Book of The Dead

Am I really going to die in here?

Once again, the thought bubbled up unbidden. It was getting harder to push it away, especially recently. Feolin didn’t try to fight it this time, just letting that unsettling idea rattle around inside her head, growing louder and louder. Eventually, she realised it wasn’t going away on its own, not this time. She slammed a hand down on the table, then stared at her clenched fist in surprise.

Was she really that angry? Had it really gotten to her this badly? She’d been living in the bird cage for almost a dozen years, twelve years of idle leisure and luxury that she had yearned for while knee-deep in blood and guts at the rifts. Only twelve years, and already she was turning against the paradise she had wanted for so long, railing against the prison she had entered willingly. It happened to everyone eventually. No matter how much they pretended it didn’t get to them, it did. Eventually, everyone cracked. And when they did… the other slayers had to band together to put them down. If they were lucky, that is. Some managed to hold off their friends and lovers. They were unlucky. The Magisters came for them, turning up the brand until they were a screaming mess on the floor, unable to move, unable to speak.

Fuck you, Brole. You were right all along. Am I really going to die in here?

Before she started to spiral, Feolin pushed herself up from the table, determined to go out. She felt an irresistible urge to move, to do something, anything to avoid the thoughts. A quick glance in the mirror on the way out the door didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know. Short of stature, with a wave of curling brown hair running down her back, she appeared to be approaching middle age, despite being significantly older than that. One of the many benefits of rising high in the esteem of the Unseen.

But perhaps her age was starting to show. Was she a touch more pale than she was before? Did she detect a hint of grey in her hair? Perhaps it was all in her mind. Maybe she was just tired. She looked tired.

Stepping out of her apartment and into the broad streets of the Golden District was like stepping into a painting. Tall trees lined the streets, old oaks and maple, swaying gently in the breeze and providing shelter from the midday sun. Planters carved from stone lined the front of every building and every floor, each connected to the automatic watering system flushed by water mages daily. Surrounded by vibrant life, it was difficult not to feel an upswell of joy at the sight.

Feolin walked down Splinter street, giving her greetings to neighbours and acquaintances that she passed on the way. All Gold Ranked slayers, enjoying their retirement, there was easy laughter and broad smiles aplenty. These were the people who’d made it, the ones who’d survived.

From those who’d been in the cage a little longer… there was something else about them. A knowledge, deep in their eyes, that something was not right. For them, the smiles were a little forced, the laughter, just a touch on edge.

It’s all in your head, Feolin! They’re tired because they were out drinking and fucking and just woke up. Or they were working, or they’re not in a good mood today. It’s fine!

Hurrying her steps, she rounded the corner onto Dunwodden Street. Two hundred metres up the road, she came to a stop at a doorway, lined with flowers like all the others, and began pounding away at the dark wood door. A gardener tending to the planters looked up at the noise and recognised her.

“Ms Nurn,” he called out in a hushed tone, “I believe Mr MacRielly is asleep. He only came home a few hours ago.”

“Interesting,” the former slayer noted, continuing to pound on the door. “Which brothel was he at this time?”

“I certainly didn’t ask, madam.”

“No,” she grunted, “that probably wouldn’t be appropriate.”

She gave up on using her fist and instead used her foot, leaning back and delivering kick after kick into the door until it began to splinter. Even for a flame mage, the strength gifted by the Unseen to a gold rank was enough to do some serious damage. She had enough trouble with incidental breaks as it was, she had no idea how more physical classes managed to roll out of bed without shattering their side tables.

After a minute or two of determined kicking she finally heard something from inside. Cursing mainly, followed by stumbling, a fall, then groaning, then more cursing. Eventually, the door opened to reveal a haggard, pale, red-headed man with a large moustache and bloodshot green eyes.

“I should’ve known it was you, Fee. What in the name of fuck are you doing to my door?!”

“A pleasure to see you as always,” Feolin offered a short curtsy. “May I come in, old friend?”

The northerner blinked a few times before he stood to one side and pushed the door open.

“Why in the fuck do you insist on the good manners after kicking the ever-loving shit out of my door? I’ll never understand women,” he muttered to himself.

Feolin wrinkled her nose as she walked past him.

“You reek of alcohol. It’s midday.”

The man visibly counted for a moment in his head.

“Well, it makes sense, then,” he burped. “I only stopped drinking four hours ago.”

“Go and wake yourself up. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen,” she sniffed.

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MacRielly slapped himself in the face, wondering if today was finally going to be the day he clapped back. After a moment of consideration, he wisely chose not to. He wasn’t that drunk. Trying to tell Fee what she could and couldn’t do was a mistake a person only made once in their lifetime, and he’s learned that lesson a long time ago.

There was only one method for dealing with the mad bitch, and that was getting the hell out of her way. Besides, he was extremely pleased with the current state of his moustache. It was bushy, but not too bushy, and had achieved a pleasant arc on either side of his mouth, hanging down at just the right angle. Having it burned off along with all the skin on his face would be such a shame.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, dearie,” he grumbled, taking himself to the washroom.

“I am not your ‘dearie’,” she replied in a clear voice.

“It’s a term of endearment, you fucking hag!”

With the practised motions of a person who’d gone through this same process many times before, the northerner took that cap off a small bottle, imbibed a purging agent, then spent the next five minutes being violently ill. Then he disrobed, stepped into the wash basin and allowed the enchanted facility to shower him with water and lathered soap. With the enhanced alcohols purged from his system, his superhuman physiology was already well on its way to a full recovery by the time he’d dried off and changed.

Still a little damp, he staggered into his own kitchen to find Fee had made herself very much at home. The diminutive mage had made herself a cup of tea, no doubt having sneered at the poor quality of the leaves a little, and sat reading the paper laid out across his table.

“I don’t know why you insist on this poor excuse for a table,” she remarked. “It looks like it’s made by nailing logs together.”

“That’s because it is,” MacRielly grunted as he sat down and started pawing at the bowl of dried meat he kept in the kitchen. Eventually, he found a well-salted hunk of venison and shoved it in his mouth, groaning with satisfaction as his teeth scissored through the unbelievably tough meat like sheers through cotton.

“I almost can’t remember what it was like to struggle to chew this stuff,” he said, gesturing toward the jerky. “A single piece of my father’s smoked venison could last me half a day. It was as tough as my shoes and twice as tasty.”

Then he looked down at the table.

“Never disparage this true, rustic furniture in front of me again. That’s how we do things in the north, and I fucking like it that way.”

“It’s uncivilised,” Feolin noted.

“Fee. We’ve known each other for what, twenty-five years? Have I given you a single indication in all that time that I care for civilisation? Even once?”

The mage rolled her eyes and pushed the paper away before meeting his gaze.

“You soak yourself in Sounland wines every chance you get,” she scoffed. “Not just any wine, mind you, vintage Sounland wines. The kind my father kept locked away in the cellar because it was too good for drinking. You act like you’re happy drinking ewe piss, but the truth is plain to anyone who knows you. You’re a snob.”

MacRielly placed a hand on his chest, gasping theatrically.

“You wound me, Fee. You cut fucking deep. But it’s true. Those fuckers in Sounland make some incredible ewe piss.”

Feolin snorted with laughter, but the humour vanished from her eyes all too quickly. Her friend noted the change and realised what had happened, why she was so desperate to wake him up this morning.

“How bad is it?” he said softly.

She didn’t reply for a while, letting the question hang in the air while the two of them looked down, not willing to glance up lest they see it.

“It’s getting worse,” she confessed finally. “I thought… I thought I had it under control. I do have it under control, but it keeps getting worse. Eventually… eventually.”

They both knew what would happen eventually. Some people settled into the Golden District and lived happily for thirty, forty years. Some, even longer than that. Fifty. Sixty. Eventually, everyone cracked.

“You remember Magnin and Beory?” MacRielly asked.

Feolin leaned back in her chair, sighing. “How could I forget?” she replied. “Beory Steelarm was my hero.”

“Just before we retired, back at Dustwatch, I spoke to Magnin when they came in. You remember? I asked him if he was ever going to take the stipend and come to Kenmor. If he was really going to keep fighting for the rest of his life.”

MacRielly laughed and shook his head, remembering the expression on the legendary swordsman’s face.

“He looked at me like I’d just asked him when he was planning to cut his cock off and eat it. ‘Never’ he told me, and I just remember thinking that the man was crazy. A hero, a legend, but crazy all the same. But you know what? He was looking at me exactly the same way. He thought we were mad. All of us Silvers who promoted and took the golden ticket, every one of us. He thought we were barking mad.”

Feolin nodded slowly.

“Brole was right, wasn’t he?” she asked, her voice quiet and trembling. “We should have stayed out. Stayed Silver.”

“It’s difficult to say,” MacRielly grimaced. “Brole is fucking dead, impaled on the end of a Driftbeast’s blade. We can’t exactly ask him if it was worth it.”

“He died fighting,” she pointed out. “He died protecting people while we sit here, slowly fading into nothing. Slowly suffocating in this cage.”

The birdcage. Slayers had always called it the birdcage. The bronzes laughed about it, treated it as a joke. The Silvers yearned for it, hoping against hope they would survive the slaughter until they could leap into the cage and slam the door shut behind them. Hoping it would keep the monsters out.

The Golds, the ones living inside it, gradually realised what it was for, and they hated it.

“Well, for the first time in a long time, I might actually have some good news for you, Fee.” MacRielly said, a little hesitantly.

The brown-haired mage’s eyes flashed to him in an instant. The mere mention of something positive had the flame burning in her again. He could practically feel the heat rolling off her.

He held up his hands. “Don’t get too excited. It’s only a rumour, at this point. I haven’t just been drinking and fulfilling my duties while down the street of sin, you know? I keep my ear to the ground. I’ve been visiting the Scarlet Pavilion this week, and I’ve heard a few things. There’s a lot of movement in the province lately. You’ve heard about the purge that’s happening?”

“Of course,” Feolin rolled her eyes. “I’m not deaf, dumb and blind. Everyone is talking about it.”

“Well apparently, they’re losing more slayers to the purge than they expected. Numbers are getting thin out there. If things keep going like they are, they’re going to get real fucking thin.”

The diminutive mage stood in a rush, eyes growing wide. MacRielly grinned.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “It’s only a whisper right now, but there’s talk. They might let us out!”