Chapter 2: Belzac
Winglies killed children. It was what they did.
His hands - those hands she had praised as so strong, yet so steady - were shaking.
He had thought Charle was different, but here she was. A Wingly was a Wingly. She was asking for more dead children - she wanted more dead children - the Wingly answer was always more dead children -
"Belzac, please." The monster reached towards him, her face contorted in a parody of kindly concern. But it was a lie, because, if she could have any feeling at all, she would not have asked - "I know it repulses you, but there is no other -"
"Get away from me!" he screamed. "Get away from me!"
"Belzac-"
He fled her presence, the marble beneath him shaking as he ran. If he had not - but he would not kill unprovoked, even something like her.
The Wingly who had seemed so good, and yet proven a Wingly after all.
The children, the children-
He could hear Kanzas laughing at him from the grave. No better than me, Belzac! You'll learn to love the children's blood on your fists - Do you want me to teach you how to make the dolls? You'll be no different from me! And to think, Shirley thought better of you-
The thought of that sickening monster, that beast he had forced himself to tolerate for the greater cause, nearly made him sick on the spot. And he should have been sick. This was sick, to its very core.
He had fought for a world where no children needed to die. He wept and he retched, and he retched and he wept. He wished Shirley were here, and yet he was so desperately, shamefully glad she was not. It was better not to live to see this. He wished he had died with the others. He should have been dead. Perhaps his spirit was trapped in Mayfil, and this was some hellish Wingly torture. It had to be. To tell him he had to murder babies in their cradle, or else the whole world would die -
It was the antithesis of everything he had ever done. They had fought a bloody war, and they had often not been proud of it. But it had been so that there would be no more deaths from the Winglies ever again. So that everyone could walk free. So that every child, no matter how poor or unfortunate, would at least never know what it was to exist under the lash, and die never having lived. So that the dead, however horrible their time among the living had been, could see a just future, and know their lives had been avenged.
And now he would be the Winglies' executioner, and cut down children and their protectors, endlessly, over and over and over again until the day of the world's ending.
He was exactly what he had fought to eradicate from existence.
As he exhausted the last reservoirs of his tears, he at last became aware of his surroundings. He was far from where he had been, and the Winglies were all staring at him. They kept a wide berth, as though he might go berserk and slaughter them at any moment - but he would not. That was not his way. But it was the Wingly way, that love of murder, and he supposed he could expect nothing else from them.
And he was a slave again, and a slave he would be forever. He was pathetically glad Zieg could not see this, that firebrand of liberation. And spirited Rose, and wise Syuveil, and sweet Damia. Not even Kanzas.
And Shirley, oh Shirley, oh Shirley...
He gave a dry sob.
Cradling his head in his hands, he saw the feet of an approaching Wingly. But he would not look up, and those feet came to a stop before him before their owner spoke.
"Belzac." That lying, traitorous voice sounded so saddened. But it was a lie, a lie... "I am so sorry."
"Child-killer." It was spat with every ounce of strength he had within him, but he was broken, and it was a pathetic, feeble whisper of what it should have been. He let out another dry sob.
"Yes." Shame - but there was not enough shame in all the world that would have sufficed for this. "If there was any other way..."
"The children, the children, the children..." He gave a great groan. "I hate you."
"I know," said the liar. "I cannot blame you."
The children, the children... Why, Soa, why? The Winglies were more perfect, then. More in a horrific god's image... And perfectly in the image was the God of Destruction, the child who would kill the whole world... "Hate. Evil. Monster..." He coughed and looked up at her, her face distorted by his own tears. "For the children," he said. "For the sake of all the other children, who would die..."
"Yes." Her head was bowed, but could a Wingly feel remorse, or solemn, or anything at all? He would have said so, an hour ago; now, he thought they were as he had always thought, before he had broken his chains and fled into the territory of the Earth Dragon, preferring even death to further service of the murdering masters. But they had only lured him into complacency, he now saw, only to forge chains far more terrible than before.
The children, the children...
"I am sorry, Belzac," the monster said. "But we have no choice."
He swallowed hard, and choked back another sob.
If there was anything still to be thankful for in this world, it was that Shirley was not here to see this.
"I know," the slave said. "So - do as you must."