Arc II

Chapter XII

Further Proof of a Godless Universe

"Look, you tell yourself, look how cold the world is becoming. The years will pass and after them will come grim loneliness, and old age, quaking on its stick, and after them misery and despair. Your fantasy world will grow pale; your dreams will fade and die, falling away like the yellow leaves from the trees."

Fyodor Dostoevsky — White Nights

He knew that running blindly through the darkness, trying to catch a complete stranger with nothing but his feral instincts to guide him wasn't enough to consider his actions a chase; a chase – that's something else entirely: it encompasses a purpose and a target, a direction, and a directive; but even so he didn't mind – the old wolf marched through the wilderness, the immense emptiness of the landscape being his sole companion.

No, that wasn't a chase.

Not yet.

Most times you need to know who or what it is that you're chasing after. Your desired goal or prey must have a face. Maybe a name can equal the quintessential category of luxury sometimes but the face; the mental image of that visage escaping from you, trying to get out of reach and pleading for their lives in case you ever get your hands on them is completely necessary, he knew.

But sometimes you just can't have all the cards on the table, leave alone one up your sleeve.

Sometimes it's just a hunch.

An inexplicable feeling lacking all logical reasoning, an indomitable sensation telling you that someone's out there, lurking, their phantasmagorical presence threatening your senses, it creeps up on you; menacing and forever almighty underneath their mystified halo of anonymity.

That was a hunch.

He couldn't see the man that was running away from him; he didn't even know who he was yet his feet kept marching anyway as his every instinct forced him to go on. The hunter in him, awaken and angry, was running with a purpose: retribution.

Black's relentless feet were progressing through the unbearable darkness. The air, freezing and merciless, was not enough to slow him down: he was going to catch that bastard even if he had to climb every mountain in the region.

He knew the path like the back of his hand yet his raging mind was dangerously trying to divert him with a million questions and hypothesis. Why now? Who was that man? Why Aalem? Was he the same man that had been hiding by the mountainside only a couple of days before all this?

Just one bullet, in time, the minute you realized there was someone hiding by the mountainside, and none of this would have happened.

The rebel-seekers, he concluded instinctively, were the ones to be held responsible for the attack. The obvious thought startled him, as he stopped briefly to catch his breath.

A whitened, laborious puff of air meant to refill his lungs with oxygen seemed refreshing and necessary before resuming his march. He touched his tired knees and cursed through clenched teeth: just one bullet aimed at that man in time and they wouldn't be trapped in such a macabre predicament - the young Edenian's defenseless body wouldn't be harmed, he himself wouldn't be out there, in the freezing magnificent darkness of the mountains, running wildly after that nameless ghost. He narrowed his eyes as an attempt to adjust his wary vision to the blackest of nights – the man was near, Black could sense it like the wild old wolf that he was.

Now it wasn't the time for regrets or heavy thoughts, he knew.

He was Erron Black. He would never be the prey; he would always be the hunter.

Fumbling his way through the slope, the mercenary finally caught a glimpse of the attacker's shadow moving fast among the naked branches facing the ravine. Black moved soundlessly and slowly towards the trees and glued his side to the rough but damp bark of the saplings' slender trunks. He was seething, but he knew his steady hands would become his anchor once again: no mere breeze was freezing enough to make his fingers tremble. No commotion was overwhelming enough to make him miss his target.

No commotion.

But that commotion, he recalled involuntarily as his mind tried to bring him back to that night.

She should be dead. Only a mere coincidence had saved her that night.

Cowboy up, Black.

All things happen for a reason.

Aalem needs her.

Now more than ever.

Peering between the fingers of his right hand to gain perspective and add depth to a vision already exhausted and blurred, beclouded in the dead of night, the mercenary waited silently for the nameless man; his pistol in his left hand was pointed to the sky, eager to be fired, desperately anticipating the moment when its projectile would kiss somebody else's skin in the deadliest of fashions.

An intense, piercing pain shook the gunslinger to his very core as the attacker assaulted him from behind, burying a knife mercilessly in Black's left hand; the cruel metal binding him with the young tree as his own blood and the sap emanating from the bark met to create a whole new substance. Pareedis punched Black's temple repeatedly, taking advantage of the mercenary's circumstantial immobility – The young tactician knew Black could end him with his eyes closed so the treacherous Outworlder was certain that restraining the marksman's moves was his only choice for survival.

Black struggled in pain as he tried to remove the knife from his damaged hand – but as Pareedis moved closer, the shimmering reflection of the mercenary's weapon caught his attention. The pistol, now resting on the ground, was a few inches away from the Outworlder's feet, its deadly menace was insistent and obscure like a mesmerizing mermaid song.

The young tactician kneeled down before the weapon and inspected it with curious eyes – his evident lack of experience with firearms was a surprising revelation for Black. Enduring the pain in his hand with a stoic demeanor, his eyes narrowed slightly in perfect concordance with the belligerent smirk behind his face mask:

"You never held one of those, right?" The air of superiority in his voice was subtle yet definitive.

Pareedis remained captivated by the enrapturing yet intriguing artifact as he raised an intrepid eyebrow to meet the weapon. The cold metallic surface of the pistol had several marks and scratches scattered randomly, each one of them was describing a close acquaintance to the mercenary's touch, an intimate relation between use and abuse, a signature of sorts - a metalinguistic definition all by itself. That weapon was an extension of Black himself; his fingers and the trigger were the same thing.

"It's quite the experience, you should know," Black went on as his eyes fixed on Pareedis' darkened gaze. "There's a weight to it, can you feel it? Of course, you can." Erron shifted slightly as his trapped hand was slowly, agonizingly starting to taste the unequaled sense of freedom and pain – the hunter, alive but wounded, was about to take control. "I'm not talking about the metal or the loaded rounds; you know the kind of weight I'm talking about, you perceive it," he went on, his speech distracting the Outworlder.

Finally freed from all restrictions, a sadistic Black towered over the still undaunted tactician:

"Feels right, huh?" The mercenary moved closer as Pareedis' hands began to shake – his trembling fingers were having a hard time trying to hold on to the weapon, "it's just like sex. Like the most perverted, warped, sickening kind of sex,"

Pareedis held his breath as he fruitlessly tried to aim for Black's head – he could listen to his own pulse resonating inside his head; the gun had a weight, Black was right. Only it was way too heavy for him to carry it and it showed, so Erron eyed the young man – that small, trembling figure standing right in front of him was the embodiment of the most futile of vulnerabilities: he wanted to be a man; but he was inexorably going to die a frightened child.

"But beware, young man, it can be addictive. And you know what they say; addictions can and will kill you,"

With those last words, Black jumped on top of Pareedis and retrieved his weapon from the young Outworlder's grasp; the jealousy of the marksman's itching hand welcoming back his beloved companion was reassuringly overwhelming – with his own blood dripping from the gun's handle, Black's wounded hand found its way to the trigger; the aim was perfect and certain – Pareedis' head fell back, motionless, as the bullet entered his mouth and exited his temple.

Black kneeled before the Outworlder's fresh corpse and spat a bitter, pinkish mixture of his own blood spicing up his saliva. This mission was indeed accomplished, but this was far from being enough. He sat beside the motionless remains of Aalem's assailant and collected his thoughts as he gathered the strength required to go back to the cabin: waving his hand in the emperor's balcony hadn't been enough; the rebel-seekers still believed that both Black and the Earthrealmer woman were in their debts. No, killing that treacherous man wouldn't suffice, he would have to choke the problem with his own bare hands to completely asphyxiate it, draining its vital essence from its very core.

He stood up as he shaped the idea inside his mind then bent over and held Pareedis' body from his swollen ankles: more than just being a mere award ribbon, the dead body of that disgusting young man held the potential to become a message, a savage souvenir for the mercenary to use and try to finally turn the tables.

Dragging the corpse with him, the mercenary made his way back to the cabin; the extra weight of his dead companion and the wound in his hand were more than just physical burdens: there was a certainty, a heavy thought reminding him that it was all his fault; that he should have ended that man the minute he sensed his presence lurking near the cabin, waiting, on the prowl – Now Aalem was paying the price for his indifference and his lack of commitment, the young Edenian was there, bleeding to death, because of his stupid impassivity.

Black took a deep breath and knocked on the cabin's door, a stern gesture of genuine preoccupation taking over his visage.

Knock, silence. Knock, knock, silence.

Knock, silence.

Knock, silence, knock.

"Come on in, Black," Alex yelled from the inside.

Still carrying Pareedis' body, Black entered the cabin – the image was disturbing: Alex had removed the dagger from Aalem's agonizing body and now the young Edenian's blood was splashed all over the wooden table; crimson drops were falling endlessly to the ground almost in slow motion and her face was now the face of despair and helplessness as the woman tried to help the boy with the few medical tools she had at her disposal.

I thought he would say something, not a speech but a thank you, you know? After saving his life. She recalled instantly, as her eyes found the dead body now blocking the doorway.

"What? Why?" She asked, startled, as her mind struggled to find the right words.

"I'm gonna make a statement," Black replied bluntly.

"I thought you had already made one," her sarcasm was measured yet honest even though she had no clue what the mercenary had in mind this time.

"A clearer one," Black sentenced as he walked up to Aalem, "How's he holding up?"

"He is…" She began but couldn't go on: her eyes were fixed on the motionless body that had traveled back to the cabin alongside Black. "This man," she let out through clenched teeth, her lips barely moving, "he's the one who accused me, back in Z'unkahrah, he was the one behind my imprisonment - he's one of them."

Black moved closer to the woman and placed his good hand on her shoulder – he understood that seeing that face again was a hard pill to swallow for Alex but now they had no time for regrets or distractions: Aalem needed them both. Alex nodded in silence; the message received, then went back to the young Edenian fighting for his life.

She was applying pressure to the unceasing streams of blood pouring from Aalem's chest when Black's eyes found the stained yet shiny golden coin resting carelessly on the table.

"What's this?" he asked, his eyes colder than ever, as he held up the coin with his fingers.

"The man; Aalem had it, I don't…" Alex stuttered, afraid of Black's reaction.

"How did this happen?" he demanded, "why did this asshole have this coin?" he asked as his index finger hovered over Pareedis' body. "I went to your cell and gave you the coins, what the hell happened after I left that day?"

"I forgot them," she replied shyly, frightened by Black's hardened expression.

"You what?"

"You left the door opened and I escaped, I didn't look back. The coins… it had forgotten all about them until now," she was embarrassed, Black could tell, her own carelessness had jeopardized everything. "When I saw that coin shinning in his hand…"

"You left the coins inside the cell?" Black investigated as the woman nodded. "Then this was an inside job," he concluded, but his elucubration was just too simplistic and too late to impress her.

"I told you, they are everywhere," she was mad at herself for being so stupid and, simultaneously, she was mad at Black for not noticing that the true recipient of her undivided attention was supposed to be Aalem. Frustration set on her eyes as she breathed in and out, exasperated.

"What?" The cowboy spat as he noticed her expression change.

"There're just too many goddamned things on this fucking table, there's no room for… I need… things that I… don't have; things that I should have," she was yelling helplessly as her bloodied hands were moving frantically in the air - impotence was getting the best of her. Black, exhausted and fed up, punched every single object on the table with his forearm: everything, from pencils to glasses fell down ruthlessly to the ground; the sounds made by the various different materials kissing the cabin's floor startled the woman.

"Better now?" The mercenary finished.

"Most of the few things I have – and I need… were there, scattered around your crap," she retorted madly– "you're not helping,"

The young Edenian's eyes went blank as his body began to shake uncontrollably – another seizure, the fourth one in less than an hour. The massive loss of blood was deteriorating the boy's wounded system: he was getting worse.

"What's happening to him?" Black asked naively even though deep down he could already anticipate the answer. His feet were pinned to the ground as terror started to take over him.

Alex ran off quickly to the mercenary's bedroom and came back only seconds later carrying blankets and clean sheets. She spread them on the floor and then, acknowledged by a steady sign from her right hand, Erron moved closer and helped her get the boy on the floor. She kneeled before Aalem as she tore a sheet and tried to use it as an improvised tourniquet.

Black's good hand was firm on the doctor's shivering shoulder – his voice; a solemn masquerade trying to conceal the fear paralyzing him ricocheted through the room:

"Is there anything you can do?"

Alex simply shook her head as the tears started to stream down her face.

The mercenary felt the heat of his cheeks aflame, the absolute helplessness of being there and not being able to do anything at all to help Dexitis' son was heartbreaking. He moved closer to the table and leaned his tired body on it, using his forearms not to fall down to the ground – he touched his own temples gently as the blood still pouring from his stabbed hand started to stream down the sides of his face, his fingers were numb; his mind was clouded with regret – he had made a promise and Aalem's imminent demise was his biggest failure, one more failure to add to his own blacklist.

Alex observed him from where she was, their eyes meeting in silence; sharing the deepest of sorrows.

"Kill him now," Back ordered through clenched teeth as he managed to rise from behind the battered wooden table. He was cupping his tortured fingers with his one good hand as the incessant stream of blood continued running down the full length of his extremity. He leaned forward, his weight resting on the table now, pushing it slightly – his vision, blurry and visibly out of focus was trying to find an anchor in Alex. He was panting heavily as drops of sweat were falling from his hair to his cheeks.

The woman looked away, trying to erase the words she had just heard but it was impossible – those words were there now, hovering between them, they had a weight and a meaning; they had a purpose. Alex's eyes found Black's again as she gazed minutely at him, absorbed and horrified by his command. Her hands were trembling, sweating in despair. She knew Aalem was in pain, she was a doctor, she had seen that sort of wounds before, she knew what was going to happen: Aalem was about to succumb to the most excruciating agony; there was nothing she could do to help – no matter how hard she tried, she knew she couldn't save the boy from his suffering, the poor child was condemned, he was going to die - yet his certain demise wasn't enough for her to become his executioner. She sat down on the floor before Aalem; tears were streaming down her face as she reached out to touch him, her hand removing the hair from his eyes, caressing his olive cheeks:

"He's just a kid," she pleaded, trying desperately to find Black's most compassionate side but knowing that her words had been aimed for deaf ears. Black was a cold man, a distant bastard incapable of experiencing any sense of guilt or remorse. In her eyes, he had turned into a dark being forever distanced from the warm, merciful human quality living inside any noble soul.

Black grunted as soon as he heard her words, exasperation starting to show all over his face. He understood Alex, he truly, honestly did. But that wasn't enough to delay the inevitable, he knew.

"No, you are just a kid. He's an Edenian; I bet he's old enough to be your father," he tried to persuade her. "Pull the trigger; put him out of his misery."

"I won't do it," Alex refused as she shook her head fervently.

"Pull the fucking trigger, woman, now!" His good hand was now a tight fist colliding frantically against the wooden table supporting his body.

"No," Alex said stubbornly as she shook her head once more.

"I've seen you kill a man before, don't be stupid and pull the damn trigger, he's in pain," Black's words were a cold ultimatum threatening her senses.

"I'm not like you," she stood up cholericly as she walked up to him yet her menacing gaze was not enough to reach him.

"You're exactly like me, but you have yet to see it," with those words he placed himself behind her, his hip barely making contact with her waist. He was trying hard not to look at Aalem – even though it wasn't the first time he was about to end a suffering ally, deep down the mercenary knew such cruel, decisive moments carried a nauseating sourness impossible to taste even for the most insensible of palates.

The gun in his back holder was calling him on; summoning the hunter in him once again.

That thirst, he knew – there was only one way to quench it.

He grabbed his pistol and outstretched his arm embracing the woman lightly, then lifted her arm up, enveloping her extremity with his own. He guided her hand by placing his index finger upon hers, every pore of his skin was already acknowledging the proximity of the trigger that was about to be pulled.

Alex closed her eyes surreptitiously as her hand started to feel weaker – Black's demeanor and resolution were the only things holding her up, acting just like gravity, preventing her whole arm from falling back down. He pushed down her finger with his own; activating the deadly mechanism that would certainly end the young Edenian agonizing in front of them: the sound of the weapon being fired was like an eruption, corrupting everything in its way. The trajectory was accurate, deadly accurate even considering the fact that she had kept her eyes closed: the bullet impacted right between the boy's eyebrows, finishing him off instantaneously. Black had been the aim; he had inadvertently turned himself into a mathematical equation, a definitive, blunt and logical paradigm erasing Aalem from the surface of the most hostile of worlds.

The recoil and its physical impact were the closest approximation they had to inertia; as the sudden jolt tried to bring them back to reality.

But it wasn't enough for them to react: Aalem was gone.

Both Alex and Black lowered their heads simultaneously. It wasn't just a sign of respect but also a way to avoid facing an image so gruesome, so dark and dense that could drag them into the blackest of whirlpools. Aalem's dead body was the sentence they would have to face sooner or later yet they weren't ready to see it. They stood there as the smoking gun still chained their hands together - his undeniable skills and practices for murder were vivid, they were solid – he didn't just live up to his reputation.

He was his reputation.

She seethed even though no words were spoken. Black's arm was still surrounding her waist and now the stronghold of his body was monumentally heavy, preventing the woman from caving into the silent tension taking control of all her muscles and bones – was he trying to empathize with her after what he had done? Was he trying to comfort her, to console her? She turned around abruptly, realizing that he was not willing to let go and tried to fight her way out of his tight embrace with a temper tantrum, her stormy fists rising and colliding against his chest frantically, frenetically, as she cursed him. He said nothing, he knew he could take the pain as well as endure the helplessness and frustration she was throwing his way: after all she was just a frightened child wanting to go back home and he was an old wolf smelling that delicate, intoxicating perfume that can only be produced when salty tears get mixed with sweet blood – He knew he would never take her home but still, he had provided her with a roof over her head nonetheless; not that those words were synonyms - he was familiar with both meanings and even now, more than a century away from home and already witnessing the flashing lights waiting on the horizon of his nearly bicentennial existence, he was still lucid enough to tell the difference between a house and a home - but that was all he could do for her and, in his eyes, it was more than enough.

Yet he understood the pain she was enduring – he recognized that hollowing feeling as his own turmoil found its perfect match inside her saddened eyes.

He embraced her with his both arms, not caring about the blood staining his skin or his swollen, almost anesthetized fingers - even as numb and perplexed as he was, he was clearly affected by Aalem's death, they both were, but in a corner of his twisted mind he understood that the woman needed that moment of complete silence and devoted comprehension: she wasn't just mourning Aalem, she was mourning Harry as well, she was venting off steam after being lied to, captured, almost killed by those same hands holding her close now – now she was a fugitive hiding in the confines of a world that wasn't even hers and her whole life had become an extension, an accessory of the mercenary she clearly despised. His cowboy hat, his dusty boots, his countless bullets, his doctor. It was all the same; there was no true difference. She had been reduced to just being a tool; an instrument for his own amusement or, in the rarest of occasions, his suffocating, sickening carousel of misplaced emotions and desires. He held her close as her tears fell down from her face to his own arms: that crystalline waterfall was a reverberation in itself – those teardrops were telling stories about her mother, her father, her boyfriend; or perhaps just the occasional lover that would be waiting for her on some other distant place. Those tears were revealing her inner codecs, the landmarks of her embittered life now irreversibly secluded inside his box full of memories. Like that hair ribbon, or those old, sandy photographs; there she was, living in his wooden cabin. And that was all there was for her.

He leaned his head on her shoulder for support – he was mourning the boy too, after all. He had made a promise to Dexitis and the outcome was tragic: now the son was about to be reunited with his long-lost father. Black covered his own face with his one good hand and took a deep breath before finally saying:

"You did the right thing,"

She punched him hard in the face instinctively, his mask absorbing most of the impact as his now stern gaze accompanied hers; it encompassed her as the woman took a deep breath and placed her aching hand over his face mask, her fingers traveling up and down the openings in the brown leather imprisoning his nose and mouth. Then she broke down and cried, her tormented face was buried in his shoulder as she wept, pulling him close with fistfuls of him and his clothes. Black cupped her trembling hand with his own damaged digits as rivulets of his blood started to contaminate her skin gradually. The heartbroken mercenary kept his head down the whole time as if trying to avoid eye contact: he was afraid of what he could find if he dared wander and explore inside those stranded, reddened eyes raining in front of him. She moved slightly under his grip as if protesting against that sudden understanding - that unimaginable, lugubrious intimacy that was now being shared between them. Her eyes, cloaked in shadows, were bluntly neglecting the sudden fondness the mercenary was projecting towards her.

His were obscure methods, she concluded as she realized that his most beautiful colors could only be seen right after his darkest, thickest tones. Like that night, she remembered, his fragile stability was dominating her, making her fall in his own twisted gravity.

Alex let out a soft breath as she gathered the determination she had lacked all along ever since meeting that bastard. She pushed him away with all her strength as the uncomfortable despotism in her eyes startled him like never before:

"Move aside, you son of a bitch."