Arc III
Chapter XXIX
Quo Vadis
"Su memoria está compuesta de fragmentos de existencia, estáticos y eternos: el tiempo no pasa, en efecto, entre ellos, y cosas que sucedieron en épocas muy remotas entre sí están unas junto a otras vinculadas o reunidas por extrañas antipatías y simpatías. O acaso salgan a la superficie de la conciencia unidas por vínculos absurdos pero poderosos, como una canción, una broma o un odio común. Como ahora, para ella, el hilo que las une y que las va haciendo salir una después de otra es cierta ferocidad en la búsqueda de algo absoluto, cierta perplejidad, la que une palabras como padre, Dios, playa, pecado, pureza, mar, muerte."
Ernesto Sábato — Sobre Héroes y Tumbas
A man of nostalgia, religion, love…
A father…
A widower.
Black cupped his face with both his hands as Yvo told him the saddening news about his now ex-wife. The walls of his cell had trembled again the night before but he would have never imagined that the brutal attack was going to take her away from him.
Take her away for good.
The fake marriage that had trapped him as he tried to climb his way to the honeyed zeniths of power and greed was finally over. Yet, far from making him feel at ease, Zarrabayeusse's sudden demise had created a void so dark and menacing inside of him the troubled gunslinger couldn't even breathe.
He was now a free but imprisoned man – but he didn't have the slightest idea of what to do with all that unwanted freedom.
"Arrangements for her funeral had already been made," the barrister informed. "Yet I cannot guarantee you that the Kahn will allow you to attend."
How could he ever bring his tired bones to attend her funeral?
How was he supposed to pay his respects now when he had never shown her the slightest respect while she was still alive?
"Maybe you can ask him for it yourself," the barrister went on, unable to hide his desolation from his bitter intonation. "I just saw him – says he'll be visiting you today."
"I don't want to see him," Black retorted sternly.
"It's not up to you whether you want to see him or not – he is the emperor, and you were one of his closest enforcers. He wants to see you, wants you to accept his heartfelt condolences."
Black walked back to his cot as new shadows entered the pavilion – their footsteps already marching down the corridor, walking past his cell. The mercenary raised his chin as his coffee-colored eyes followed their path.
"Don't worry, they are not here for you," the barrister said calmly. "They are here to remove the body. Emperor's orders." Yvo moved near the door of Black's cell looking down. He stared at the bars in silence as he observed the couple of guards entering Henry's cell.
Both men wrapped the body in a white blanket and left the pavilion as silently as they had arrived.
If only he had had the strength to acknowledge what they were doing… if only he had had the strength to envision himself as a man subjugated by the most asphyxiating of solitudes. They had taken everything and everyone away from him – not even that dead body was allowed to remain there, by his side, not even his forced silence was meant to accompany him during all those insufferable hours of penitence.
Not even a body, not even a nobody.
With a soft tsssk from his tongue, the barrister brought them both back to the depressing reality of Erron's filthy cell – "I got to go now, boy. Just know that she will be missed – dearly. And all those things that concerned her about you: your hygiene, your mental stability, your diet – I will take care of all those things myself."
It seemed poor and unfulfilling, yet deep down the barrister felt he owed that much to the woman. The nurturing friend he had found in that caring woman was worth the effort - that deteriorated fighter crumbling down before his eyes was reason enough to honor her: if she had cared so much about him, if she had loved him so fiercely – then he was worth the effort as well.
Yvo was still inside Black's cell when the emperor's shadow began to tower over his smaller body.
The barrister turned around and left immediately, understanding that the emperor needed privacy. He hadn't been escorted, after all – it was clear the man had pushed aside the political aspect of his life in order to enter the pavilion as a simple, ordinary man.
The cowboy turned around rather despondently – he had made it abundantly clear that he didn't want to see the Kahn and the emperor sighed soundlessly as he stepped inside the cell and closed the door behind him.
"She was… such a remarkable woman," he began, a little self-indulgently but still sincere and genuine. "A friend to us all – a part of our family," Kotal reflected as a parted, bittersweet smile took over his face.
Sensing no response from the anguished mercenary, Kotal Kahn walked the distance separating his body from Black's and sat down on the cot beside him.
"I have decided, Erron, that Zar's death, as heart-wrenching as it is, cannot blind us from what's going on out there: the Rebel-Seekers are still hunting us, they have not forgotten – they are not going to stop," he began, his voice weak yet serene. "That is why I have decided there shall not be a parole option for you. I know this might be a hard pill for you to swallow – especially now. But I need you to understand that Z'unkahrah has just been attacked for the second time; the atmosphere has been heated up again by those criminals. Three more years will not be enough for them to see you out there again I'm afraid. Your original term was ten years and ten years is the term you shall serve."
Only then Black dared to look inside the Kahn's eyes yet that coffee-colored gaze of his, far from resentful or angry, was full of resignation and sadness. Of course, he understood the situation had changed – yet now, without her, three years or ten years meant the exact same thing for him.
The mercenary swallowed hard as he tried to keep his composure. He nodded in silence as Kotal patted him lightly on the back. Those strong fingers touched little muscle as they traveled across the gunslinger's shoulders – the emperor had seen his deteriorated physical condition over a year ago, the night Black had been forced to visit the Kahn's bedchamber. Yet now, time had piled up upon his already damaged self; Black was thinner than before, weaker even.
"I have been thinking about your situation," Kotal went on as he removed his hand. Not only Black's physique was reason enough for him to worry: his mental state had also been altered by the complete isolation the man had been forced to face. Never the social type, Kotal reckoned, yet locking him up in a room with no windows and no real companion other than a rotting corpse was clearly more than what he could handle. "I've been evaluating some possibilities for you – Yvo suggested we move you to the regular pavilions, he thinks that the company of other inmates can be good for you but I'm not so sure, if I had to be honest. Those people are there because you put them there: they resent you, you wouldn't last a week, not like this…"
Black chuckled involuntarily at the Kahn's rather optimistic train of thought. As he lowered his eyelids and took a deep breath he acknowledged his own impoverished condition: to say that he was not going to last a week was pure wishful thinking. It would only take them a matter of hours to tear apart his body; perhaps the other six days were reserved for more morbid activities regarding his remains – if that was the case, he didn't want to know.
"I believe you have to stay here – but not like this," Kotal suggested. "You will be allowed to train with the rest of the enforcers on a daily basis. You will act under Reptile's supervision – I'm positive the morning rounds of exercise will do you good. You will have the chance to regain your lost self-confidence, your body will return to its normal shape – you'll regain your strength and your willpower and most importantly, your head will be fueled again."
"And my guns?" Back asked begrudgingly, even if, deep down, he knew the answer already.
"Not a chance," Kotal stated as he shook his head. "You will get out of here, Erron – there's no use in a rusted enforcer. When you leave this place I need you to be the man that you were – socially reformed, of course, but I need that fire of yours to be back. We'll start off easy, but if you behave and Reptile's reports are optimistic enough, I'll allow you to participate in the night rounds of exercise as well. Hard work and dedication, that's all I ask for."
Black lowered his head in silent tribulation – he knew he was supposed to appreciate the Kahn's gesture yet his pain would not leave him be.
"Yvo told me the guards are not feeding you, and that's about to change as well," the Kahn continued, noticing the marksman was having a hard time trying to articulate his thoughts. "Training is going to demand a lot from you physically – you need to be fed accordingly in order to endure the challenge."
Black looked away as the Kahn took a deep breath.
"For as long as you are here, I will do everything in my power to hunt them down and make them pay for what they did to Zar – but if I fail, if I don't succeed, know that the minute you're free to walk, you have my permission to go hunt them down yourself."
"She shouldn't have been there," Black mumbled.
"It doesn't really matter now," the Kahn reflected somberly as his eyes met Black's.
"It matters to me," the gunman reckoned, finally. "Last night she confronted me – she had found out the truth about Aalem. I thought, as she was leaving, that she would not return. But this… not like this." He embraced himself as he cried, powerless and broken.
"You think this was your fault?" Kotal asked in a low tone, as if afraid his words could hurt the man even more.
"I don't think it was my fault – I know it was my fault."
"No matter what happened between the two of you, you could have always worked things out with patience and time; two elements that you know by heart by now – yet they took that chance away from you, they were the ones who stole her from you - not yourself." Even if there was an undeniable truth embedded in the Kahn's words, Erron's guilt was torturing him with the wrath of a God that had been provoked. As tears engulfed him, Black lay down on his cot again, his legs curled up against his stomach, his eyes drifting out of focus.
The helpless Kahn understood then, that his words could never be the balsamic reassurance Black was in desperate need of. He stood up in silence and placed a soft kiss on the gunslinger's forehead before leaving the cell.
"Rest now, son," he whispered, brokenhearted. "I myself will come back for you tomorrow, to escort you to your wife's funeral." He closed the door as he walked out of that small, dark cell. "My heart is with you now." Black's numb ears heard the Kahn say as his voice trailed off, the sound of his serene footsteps marching down the corridor were the very last thing he heard before finally succumbing to slumber.
A distinctive sound woke him up a few hours later. A voice he knew too well to pretend time and oblivion had erased it from his convoluted memory. As she cleared her throat the ex-Earthrealmer got up and walked towards the bars – he cocked his head in disbelief: of all the people he would have expected to see there, Ferra wasn't one of them.
Her pockets were filled with his stuff: from ammunition to brown leather bags filled with golden coins. The mercenary chuckled at the sight, the image too ironic for him to react any differently.
"I guess I have to thank you, dwarf," a sarcastic Black began, "at least you waited for Zar to be gone."
"Ferra don't steal!" The tiny warrior yelled, visibly offended. "Ferra protects."
Only then he noticed Torr standing behind her. The beast grunted, he sounded vicious – he sounded angry.
"Calm down, big boy. This is between the lady and me," Black said as he raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the large being sheltering Ferra at the other side of the bars. The tiny warrior pressed her lips together in a thin, serious line before looking down – her curled up fists becoming simply hands, small hands, just hanging at the sides of her waist. The intense look in her eyes softened gradually as well – it was the first time she was seeing Black after the trial and many things had changed, too much water had run under that old bridge of theirs yet the image of that man there, the shadow of the man she used to know, was both endearing and terrifying for her.
"We sorry."
She had never been eloquent – she had always been direct; as direct as the linguistic aspects of her kind had allowed her to be. Yet those two words were perhaps the most sincere speech the gunslinger had ever heard. Torr accompanied her simple sentence with a soft whimper – far from the bellicose tone the beast would always imprint all over his precarious diction and very close to a heart-felt emotion he could not bring himself to translate into proper words no matter how hard he tried. Phonemes and letters were not their strongest suit, the gunslinger knew, yet there was a certain sort of veracity in the way the symbiotic pairing would express themselves; a basal honesty perhaps, only comparable to the thoughtless yet determining sincerity of a child.
Moved by their gesture, Black retreated to the darker portion of his cell, his body out of sight now. He had spent so much time blaming Ferra for his imprisonment; blaming her for a fictitious betrayal he had crafted in his imagination that now he simply could not bring himself to outrun the shame and the regrets contaminating his thoughts.
She had suffered way back then, with her back against the wall.
They had threatened her only to discard her words later. Such cruelty seemed alien now, the whole charade had been completely unnecessary, the ex-Earthrealmer silently reckoned.
After a few moments of quiet contemplation, Black got up again and walked towards the bars – it was time to stop blaming others for his own sins and mistakes. He reached out for the tiny warrior as he slid his fingers across her forearm – there she was, stoic and solemn; welcoming a touch that felt familiar and friendly for the very first time.
Turning around to face Torr, the child-like enforcer got on her tiptoes as she retrieved something from the beast's hands. It was an obscured object, a shape he could not place.
"Wife kept this," Ferra said as she brushed the surface of the box with her tiny hand, her palm blackened by the ashes of his own untamable flames.
His box of memories, rescued from the irascible tongues of fire for the second time.
"She with boy," Ferra mumbled as she stretched her arms to offer him the charred container.
Unable to hold back the tears any longer, the marksman broke down again as he realized that Zarrabayeusse had saved his treasured memories from himself. He took the box, the burnt wood felt foreign when summoned by his bewildered touch. Caressing the item with a renewed tenderness he had not allowed anyone to witness in what felt like an eternity, Black smiled fondly as his eyes returned to Ferra.
"I know – she is in peace now," was all he managed to say.
The woman he had but didn't want to have and the woman he never had but wished he had had both saved the man inside that box: the original Erron Black; the one that existed only in the shape of all those bittersweet souvenirs. After many lives, after many deaths, he still was the common element uniting the loves of his many lives. Holding the box in his arms, Black realized that time had started again for him: he had tried to get rid of all those memories in order to detach himself from the man that he had once been. He had tried to say goodbye to that box, yet the object seemed determined to remain by his side.
"Thank you," he whispered.
The very notion of time had been created again for him. He had tried to say goodbye to that version of himself, the man who cared. A long parenthesis of impersonality and coldness had trapped him then, for far too long, and now it was time for the clocks to start ticking again – the revelation, pristine like an epiphany, hit his eyes with such blinding light he could only embrace his new-found conscious: this new Black, reeling in the ashes of that man from his ancient past and rediscovered by the kindness of all those women of his life, was as real as that box.
The ritual completed, the summoning had been successful.
The heartless mercenary had finally succumbed to the tears cascading down his cheeks – the pain he was enduring was real, it was all the proof he needed to finally realize that he had already changed. He had already returned to his original version. His brand new beginning had come from yet another beginning's end: the end of that cold-hearted, greedy murderer they had invented the minute Annie met her creator.
A/N: The quote from the beginning of this chapter is from one of my favorite books, On heroes and tombs, written by Argentinian author Ernesto Sábato. I could not find an English version of the book no matter how hard I tried but I decided to use it anyways, even if it was in Spanish.
The following paragraph is the translated version of said quote. Please keep in mind that it's my personal translation, not an official translation. Here goes:
"Her memory is composed by static and eternal fragments of existence: time does not flow between them, and things that have taken place in very ancient époques are put together, bonded or gathered by odd antipathies and sympathies. Maybe they shall reach the surface of her consciousness united by absurd yet powerful bonds, like a song, a joke or a common sense of hatred. Like now, to her, the threat that unites them and makes them all come out one after the other is a certain ferocity in the quest for something absolute, a certain perplexity, the same that connects words like father, god, beach, sin, purity, sea, death."