The Long Night
By Kay
Author's Note: Jalil's turn to agonize.
Jalil bleeds for his knowledge every day.
When he came to Everworld, Jalil had wanted the rules. The software. The DNA sequence, the lifeline, the textbook definitions neatly mapping out gods and magic and the quality of sacrifice that brought them nothing. After a while, he's just happy to make it out another day alive in the war. Logic, reason, they all spill out over the ground when your guts do. Jalil's seen grown men weep and beg him for their lives; like he could return them, like he could save them. Saving people is David's job.
Most of the time, he can't even bury them. In some battlefields, the cold is too sharp and his fingers shake too much to hold a quill to write reports and battle plans and hopes, much less a shovel.
Over time, he learns things. Not always what he wanted, but sometimes it's like digging in the dwarves' mines, they hit gold when they're expecting iron. Sometimes Jalil writes books on what he learns-- long, thick parchments that no one will ever read, perhaps, save Merlin and a few curious souls in the far future-- and other times he burns any evidence. It's safer that way. He's waded through enough fields of corpses for this that he doesn't want to do so again.
As the years pass, he grows quiet and smiles few times. He is tired, a sort of disease he has yet to cure and one that David and Christopher and April all seem to be catching. The nights are long, the shadows stretch over his legs when Jalil curls up in bed, wondering whether or not his father's flagstone is still two inches off. It's the one question he can't answer and the only one that doesn't draw blood.
End