Chapter 25 – Heat Death
A quiet corner of Small Gods Cemetery, shielded from the broader expanse of markers, monuments, and in some cases freshly turned earth by dense lilac bushes, glimmered with condensing mist in the pale lightening of the early morning. In the stillness, the quiet footfalls of a woman could be clearly heard, were anyone listening.
As Susan Sto Helit entered the secluded corner, she held a small glass and metal object in her hand, moving it gently back and forth, almost like a divining rod. Carefully she picked her way past the remaining gravesites before pausing before one very particular monument, fashioned in the likeness of a very particular woman.
The cool surface of the statue, somehow cooler than the surrounding air, combined with the warm humidity, had conspired to give it a coating of condensing moisture.
Susan placed her hands on her hips and regarded it for several long moments until one of the small beads of water just below its left eye contacted the one next to it, and combining ran slowly down the surface… gathering speed and mass as it went until it dangled, and then fell to the damp ground below.
Susan arched an eyebrow. "Quite melodramatic Myria. But I'm afraid I've never been a fan of drama. It's one of the reasons I've never been a patron of the opera. Well, that and the fact that with my family history, watching some of the more ridiculous death scenes tends to make me laugh." She waited for a full minute before continuing.
"I know you're listening. You're not fooling anyone you know."
Susan stood for a few more moments, tapping her foot and considering. "Well? We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
The body of Myria Lejean was silent. Still.
"Fine, if that's the way you want it." Susan began to turn, and stopped as she became aware of a thought forming in her head.
Why are you here? Why do you bother us. We are not human. You have seen what we are.
"Oh stop it. You are Myria. You are not a 'we'. And I do not like people talking into my head."
Saying it does not make it true. Humans think it does, but it does not. We are not even really alive.
Susan snorted and raised the object in her left hand. Sitting on her palm was a small hourglass. The top was about three-quarters full of fine white sand, with the remainder in the bottom. The sand was… doing nothing. Just sitting there and most definitely not flowing. "See this my dear? This says that regardless of this little pantomime you have going on here, you are not in fact dead. What you are, is someone trying very, very hard not to be alive." She shook her head. "It doesn't work you know. No matter how much it hurts. Life just keeps happening to you."
Silence. But in that silence, Susan became aware that at least one of her suspicions was, unhappily, proving to be true. She could clearly sense that as she neared Myria, reality had changed somewhat. The air was colder, and somehow thinner, the closer she came.
Susan sighed. "Myria, you are alive. Even now, you are fighting to live. We living things are stupid that way. And in doing so, you may be causing irreparable damage to reality."
It is a lie. It is all a lie.
"Yes, yes, it's all a lie. You told Jessica…" Susan took some satisfaction at seeing a slight tremor in the figure at the mention of that name, "that you lied all the time. Well guess what, lying to ourselves is one of the things humans do. And like many other things," she made a sour face, "I'm better at it than most. So don't talk to me about lying, or pain for that matter, or about fitting in."
Silence.
"Jessica is fine you know." Another slight tremor. "You saved her life. Hers and probably yours too."
It does not matter. If we had not existed, it would never have happened. And we did not save our life. We have nothing to save.
"Tripe. Utter tripe. Myria, you understand that you cannot remain in this state? Use those Auditor derived senses you inherited. Tell me what is happening in this little corner of the Disc you have walled yourself into." She arched an eyebrow. "No witty repartee? No denials? Even I can feel the difference. You are not suffering in silence, regardless of what you may be telling yourself. You are affecting reality around you, and it is growing. You are literally sucking the life out of the universe in your attempt to isolate yourself from it."
Lies. Leave us alone here. We will harm nothing. Let us die.
Susan took a deep breath and blew it slowly out through her nose. She must not lose her temper. It was a good thing she'd had such a good week, or she would have already done. For the next thirty minutes, she tried every tack she could think of to draw Myria out, without success, and in the process became more and more frustrated. Finally she threw her hands up in despair.
"Myria, you leave me little choice. I want you to understand that this brings me no joy." Stepping back and to the side, Susan called over her right shoulder. "I'm afraid I have done all I can do. It appears you will be needed after all."
From the shadows just past the dense flowering bushes, a tall figure garbed in a dark cloak and hood walked stiffly toward them. It halted when it reached the two.
"Hello Myria," Jonathon said as he pulled back the hood of the cloak. His voice cracked slightly, ruining his attempt at being nonchalant and earning a 'tsk' from Susan. "We need to talk."
The body of Myria LeJean visibly shifted at the sound of that voice. Good. Thought Susan. I was right again. And I so misliked the alternative.
"Myria." He repeated insistently.
With a cracking sound that made Susan wince, the statue of Myria LeJean shifted, trying desperately to move the eyes, no longer sightless, where they would not have to face the human in front of her. Vocal cords that had been thought unneeded were forced into service with a rasp. "Why are you here? You cannot hurt us any more." With a grating that could be felt as well as heard, the face turned further away. "There is nothing to hurt." And the cold radiating from her seemed to increase, defensively.
"Myria, I'm sorry. I was not…" He laughed bitterly at himself. "It was too much. Do you remember saying that to me? It was too much."
"You do not have to be here. Jessica is safe. You do not need us. You can go back to your life."
Jonathon held out his hands. "Myria, you don't understand, I don't want that life. It would not be… enough now."
Myria's form shifted again with a sound of sand grinding between stone, slowly moving its head from side to side in denial. "Is this what it means to be human? To always have too much or not enough? To think that you have something only to lose it? So that it becomes less than having nothing at all? If this is human, then I do not wish it."
Jonathon twitched at this, looking to Susan for help and finding none. He sighed. "Sometimes yes, but that is part of what makes having them, those moments when it isn't too much or not enough, so precious. It is what makes life worth it."
"Worth what? I had a friend and they took her from me, because of me. It is too hard." Myria's voice was regaining its normal tones. "I do not want to want this." Moisture was beginning to pool in the grey on grey eyes, and it was more than could be explained by water condensing on the cool surface.
Jonathon stepped closer. "Myria. You said I."
Myria flushed and her face snapped around to stare at Jonathon. The gray shades of her exposed skin fled from her face in a wave of pale red. Then its lines whitened. She drew back her hand and slapped him across the face. Hard. As he jerked sideways with the shock and pain of it, he was sure she had cracked his cheekbone. The blow had been harder than he would have believed.
"You-you human!" She drew back and struck him again. "Organic! Irrational! I hate you!" The second blow he had anticipated and went with the strike, turning his head and twisting at the waist; the pain still was intense, but at least it didn't feel like anything new was broken. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Susan start forward, and he gave a small shake of the head. Susan stopped and her expression said fine, be the punching bag.
Jonathon turned back in time to see Myria draw her hand back a third time, clenched into a fist, which she drove into his stomach, doubling him over. "Why won't you leave me alone?! You know what I am now! What I can do! Jessica saw it and she was terrified of me!"
Jonathon stumbled backward with the pain and force of the blow, like being hit in the gut with a sledgehammer, and fell to one knee. Gods that really hurts. He peered up at her. But it's working. He could see the colors washing over her, the gray and pale flesh-tones seeming to fight for dominance. "No matter what you think, I care about you Myria," he coughed and winced at the pain, then tried to smile through the ache in his face. "So if hitting me helps, then go right ahead."
It seemed the wrong thing to say. Instead of pushing her closer to her humanity, the anger drained out of Myria's face, and with it the color, washing back to monotones. "You do not… you do not mean that. You are trying to… to make me feel things again. That is what you have been doing. You think you know what I am? What I am capable of? You want me to… to feel?" A wave of cold washed over him and the air seemed to thin.
Her voice shifted back to inside his head, painfully. Is this what you want? I feel pain! Fear! Loss! Agony! Torture! Terror! Emptiness!
Jonathon Knäcke felt that wave of emotion wash over him. As it sank its teeth into his substance, Myria was transformed before him, morphing from a cold beauty into, something else. An empty shell filled with… nothing.
"No." He shook his head in denial, his breath fogging before him. "No Myria, that's not all that you are."
And her form changed further, dissolving until the nothing it contained was merely a deeper darkness enclosed in a formless cloak.
Really? Then you do not understand at all. She gestured at Jonathon with her left hand.
In an instant, there were thousands of the gray-cloaked figures before him, each indistinguishable from the next. Each regarded him with the same cold indifference that the emptiness of space holds for the sparse matter that passes through it. Come or go, it was the same transient lack of importance. He could feel the vastness of space around him. Nothingness, in the face of which he was less than nothing.
In the lifespan of a star, your entire existence is nothing more than an eyeblink. In that of a galaxy, less than the oscillation of a single electron. Compared to the span of existence of the universe, you do not even exist.
Jonathon Knäcke was wholly unprepared to face this reflection of his existence; this insignificance. He was a mote in the vastness of eternity. Adrift in the void.
In the void of space, he realized, there is no air to breathe. There is no warmth to comfort.
His hands flew to his throat, clawing as he felt the air rushing from lungs suddenly wracked with agony. Not only air escaped; nerves throughout his body sang with the pain of thousands of feet of capillaries whose liquid contents threatened to boil and freeze in the vacuum. The animal-instinct portion of him began to panic, looking for the escape, and seeing only the Auditors.
Now you understand, human. What we are. And what you are to us.
Gods Myria, help me.
We will help you. We will end your suffering.
And he felt it, the very substance of himself, begin to fray.
THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH.
Jonathon snapped back, finding himself lying on the cool earth and clawing his throat raw as he stared up at the gray face of Myria. Myria, who had jerked back in surprise, breaking the private little hell he had been experiencing. He drew in great gasping breaths and coughed as the icy air bit into abused lungs. That aspect at least had not been only in his head.
Susan advanced toward them both, drawing two objects, each dark and metallic, from beneath her cloak and holding them loosely at her sides. In her left she held a sword, blue fire running up and down its impossibly sharp blade. In her right, she held something deemed even more deadly by many creatures on the Disc.
The Poker.
"I am sorry for you Myria, I truly am, but I cannot allow you to continue as you have. And I cannot allow you to harm Jonathon either. Be told, if you do that again, I will put you down. Do I make myself clear?"
Myria froze, then pulled herself erect, strangely intent. "You would do that?" Jonathon, painfully, pulled himself up onto one knee, hoping he was wrong about what would come next.
"I would, if you forced my hand."
Myria's face set, moisture filling her eyes. "Then so be it." And she gestured again at Jonathon as before, fulfilling his fears.
Time seemed to slow as everything happened in the space of heartbeats.
Jonathon realized with a shock that despite her threat, Myria was not actually doing anything to harm him. Her gesture had been… a bluff.
Susan, grim faced, hurled the cast-iron poker like a javelin at Myria. As it flew, tearing through the chill air toward Myria's chest, it seemed to glow with a blue fire… fueled by the unshakable faith of two young children in its ability to slay any monster. It hurtled through the air, a deadly dart intent on piercing the not quite flesh of something that was not quite human.
And Myria. Myria closed her eyes with a slight, sad smile, awaiting oblivion.
Instant followed instant in the slow tick of time. The fleeting seconds of a life mirrored in the suddenly flowing of grains of sand through a small glass-and-metal hourglass.
And Myria gasped as the poker struck, with a sickening thud, the body of Jonathon Knäcke, who had thrown himself in front of it.
"NO!" Myria screamed, as Jonathon fell backward curling around the impact and caroming off of her. Susan stood frozen in place, disbelief etched into her features.
"Of all the stupid, foolhardy, boneheaded…"
"What have you done!?" Myria wailed, though it was impossible to tell whether she was referring to Susan or Jonathon. She fell to her knees next to him, pale with shock and fearing to touch him as he lay writhing on his side.
Susan watched wide-eyed for scant seconds longer, and then her eyes narrowed as she regained some of her cynical and bloody suspicious nature. "I'd say, Myria, that what he has done is prove a point. Though I daresay there may have been less painful ways to do so."
Myria stared at her as if she had gone mad. "He is dying and…" her mouth worked, "and you are being… wrong! Unkind! Have you no feelings?"
"Unkind?" Susan moved to where Jonathon lay curled in a tight ball, and knelt down beside Myria. "Myria use your eyes. Note the remarkable absence of poker sticking out of Jonathon's back? And with it the complete lack of blood and/or internal organs on the ground." Jonathon chose that moment to groan loudly. "Though he may cough up a kidney at some point, I do not believe he will in fact die." She put a hand on Myria's shoulder briefly and her expression softened. "Here, help me see how bad it really is."
"Gods… let me die" Jonathon moaned as Susan tried to get his arms moved aside.
"Oh don't you start that now. Honestly, I've had my fill. And no you aren't going to die." She was trying, with limited success, to get his arms moved aside enough to verify this. "I don't even believe it broke the skin, since I still don't see any blood. Though it may have cracked a few ribs. What were you thinking?"
Myria shifted, cradling Jonathon's face in her lap as Susan carefully opened his shirt. "You said-" Jonathon gasped again as she touched a rib, "dammit that hurts!" He coughed again, and cried out with the pain. Regaining his breath, he finally managed to finish. "You said it only kills monsters..."
Susan rolled her eyes. "It's a poker you dimwit, it's still a very large, very heavy piece of metal flying very fast with pointy end foremost. And I am not some limp-wristed maiden, you self-sacrificing twit. You could very well have gotten yourself killed regardless if it hadn't bounced off your ribs. Be still!" She ordered crossly as he writhed again.
"Susan will you stop being so cruel? Can you not see that he is hurt badly?"
"It was in a good cause. And if you had not been trying for Suicide by Death then it wouldn't have happened at all."
Myria's eyes strayed to Death's sword, laying several feet away on the grass. "Would you… would you have used that? Truly?"
Susan did not look at her. "Only if I'd no other choice Myria. But yes, if it had been necessary."
There was a thoughtful silence. "Thank you Susan you truly have been a good friend."
"You are most welcome. But this is definitely the preferable of the two possible endings." Jonathon groaned. "Well at least for two of us. And it does settle a question I had been concerned about."
Myria narrowed her eyes. "Which question is this?"
"The boy is a fool for you Myria. It would be best not to let him go on suffering so."
Myria took on a pained expression that mirrored Jonathon's as she cupped his face in one hand. "I am sorry Jonathon. I am sorry for everything. You… you made me very angry, and it hurt very much." She shook her head and took several deep breaths and raised her face to Susan. "How do you… how do you keep from striking people in the face all the time?"
"Practice," Susan answered helpfully. Jonathon merely groaned again, which might have been agreement. "Just like everything else." She tsk'd again. "Since you have managed to incapacitate yourself Jonathon, I think it would be best if I arrange for a coach and a litter. Otherwise…" one corner of her mouth turned up "we might have to invest in some cotton to block out the sound of your yelling and moaning."
"Susan!"
"Oh fine. You certainly seem to be recovering your empathy rather quickly Myria. Pray focus it on Jonathon, and I will make arrangements." She quickly gathered her Grandfather's sword, and The Poker and began making her way toward Small Gods Street. As she left, she cast a smug glance over her shoulder.
There, in the midst of Small Gods Cemetery, framed by the blooms of lilacs, a young man lay in not-so-quiet misery, his head in the lap of a beautiful if slightly worse for wear lady.
They have no idea what they are in for. She thought to herself.
And that of course, is entirely the point.
Finis
[A/N Because all writers crave it, please DO take a few moments to write a review or at least PM me and let me know your thoughts on the story. And thank you all for following along with me, and most especially to DarkPatu for his ongoing feedback and suggestions. Without his encouragement chapter by chapter, I might not have finished it at all.
Oh, and btw, there is a sequel in progress. I have left a good half dozen threads waiting to be explored, and there is so much more about Myria LeJean left to tell. Thank you all.]