Echoes From Dust
by L. S. Popovich
| Table of Contents | Glossary |
Chapter 56: Compassion
Remera had not been inside the catacombs for a long time. If all of her forces had not been diverted to Mitchlum’s chaotic streets, her priests might have stopped Virgil sooner. By the time she caught up with him, he had nearly reached the crater beneath the Fjord.
She called out to his lean, dark figure. Before any sign of surprise showed itself on his face, a smug smile darted across his lips. “I didn’t think it would take you this long to show up.”
Beneath the eye patch and the dark tan from countless years of sunlight, she recognized his self-assured expression.
“You almost made it.” She let out a slow breath. “After all this time, you still haven’t given up?” Reaching into the front of her tunic, she brought out the remote and flipped the switch.
He straightened, towering over her, and grinned. “That kill switch won’t work. I removed all of my modifications. The eye was the worst.”
Remera grimaced and stepped back.
“You’ve always kept all the best cards in the deck, haven’t you?” Virgil said. “Admit it. This world didn’t turn out like you planned. Why don’t we start over?”
“I’m going to stay the course.”
“It’s madness, once you really get down to it. The gods. People. One form of madness opposing another.” He tilted his head.
“Has your god entirely taken over, or do you have any of your humanity left?”
“I’m not controlled by my god. It was a valiant effort, making the most out of what was left of the world after the first experiment.”
“That’s the curse of experimentation: results are never guaranteed. However, what makes you think you can succeed this time?”
“The Fjord would have worked, except for your change of heart at the last second.”
“If it completed a full cycle, human beings could have gone extinct. That’s a far cry from the balance we sought. The readings were way off.”
“The gods always find a way to check our schemes.”
“Even though I’ve never had a god, I do have compassion! But here you are: you haven’t changed at all, have you?”
“The gods are always true to their natures.”
“But we are not gods, Virgil.”
“They’re a part of us. Some more than others.”
“Not me. I’m all human. I’ll never forgive you for using your relic on Izzie. Flinging her into the Celestial Plane was reckless.”
“What about that mirror of yours? And the necklace protecting Mitchlum? You’re guilty of using their tools, too.”
“I still have faith in my world. And I still have faith in our daughter.”
Virgil laughed. “You might be a technical prodigy, but people are as foreign to you as the sun is to this infernal city. You’ve used Izzalia all her life, which made it very easy to channel her anger against you.”
“I’ve made mistakes, but I never abandoned her.”
“I think she’d disagree. You’ve made her into a weapon and another one of your experiments.”
“Hundreds of lives have been saved because of her abilities. And I think the key to saving this world lies somewhere in her unique biology. It’s resilient and fluid between organic and inorganic components—”
Virgil cut her off. “That’s one thing I dislike about you. You don’t have the nerve to admit your own ambition. Your emotional attachment to this idea — to Izzie’s saving the world — has not only made you blind, it’s made you easy to predict. And I’ll say, while I might be using her, I’ve never tortured the girl. Making her think her father was dead, robbing her of her memories? You call it protecting her, but it’s simple cruelty.”
“If one person’s free will must be sacrificed for the survival of all, better my own flesh and blood’s.”
“But this is much bigger than our sad little family, Remera. The only thing keeping the planet stable is the very thing killing it. Eventually, the Fjord will break down. In the old days, if one or your patients had gangrene, you’d amputate. If the disease spreads to the whole body, hacking off limbs won’t save the patient.”
“You’ve already given up on humanity, then? You’d rather have a verdant wilderness without our civilization? After all we’ve overcome, you’d throw it away?”
“We tried to create a new future. We should have left it to the gods.”
They paused, glaring at each other, at an impass.
“You know, if you go down there,” Remera said, “where the Fjord’s power is unstable, who knows what it’ll do to you? Your body might change irreversibly.”
“I’m willing to take the chance. Now you’ve stalled me long enough. And by now I’m sure you’ve recorded enough conversation. Did you plan to somehow use it to sway Izzie?”
Sighing, Remera took the old recording device out of her pocket and dropped it by her side.
Virgil strode closer. “There is only one way to end her struggle. Our time of denial is over.”
He swept the high priestess into a one-armed embrace, and she struggled to free herself. With his other arm, he pulled at the hilt of the old relic at his side.
“We both know this sword severs the connection between the soul and body, but I wonder what’ll happen to someone despised by the gods? Without a god linked to your body, you won’t last long in the Celestial Plane, I warrant.” He smirked.
She froze, staring at him.
He slid the invisible sword edge into her, and she collapsed onto the ground. There was no sight of a wound, but there was not a trace of life in her widened eyes.
“Look upon your new world,” he said. “Your time in this one is done.”
Copyright © 2019 by L. S. Popovich
