New Novel
Chapter 30: The Strongest Reaper

Chapter 30: The Strongest Reaper

The two continued through the ruins.

Now that Rook had seen the Eighty-Sixth from above, navigating its broken streets became easier. He kept the large building crowned with lanterns ahead of them, using the remains of a split tower and the diagonal section of the old wall to correct their course whenever rubble forced them down another road.

The Bastion remained far from quiet.

Scratching travelled through the buildings around them, sometimes beneath the road and sometimes several floors above their heads. A distant howl rose from somewhere behind the collapsed western wall before ending in a wet, abrupt silence. Once, something large moved through a parallel street, its shape hidden behind the ruins while each step sent small stones rolling from the surrounding walls.

Nothing attacked them.

The lanterns had stopped moving as well.

Rook caught sight of several members of the Last Watch watching from rooftops and darkened windows, but none attempted to alter the route ahead of them. Word had likely begun spreading. The scout might have survived long enough to warn them, or someone had witnessed what happened from a nearby rooftop.

Either way, the game was over.

The lanterns remained where they were.

Mara kept close to Rook as they passed beneath the remains of a stone bridge connecting two buildings. "Is going to this Voss actually wise?"

"No."

She waited for him to elaborate. When he did not, she stepped over a fractured section of road and continued beside him. "Then what is the point?"

"Voss has something we’re lacking."

"What?"

"Information about Yama’s Gate."

Mara’s attention sharpened immediately. The ruins around them appeared to lose some of their importance as soon as he spoke the name. "Why do you need information about the Gate? I thought you knew the way."

"I know which direction to start walking."

"That is considerably less useful."

"It was enough when we left."

"No, it wasn’t. I simply assumed you knew more than you were telling me."

"That was your mistake."

Mara stared at the side of his face, waiting for some indication that he was mocking her. Rook continued walking without looking back, the blue lantern swaying beside his leg while the coffin scraped beneath the remains of the bridge.

Rook stopped then turned to look at her and asked, "Why do you think we’re unable to send people to reincarnate more often on the Eleventh?"

"Because you told me the Eleventh was weak," Mara said. "It doesn’t have enough powerful Reapers to protect people attempting the journey."

"We’re weak in terms of powerful Reapers," Rook replied. "But we do have a strong leader."

"How strong?"

"The Manager of the Eleventh is the strongest Reaper I’ve ever seen."

Mara glanced at him. Rook rarely offered praise without burying it beneath an insult. The absence of either made the statement sound considerably more serious.

"You’ve lived there for three hundred years."

"Near enough."

"And in all that time, no one was stronger?"

"Not anyone I met."

They entered the ruined plaza. The center had collapsed into a deep cavity filled with broken stone, forcing them along the narrow edge. Rook moved ahead first, testing each section with his weight before allowing Mara to follow.

"The Manager has been in the Underworld for thousands of years," he continued. "No one knows exactly how many. She stopped answering the question long before I arrived. Most people in the Eleventh never see her. Even I’ve only met her a few times."

"What does she manage if she never leaves?"

"The Bastion."

"That was not what I meant."

"She deals with things the rest of us can’t. The ordinary work gets passed down through officers, captains and anyone unlucky enough to still care about their position."

Rook reached a gap in the path and stepped across it. The fractured stone shifted slightly beneath his boots, but held. He turned and extended his recovering arm toward Mara.

She looked at the hand. "Is it working?"

"Enough."

"That answer nearly got you dropped from a building."

"Now it’s better."

Mara took his hand.

His grip remained weaker than usual, but his fingers closed securely around hers and pulled her across. Once she reached the other side, he released her and flexed the hand again, working the last of the stiffness from it.

"The Eleventh would have fallen a long time ago without the Manager," he said. "Most Abominations know not to remain near it. The weaker ones wander close because they don’t understand what the Bastion is. The stronger ones understand and keep their distance."

"Because of one woman?"

Rook nodded. "I remember the day an Eighth Rank came near the Eleventh."

Mara slowed. She had seen a Third Rank in the grasslands and nearly watched it consume everything around them. Even Rook had treated the creature as something to escape rather than fight. The distance between Third and Eighth was difficult to imagine.

"What happened?"

"The alarms sounded. Every entrance was sealed, all contracted souls were taken beneath the Bastion, and every Reaper who wasn’t completely useless was sent to the walls." Rook stepped around the edge of the crater. "People thought the Eleventh was finished."

"And the Manager?"

"She left."

"That’s it?"

"She walked out through the eastern gate. Less than two minutes later, she came back."

Rook spoke without exaggeration, which made the thought more disturbing than any boast could have.

"There wasn’t a fight," Rook said. "At least, none that we heard. Most of those two minutes were the time it took her to reach the creature and return. The Eighth Rank had already been Culled."

Mara looked ahead, though her thoughts had clearly returned to the distant Eleventh. "If your Manager can do that, why doesn’t she take everyone to Yama’s Gate herself?"

"Because she can’t find it either."

Mara waited for the explanation.

When Rook offered none, she sighed. "And what does that have to do with needing Voss?"

"There’s a messed-up rule in the Underworld concerning Yama’s Gate."

"Of course there is."

"Simply put, you find the Gate when you finish your journey."

Mara looked at him. "What does that mean?"

"What I said."

"That makes no sense."

"It never did."

She stepped over a fallen lantern frame and caught up with him. "Is the Gate hidden?"

"Sometimes."

"Does it move?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"No one knows."

"Who moves it?"

"No one knows."

"Where does it go?"

Rook glanced at her. "You’re beginning to understand the problem."

Mara rubbed a hand over her face. "You told me we were travelling toward Yama’s Gate."

"We are."

"But you don’t know where it is."

"No."

"Then what exactly have we been travelling toward?"

"The last direction in which someone found it."

Mara stopped walking.

The Brand around her wrist tightened as the distance between them increased, forcing Rook to stop several steps later. He looked back at her.

"You cannot be serious."

"I usually am."

"So the Gate isn’t stationary?"

"We already established that... Otherwise, the Manager could have escorted the entire Bastion there centuries ago."

"And no one can track it?"

"Plenty have tried. Maps become useless. Roads change. Landmarks vanish. Sometimes the Gate appears somewhere people searched a hundred times before. Sometimes a soul walks out of a Bastion, crosses one empty field and finds it waiting."

"Then how is anyone supposed to reach it?"

"By finishing their journey."

"You keep saying that as though it explains anything."

"It explains exactly as much as anyone knows."

Mara resumed walking, though irritation hardened each step. "What determines when a journey is finished?"

"If I knew, the Eleventh would be empty."

"Does the Gate choose?"

"Maybe."

"Does Yama?"

"Maybe."

"Is there some trial?"

"Usually after you reach it."

She turned toward him sharply. "Usually?"

Rook continued ahead.

Mara followed, her expression caught between frustration and disbelief. "Then why do we need Voss?"

"So he can tell us where the Gate is."

"You just said no one knows where it is."

"He might know where it was," Rook corrected. "Or at least the last place it appeared."

"And if we reach that place?"

"We might find something that tells us where it moved. A changed road, a mark left behind, someone who saw it disappear. Anything is better than wandering east until the Underworld decides we look tired enough."

Mara stared at him for several seconds. "You’re messing with me."

"No."

"This is getting more and more confusing."

"That’s why I wanted us to stay in the Bastion." Rook shifted the coffin higher against his back. "Huge waste of time."

"You wanted me to surrender and remain dead forever."

"For many, it beats seeing the horrors that awaits us..."