Chapter Twenty-Five

Sorrow Forsaken

Mirth stood on the steep hill's crest, barely able to catch the passing forms of Rekka, Aaralyn, and Garreth with Irfan draped over his shoulders. None of them looked back. Not even once. The young man watched them until he couldn't see them anymore. His legs gave out from beneath him, the loose stones digging into his shins and palms as he tried to hold back a shuddering gasp.

"Why? Why does this seem to always happen to me?" The exhale trembled from his lips as he choked back the tears. He had cried too much and didn't want another tear rolling down his cheeks until he was within the Ring, tears of happiness wetting his lashes when he was reunited with his grandparents. Then, he could cry. But now, Mirth refused to look weak before whatever invisible entity watched over him. But the emotions weighed so heavy on his heart. He tried to stop the turmoil and the repeated mental beating of why he always seemed to end up alone. Mirth wanted to quiet his mind, just once, so no more tears would fall. However, the pain kept growing, the fear of the future nourishing the anguish until the thorny vines were strangling his heart. Mirth dug his hands into the rocks but couldn't keep the tears from falling.

Gasping for breath, he looked up to the ash-laden sky. "Which one of you hates me this much? Sangaimu? Are you the one that is cursing me with all this because of what my great-grandfather did? I'm sorry, but I'm not Peace. I promise you I'm not like him. My mother wasn't like him either. Not even my grandfather, and he was the fourth son of Peace. Why haven't you lifted the curse yet? Why do you keep making all this terrible stuff happen to me?"

Even as Mirth asked his questions, he knew, deep down, that the Deity of Blood had done nothing. He so terribly wanted it to be some malevolent deity that had decided to make him their next piece in their terrible game, but the chosen were always marked by one of their Rāhā worshippers. It had been a fragment of information that had slipped his mind until now. His grandfather had mentioned Rāhā one time or another. They were what deities worked through to interact with the living realms. If a deity chose someone to toy with, whether good or bad, that person had to be marked by a deity's Rāhā.

Yes, Mirth spontaneously bled, but that curse was of the bloodline. He, himself, never had a Rāhā lay their hands upon him. He bore no strange marks, and his family never told him any peculiar stories of a winged person. But there was always a chance of brushing into one that could have started the entire catastrophe.

Mirth desperately wanted to comb his memory of the last three moons in search of any stranger that he could have bumped into without a thought. But it was no use. There would be no way he could remember everyone he had encountered, and he knew that no deity was involved in his loneliness or the death of his mother. Not Sangaimu, not a deity hungry for a heart-wrenching game. It was just how the strings of fate had been pulled. If one thing hadn't happened, if another thing had, maybe he would still be walking with the rest of his party, maybe his mother would still be alive, or perhaps he would be dead.

"Mother?" Mirth's voice cracked. "What should I do? I'm all alone again."

When only a gust of wind answered, ash whirling in its wake, Mirth let his head fall. "I'm sick of all this." He wiped the back of his hand across his wet eyes. "Why does this keep happening? Bad luck follows me everywhere." He grabbed Odysseus's ruby. "Maybe I should start cursing my dad. He was the one that started this whole thing. If he hadn't killed Odysseus's kids, then maybe I wouldn't have the Terror of the Wastes chasing me everywhere, and maybe the others wouldn't have left me."

The young man dropped the necklace and stared at the smoking volcanoes. "Can I really blame anyone or any deity? I don't even know if I can blame myself, other than for doing nothing." Mirth pulled his knees to his chest, still gazing at where his companions had disappeared.

"No one's going to want to be around me if I always have Odysseus trying to kill me. What if they kick me out of the Ring? Then what would I do? If I can't live in the Ring…" Mirth swallowed back the rising fear. "I could…I could just let him kill me. Then it would end everyone's suffering. I could see you again, Mother."

A flash of dark blue eyes flickered across his mind. He didn't know if they belonged to Aaralyn or Leap, but they made his heart ache.

"I do want to see Leap again. She would be disappointed to know that I just laid down and let Odysseus kill me, wouldn't she? Well, Mother wouldn't like that either. But I don't know if I can keep living like this."

Those blue eyes flickered in his mind, followed by the image of Odysseus swiping his tongue over his sharp teeth.

"Aaralyn…" Mirth's heart dropped to his stomach, and a sickening chill ran across his skin. "I can't let him!"

He was on his feet, a surge of panic overtaking his entire being. "I can't let Odysseus..." Mirth squeezed his eyes shut, terrifying images flashing through his mind, mingled with Aaralyn's screams and Odysseus's dark laughter. Then, there was the cry of an infant. Aaralyn cradled it, tears streaking her face. The babe stared up at its mother with dark blue eyes flecked with burning embers. Its form changed. The infant's skin blackened and thickened to the consistency of volcanic glass, and from its widening maw ripped an inhuman shriek. The transformed newborn lunged for its mother's throat, and blood sprayed.

"No! Stop! Stop thinking that!" Mirth grabbed fistfuls of hair, falling back to his knees. "That-that would never happen. Odysseus wouldn't…" But Mirth couldn't complete the words. The image of the Fä leering at Aaralyn flashed in his mind once more.

The young man stayed on his knees, hands tangled in his dark brown hair. Ash fell from the sky, coating his hair in pale grey flakes. "If I die… If I let him kill me… What if. What if…" He raked the ash from his hair, smearing streaks of it across his cheek and hands. "I can't let any of this happen."

Mirth climbed to his feet, a new determination shining in his eyes. "I have to do something about the Terror of the Wastes."

The young man paced the length of the hillside's crest, staring into the distance as he tried to rack his brain for anything that could stop the Fä. At this moment, he wished he had spent more time with Terran and learned everything he could about Fä. The elderly man had mentioned ways to kill a Fä, but Mirth had been too distraught about his mother's death to listen.

"I guess, even if I knew how to kill one, I wouldn't have the ability to do it." Mirth clenched his fist, shaping a blade of teal magic in his hand. He carefully swept it through the air, a frown creasing his features. "All I could do is cut and stab him, just like Mother did."

He arched the blade into the air, though his gaze drifted to where the rest of his party had disappeared. "Even if I can get any of them back…I don't know if they would be any use against a Fä. Fire… Water… Strength… constructs… Smarts…" Mirth let the blade vanish and stared at the half-healed wound marring his palm. He pressed his fingers into it, and the familiar throb returned.

"Does Aaralyn have enough skill to draw all the water out of Odysseus's body? Would that even kill him? Rekka's fire can't burn hot enough to burn Odysseus. Garreth and Irfan can't or will refuse to fight, and I don't think I could make Garreth do what he did last time." Mirth pressed his fingers deeper into the wound, Garreth's terrified face reflecting in his mind when he had bashed in Odysseus's skull.

Mirth gazed at the smoke-spewing mountains. "Maybe we could push him into a volcano?" He dismissed the idea immediately. He didn't even know if that would kill the Fä, seeing as he took the form of something akin to a sentient volcano. Besides, fighting on the edge of a volcano would be life-risking for anyone.

"If we can't kill him…maybe we could imprison him…" Mirth stumbled through the loose rocks until he reached the bottom of the hill. He scraped a foot through the thick layer of ash as if he wanted to draw something. "We don't have a lot of magic on our sides like other people, but if we plan it out just right. Maybe this could work."

He walked in the opposite direction of where his former traveling companions had gone. Right now, he was in search of anything that could be used. Approaching one of the mountainsides, Mirth made out a twisting cave system. He slipped inside, following the sound of flowing water. It was some time when he reached another opening, staring out at a deep pool of water and where a massive rock was precariously perched on the ledge he had just emerged from.

"Water defeats fire as long as the fire isn't too hot… drowning kills people, and I'm sure it would take a toll on Odysseus if he was forever drowning. Knock some of those loose rocks on him along with this massive boulder…or if there's an underwater cave down there that we could trap him in…"

Mirth ran his hands through his hair. "This could maybe work. If we do everything right and if we can just get him in the water and either crush him with the boulder or bury him…" Mirth gazed at the scene before him for a moment longer before turning away and traversing the extensive cave system. "I need to find the others. I can't do this alone."

This time, he popped out closer to where his wayward companions had disappeared. To his horror, lava fields covered the entire area. Blistering hot molten rock flowed down hillsides and bubbled from the surface. "They're not going to survive this."

With Rekka's hot temper and the other issues within the group… Mirth had to help them. He wouldn't live with himself if any of them got hurt.