New Novel
Chapter 18: Dying Embers

Chapter 18: Dying Embers

They had been walking for what felt like hours when Mara finally asked, "Why did you put me in the coffin?"

Rook did not answer immediately. He continued leading them through the forest, carefully avoiding the roots crossing their path and giving every low-hanging branch a wider berth than seemed necessary. After watching what the trees had done to the woman-faced Abomination, Mara was more than willing to follow his example.

The coffin had returned to his back. Fresh blood stained one corner of its battered wood, although Rook had wiped away the pieces of flesh before fastening it shut. Every few steps, one of the chains securing it creaked beneath the weight.

In his right hand, he carried what appeared to be a compass without a needle.

The round iron instrument had a cracked glass face and several faint symbols etched around its rim, but there was nothing inside pointing in any direction. Rook would study it, glance toward the surrounding trees, then alter their course as though the useless thing had told him exactly where to go.

He looked down at it again before finally answering her.

"Best way to keep you safe while I dealt with the big bad monster."

"It was terrifying being in there," Mara said. "I couldn’t see anything. I could only hear that creature screaming while something tore it apart above me."

"Would you have rather been outside with the Abomination?"

"Not particularly, no. Thank you."

"Good." Rook stepped over a pale root and waited for her to do the same. "At least you didn’t die, and that’s all that matters."

Mara glanced at the back of his head. "Speaking of dying..."

"I don’t like where this is going."

"Just hear me out. You said people die here, but then they don’t stay dead."

Rook moved around a tree whose bark had split into several narrow openings. Something dark shifted within the largest hollow as they passed, following them from behind the wood. He chose not to mention it, and Mara decided she had no interest in knowing.

"If you’re lucky," Rook said, examining the broken compass again, "when something kills you here, it does it immediately. Fully. Cleanly."

He stopped at a fork between the trees. Neither path appeared more welcoming than the other. The left passed beneath several branches swollen with dark fruit, while the right narrowed between thorn-covered trunks. Rook looked at the compass, turned it sideways, then glanced into the canopy before choosing the path on the right.

Mara did not ask how he had managed to obtain directions from an instrument without a needle. She had already learned that asking Rook one question usually rewarded her with three additional concerns.

"How is dying quickly supposed to be lucky?" she asked.

"Right." Rook slowed enough for her to walk beside him. "I told you about Abominations and how they feed on memories."

"Yes."

"Your body holds those memories."

Mara looked down at herself. Her clothes were filthy and torn from everything they had crossed. One shoe was missing, though the cuts beneath her bare foot had nearly disappeared. She flexed her fingers and felt flesh move over bone exactly as it had while she was alive.

"My body is dead," she said.

"This isn’t your physical body. That one is probably rotting somewhere, assuming there was enough left to bury." Rook tapped one finger against the side of his head. "This body comes from what’s in that noggin of yours. Your mind remembers your face, your height and the shape of your hands. It remembers that you had flesh around your bones and blood beneath your skin."

Mara’s fingers stopped moving.

Rook continued walking. "You can’t imagine yourself as some shapeless wandering soul because that isn’t how you understood yourself while you were alive. So you arrive here looking the way you remember."

Mara touched her cheek. It felt real. Her skin was warm enough that she could almost convince herself a pulse remained beneath it.

"This isn’t flesh?"

"It’s as close to flesh as a dead soul can manage."

"And my bones?"

"Memories."

"My blood?"

"Also memories."

"My organs?"

"Mostly unnecessary, but your mind remembers having them, so they’re probably still in there." Rook glanced at her. "Would you like me to check?"

Her hand immediately dropped from her stomach. "No."

"I have knives."

"I know you have knives. You nearly put one through my throat."

Mara glared at him, but Rook had already returned his attention to the path ahead.

"This has become very complicated," she said, "and it doesn’t feel related to my question."

"I’ll get there."

"You said that several minutes ago."

"And I’m several minutes closer."

They continued deeper into the forest. The sweet smell of fruit had weakened, replaced by damp earth and the bitter scent of the repelling powder clinging to Rook’s coat. Neither of them touched the trees. Whenever the path narrowed, Rook used the flat of his falchion to move branches aside rather than placing his hands upon them.

"The point," he continued, "is that your body and your memories are the same thing here. Damage one badly enough, and you damage the other."

Mara looked at the scarred coffin. "What happens if something cuts off my arm?"

"You lose an arm."

"Permanently?"

"Usually not. If the rest of you remains intact, the arm will return. Might take a day. Might take a month. Depends on the injury and how strongly you remember what belonged there."

"And if I’m killed?"

"That depends on what kills you and what it does afterward." Rook ducked beneath a hanging vine. "Abominations of every rank have different ways of feeding. The weaker ones generally tear you apart, eat what they can and shit out whatever they can’t digest. If you’re lucky, enough of your memories remain together for you to return."

Mara stopped walking.

The pale chain connecting their wrists tightened and pulled Rook to a halt several steps ahead.

"You mean people return from the Abomination’s excrement?"

Rook looked over his shoulder. "Beats dying, doesn’t it?"

She stared at him.

Then her eyes narrowed as the full absurdity of that answer reached her. "They have already died."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don’t believe I do. Does a person simply crawl out of a pile of shit?"

"Sometimes."

"Fully grown?"

"Usually."

"Naked?"

"That depends on whether they remember their clothes."

Mara looked down at her own outfit.

Rook followed her gaze. "You might want to hold on to those memories."

"Shit..."

"You can say that again."

She released a disgusted breath and resumed walking. "What about the stronger ones?"

"Ah, well, once you go higher in rank, they become more artistic." Rook’s mouth twisted. "More creative. Cuter."

"There is something profoundly wrong with the way you use that word."

"You haven’t met enough Abominations."

"I’ve met plenty."

"You’ve met four or five."

"And every one of them tried to eat me."

"Exactly. You’ve only met the straightforward ones."

Mara could not imagine how that improved anything.

Rook stepped around a patch of roots and checked the broken compass once more. "There was one I died to that was particularly nasty. Fucker didn’t kill its prey outright. It cut them apart, kept the pieces alive and slowly absorbed the memories from each one."

He held two fingers a short distance apart.

"Tiny bites. One memory at a time. It took its sweet time choosing what to consume next."

Mara’s expression tightened. "You were conscious?"

"For most of it."

"What did it take?"

Rook’s fingers lowered.

For several steps, only the creaking of the coffin answered her.

"I don’t know," he eventually said.

"You said you recovered your memories."

"I recovered what it had eaten. That doesn’t mean I can tell which memories were already missing before it found me."

Mara studied him more closely. His voice remained casual, but his grip had tightened around the compass. The damaged metal groaned faintly beneath his fingers before he relaxed his hand.

"Those are the ones you don’t want to face," he continued. "If something bites your head off and swallows you, that’s unfortunate. If it spends weeks eating you alive then, all I gotta say about that is, tough luck kid."

"Wait." Mara hurried to catch up with him. "You said it was one you died to."

"Yeah."

"You’ve died before?"

Rook gave her a sideways look. "I’ve spent more than three hundred years here. Do you think I managed all of that without dying once or twice?"

"How many times?"

He scratched the rough stubble along his jaw while considering the question. Mara expected him to give another evasive answer, perhaps insult her intelligence or claim he had misplaced the number along with whatever other memories he had lost.

Instead, he said, "I stopped counting after a couple hundred. After that, it became difficult to care."

Mara stumbled against a root.

Rook caught her arm before she struck the nearest trunk and pulled her away from it. The bark shifted where she had almost placed her hand. A narrow crack opened along its surface, exposing something wet and pink beneath it.

Neither mentioned it.

"A couple hundred?" Mara whispered once they were moving again.

"Approximately."

"And you still have your memories." She glanced at him, struggling to reconcile the number with the man walking beside her. "That doesn’t sound so bad, then."

Rook stopped.

The sudden movement made Mara stop with him.

He turned fully toward her. His expression had lost its usual trace of amusement.

"It isn’t that I didn’t lose memories," he said. "I lost too many."

Mara waited.

Rook looked away first and resumed walking. "I simply managed to recover most of them."

"And how did you do that?"