All Light Will Fall (21 page)

There was a small cave there in the cold of the north, an
arc of green bending in a sea of flowers. Spring filled the air. It was pure
and sweet smelling. It was the scent of life, and as I walked the heavenly
grasses, I heard the warming whisper of water. A quiet lagoon rested near the
mouth of the cavern.

I went to the waters. A fiery halo gleamed in the deep,
unraveling in bright spirals of light. They were enchanting somehow. They were
godly, like the holy waters in the murals I had seen, and I felt my heart
stirring, beating to a strange and lively sound.

Deeper in the spring, I saw the dead. The survivors of the
carnage had most likely brought them here. It was a beautiful shrine, I
thought, the perfect place for passing. The dead seemed content enough. They
looked rested, pale and beautiful in the gentle waters.

I saw a young Meridian boy there. The look of him startled
me. He reminded me of the young Ellis I knew. He was golden, his hair blonde as
daylight.

He looked broken somehow, his face torn by the bite of the
wind. He was too young to have that face. Innocence should not have that face.
But it did, and I couldn’t bear it. My body shook suddenly. Because the beauty
of it, the look of his innocence, was painful. How could a face be so graceful
in death? I didn’t know. It seemed impossible.

There were others with him in the water, floating just below
the surface. As I watched them, my body ached. My hands were struck with a
painful numbness. Life and death never looked so precious before. We had
forgotten it on Earth. We had forgotten the beauty of live and die. Because we
had cursed it long ago in our obsession with immortality.

There was something inside me all of a sudden, something
alive in my heart as I slid near the edge of the spring. I reached into the
water and touched the Meridian boy.

The water was surprisingly warm and smelt of sweet balm oil.
The boy’s body rocked beneath my touch. He was so still. But he was ready, I
knew. He was ready for another world, so with an unexplained pain in my chest,
I drowned his body, releasing him into the water.

Emerald rays shined beneath his silhouette, slowly and
beautifully enveloping him until he was but a twinkle of light. The others went
the same way.

I was careful not to disturb their peace. I touched them
lightly. They were warm, their hands soft, their skin flush with color. They
smelled like lily blossoms.

One by one, I released them into the river. I watched them
disappear into the deep with a strange sort of envy. I thought how wonderful it
must have been to vanish beside another soul, to not go quietly alone into the
grave. But I would undoubtedly go alone. For I fought alone, wandered alone,
and existed alone. For me, there was no other ending.

Hours passed. From the cave, I watched the sun fall. It was
a beautiful evening light, a crest of amber shining far in the east. But when
the shimmer faded, a darkness, richer than any night before came swiftly upon
me.

I lit a fire. The flames burned low in the lick of the wind.
The village was still seeable in the distance, faint, but still standing, still
calling out in the voices of the dead.

An arctic breeze whipped across the land. It bore no mercy.
I wondered if mercy had always been as cruel and fierce as the winds of nature.

I raised my hands to the fire, thinking myself a fool for
speaking of mercy in such a way, as if it were a god. But even so, what of
God’s mercy? Why did He suffer those souls to die? What had they done to
deserve this torment? What mighty purpose did He have to hide?

I did not know. But perhaps it should remain hidden. Perhaps
our curse made us unworthy of knowing, our desire to destroy and redesign all
things beautiful.

I looked to the sky. The stars, and the moons, and the midnight
suns were ablaze with color.
It had to be it
, I thought. The reason we
would never fully grip the throne of destiny. Because we were the fallen. The
saved and the damned. The prophets and the wanderers. That was our fate.

I hoped to reach
E’elga
soon. A storm was coming. I
blinked back the falling snow. It was thickening and falling fast in the haste
of the wind. Yet my heart felt light with the air.

It reminded me of that frigid evening on Marx Avenue when
the wind blew strong, and the cold was like freedom as it rushed around me. I
remembered it clearly now. The starless sky soaked in a mist of gray. The smoky
haze of streetlamps. The ring of Ellis’s voice in that blind and soundless
nightfall. I ached to hear that voice. Just a word. Just a whisper.

I was sure to hear it soon. Every step through the snow I
felt myself coming closer to him. But every battle I fought and every life I
took, I found myself straying farther from the girl I once was. I was hardly
human and hardly a child of the earth. I was no one from nowhere.

My existence seemed that insignificant, yet here I was,
wandering, given some indefinite purpose by a higher power. I was sure there
was some hideous reason to my pain, but I did not wish to think of purpose. I
did not know why I lived, or why day was day and night was night. Perhaps one
should never know.

But ARTIKA did. They wanted to know it all, to kill the
unknown. Without question, there was only one way to do so: kill everything
that was already in existence. The world must die, nature must die, the very
order of life must die. Only then can destiny be rewritten.

But I could not allow it. I would bring Ellis back to life.
Everything ARTIKA feared, I would bring it tenfold to the foot of their throne.
I would show them rebellion. I would show them defiance. I would show them my
heart of hate. They could not have Ellis. I would never surrender him, not even
to death.

I came to a bridge a few miles north of the village. It
was
a spectacular work, the crystalline passage shinning blue in the sun, and
beneath it, stood a foggy sapphire abyss, stretching long into the earth. White
gems twinkled in the darkness, stuck deep in the glassy, rigged walls.

There was such beauty to this world, but it was a fragile
beauty easily destroyed. Even the forest was delicate. The blue-white trees
were in bloom, the periwinkle buds crusted with ice. I could see Fern there,
singing songs to the blossoms. Her voice would warm them and the ice would
melt, like sun tears upon the snow. It was a wonderful dream to imagine, but
still so cruel a dream, because it could never be so.

Suddenly, something stirred in the silence. A sound so
gentle not even the silence could have heard it. But I had. It wasn’t an
alarming sound by any means. It was soft as the snow. It could have been
anything. A bird in a nest. A creature in a burrow. A chime in the trees. I
wished it were, but I knew that sound, and I knew that scent. I remembered it
well. My chest tightened, and I could feel my blood burning hot in the cold.

I ran full force across the bridge. It was dangerous for me
to pursue them. But the village, that rust of smoke and heap of the dead, was
too deep inside me. I vowed myself against vengeance, and I cannot say I knew
anything of justice. I knew nothing of my heart, or my flesh, or my mind. But I
knew my spirit, that when darkness comes its way, it is drawn to it.

I was headed for blood, and knowing this, I was glad my
dream of Fern was only a dream. She did not need to see this. Death, like this,
was not beautiful. But as I ran fast in the stillness, perhaps it was not
death, but I myself that she absolutely could not see. My kills were cold. They
were ruthless and agile—the perfect kill. And I was glad that she could not and
would not see it.

I crossed the bridge and looked to the wood line. They had
turned back when they heard me coming. I waited. I could hear them. It seemed
like a century waiting from them to come, and then there they were, sailing
gently from the trees.

Raine took the lead, strutting haughtily through the snow.
Four armed arsenals trailed behind him. They marched in a perfunctory rhythm,
like toy soldiers.

West was closest, the barrel of his LPC staring at me. There
was nothing in his face. No hate. No glint of betrayal. He was that empty. He
was that controlled. I wondered if there was anything left, any humanity in him
at all. And as I looked at him, I realized how close I was to that same edge of
forgetfulness. I had stood there, staring into that nameless, shameless
darkness. And very well, it could have been me, swept up by those black tides.
It could have been me, standing there with that look of death in my eyes and no
will for freedom.

West steadied his aim. To the left of him, a tall burly
soldier twiddled with the trigger of his weapon. I faintly recognized him.
There wasn’t a face I could forget. And that’s what pained me about this
moment. When I killed him, I would never forget.

On Raine’s right, a third arsenal cocked his weapon. The Zed
gun was aligned at my chest. A sweat broke between his brows and his hands
trembled slightly. He was afraid. I could hear the sound of fear in his blood.
And as I listened to that solid sound, I turned and looked, and I nearly lost
myself.

He looked the same, but not the same. His eyes were the same
gray, dark as the smoke of the earth. His hair shimmered, blonde as white in
the daylight. All of him was there. All but that joyous shine, that golden
spirit that once was his. It was gone now—stolen, but still he was beautiful,
lovely as the winter snow. My hands ached again, screaming to touch him. Just a
touch. I could have cried then, fallen to my knees in a scream. But I couldn’t.
Not yet.

“Ellis,” I whispered.

“I’d say we were meant for each other, eh 2102,” Raine smirked.
I looked to him and he lowered his weapon. “I’m not going to kill you,” he
said. “ARTIKA wants you alive. Looks like it’s back to humanization for you.
It’s a shame really, but then again, I could think of worse possible outcomes .
. . for a traitor.”

I said nothing, bending slightly to retrieve my hand knife.
I stood slowly. My eyes never left Ellis. I had to be careful. If Ellis got in
the way, he would suffer. I had to end this quickly. Not only for Ellis’s sake,
but for my sake as well.

The hilt of the knife bit into my palm. The snow fell softly
on the blade.

“So that’s how you want it, 2102?” Raine smirked. “So be
it.” He nodded to one of the arsenals.

The soldier nodded back. Then he took a step forward, then
another, and another. The wind howled all of a sudden, long and full in the
quiet. Then I let it go; all of my reasoning, all of my consciousness. My
movements were swift, a blur in the semi-blizzard. I was behind him in seconds,
gripping him with one hand, and disarming him with the other. My arm coiled
around his throat and squeezed. His body bucked forward, nearly jerking out of
my grasp. I took the blade to his neck and stuck it deep. His muscles twitched
against me, his body lurching forward as I sunk the knife deeper into his
windpipe. I could feel him dying; the violent jolts of his spine, the mellow
drum of his pulse. I pressed his warmth against me, that gently weakening
warmth and held tight to him.

Raine smirked. “Beautiful, 2102. You kill with such grace. I
admire it.” he chuckled. Then he tossed his weapon to the ground. “What do you
say we have that rematch? You win, and we leave. I win, and you surrender? How
about it, Celeste?” He raised his fists. “Show me some of that female fire.”

I glared at him and nodded. Raine grinned and I ripped the
knife from the arsenal’s throat. His body jerked and a spray of blood hit the
snow. Then I released him. He fell into the ice, his eyes rolled back, his open
mouth full of blood. The body tumbled and fumbled over itself until it stilled
in an awkward twist upon the ground.

I took several steps towards Raine. A wintry silence
lingered among us. We were so close I could feel the wild heat of his breath.
“No one interfere,” he ordered. “2102 belongs to me.”