about following a route, often diverging on his own, effectively looking for all the variables. He wasnt in a hurry. If anything, he slowed down the pace to a crawl, letting the ti wash over him like the warm winds.
Though months and years passed, he hardly felt them. Bit by bit, ti had begun to... seize. What was a drug alarming the brain each and every day that it was ever-so-closer to dying was now a hollow word. A pointless sound. A thing that never was. In fact, if it werent for Asha to tell him, he would have forgotten what ti even was.
By the ti he had finally perfected the fight against the king who never was, the Shadow that used to tornt him, he had celebrated over four hundred years of stay in the loop that never seed to end. It was strange--having shut down like a machine, the years never ate away him. He sealed who he was within the depths of his soul and lived out the story that ought to be almost by instinct.
Today, once again, he found himself face to face with the elongating fields of green, the sprawling hills and the vast, blue sky, land unblemished by the winter. There was an ever-growing army at his back, like winds in his sails, though they hardly chanted his na. He was a desolate figure to most, a macabre thing that hung around the King-to-be.
He listened to Valen make the speech the boy had spoken into existence hundreds of tis by now, so much so that Sylas rembered it word for word. He even sat down and mouthed it, word for word, with a faint smile on his face. It was strange, the anomaly--no matter the route they take... the speech remains the sa. No matter what.
But for every word of the speech that he morized, one or another mory vanished. He found himself forgetting even the day that he first t Asha, improbable though he thought it was. He couldnt be certain, not of anything, really. He had no mirror to compare his mories to. For all he knew, hed forgotten a thousand things... and he might not have forgotten anything. But he did. At least, he forgot them. Hannah and Jake.
He caught his mind adrift, once, those two nas swimming about, unattached, like the marionettes without strings. There were no Hannahs or Jakes in this world, that much he knew. And he knew, sowhere in the depths, that, once upon a ti, he had a family. It wasnt difficult to connect the dots, even if they may be faulty.
In the end, though, try as hard as he could, he could only rember the nas. There were no faces, no voices, no nostalgic anecdotes about waking up late one morning and rushing the young kid to school only for the latter to forget his lunch. There was only noise, the kind of noise that he couldnt explain. It humd into infinity, seemingly holding all the secret mories that had long since vanished from him.
He held onto the nas, however. He wrote them down hundreds of tis, sotis even within one loop. Hannah, Jake. Hannah, Jake. Hannah, Jake. He wrote them so many tis that hed started to think he made them up. There were quite a few years spent in the quiet deliberation of the point. In the end, he succumbed to the base want of needing the nas to be true.
Perchance, he mused, even if he did abuse the infinity of ti he was gifted, he would still be unable to recall more than he already did. His old life had been burned--vague things remained, concepts like technology, but anything specific had long since been shaven off in lieu of hundreds of years of suffering and numbness.
Beyond the so-called Amon Fields, the land expanded into a flanked valley connecting two different regions of the Kingdom. This pit stop always evoked war, for a massive army awaited them within the dark tunnel. Their force of a barely a couple of thousand could hardly withstand the twenty-thousand strong onslaught. That is, so long as Sylas remained back. He never fought--not because he couldnt win, but because he wanted to see how far he could take the force without himself. Not far, it seed.
What should we do?! Valen asked the Council anxiously. Others didnt look much better; aside from Sylas and Asha, they all seed to have concluded they would die in the canyon. He had seen these exact faces nearly a hundred tis now, and they hardly dented his heart. And yet, for a brief mont, he wanted to alleviate their fears.
Want to show you guys sothing cool? he suddenly asked, drawing his eyes on himself.
Sothing... cool? Valen sang back.
... co out, Sylas said, standing up and leaving the tent. They had set up a camp at the very entrance of the valley, a mile or so off from where the battle is to be held. Others soon followed, but he didnt stop, slowly walking toward the dip and further into the canyon. I have been getting a bit angry watching them beat your guys asses so many tis. I guess I can vent for a bit.
While many eyes watched on in confusion, Asha rely smiled and shook her head. Sylas wore nothing but the pants still, a simple scabbard holding the blade within as it swung back and forth from his waist. Though he appeared tiny, flanked by the looming cliffs, for so reason... he seed taller still than the sky itself. The bare back seed to hold the weight of the stars, ineffable, untouchable.
Though the opposing force grew alard for a mont when they saw a silhouette approaching, upon realizing that it was a one, beggar-looking man, laughter jeered into the days winds. Reaching five hundred feet of separation, Sylas slowly drew out his sword, his eyes glazed with nothing, tempered by the whetstone of ti.
Arrows began to fall, but they burned to ash before coming anywhere near him. It was as though the invisible hands of eternity scalded them, washing him free and uncaring. n rode horses forth toward him, shouts forming separation of sound and light. And thus he moved.
A blur whizzed forward like a bolt of thunder, a streak of light otherwise unconscious; horses heads flew up in a spray blood and n atop of them found themselves cleaved into thousands of pieces, like minceat. Sylas pushed forward through the rush and rain of the blood and gore, ignoring the blood-curling screams of agony. Demon, they scread. Hellhound, they bellowed. Reaper himself, they whimpered.
He broke into their ranks through the shieldbearers fairly easily, toppling over the vanguard as though they were made of paper. A storm of sword-suffused light ensued, afterimages of the sharp blade pairing with the upward rain of heads.
Forgiveness, they prayed. God, they mumbled. All the sa, the brown canyon turned dark and horrifying. And in the midst of blood and gore that had even Derrek heaving his innards out, a figure occasionally flashed. No, more a phantom than a figure. Bearer of death, taking lives without rcy.
What began as an army of tens of thousands slowly began to thin out as the hills began to form from the number of corpses. So were relatively whole, though most at least had a limb or two shaven off of them. Quite a few were headless, and so yet entirely turned into paste.
Sylas sword broke a long ti ago, but he simply picked up a random one and continued the wanton massacre. He stopped when the count of dead turned sowhere around four thousand. It was enough. It was enough thousands of corpses ago, in fact. But he pushed himself--pushed to see if he would feel anything. And... he felt nothing.
Whipping his hair backward and washing away the blood that was covering his eyes, he looked around listlessly. They werent running--and those that started running... ca back. Instead, they were all on their knees, their foreheads pressed against the bloody-red dirt, whimpering, crying, shaking, though soundless still.
Looking further back, he saw Valen and others--and they were hardly different. Just like those he had slain, those he slayed for looked at him as though he were bedeviled. No, he couldnt bla them. If he were an ordinary man and he saw soone do what he just did... he would be exactly the sa. He lost himself in the mont, trying to capture the tiny piece of humanity within him while destroying humanity in others.
He was poison, he realized. If given ti, he would inflict and infect all those around him. Sighing, he looked up at the barren sky and smiled. It was an eerie smile, especially as he was covered in blood from head to toe, but it was an honest smile still. He was larger than life, larger than death, but human still. For beneath those gazes, his heart stirred--guilt caged his soul and fueled his veins. He wasnt completely gone. And, to him... that was enough.
Reviews
All reviews (0)