Nearly a half-hour later, Gabriel was carrying the still-unconscious body of Jarred down the street with Era close beside him, both of them covered in blood and parting the crowd with their disturbing and horrific appearance.
“Just ignore them,” Gabriel told Era quietly. “Just find a city watchman.”
Era nodded, but still burned with shame and unease at the terrified stares of the people around him. Women pulled their children away, men stepped between them and their wives, and every last person in the crowd was watching them.
After a walk that felt even longer than his trek to Elsequaire, they finally found a guard at the city gates. At the gory sight of the three, the guard drew his sword and shouted for backup.
“No, please, we need your help,” Era pleaded quietly. “We mean no harm.”
The guard remained on the defensive, eyeing them warily. “What are you—”
“By the gods,” said the backup guard, skidding to a stop and immediately dropping to one knee.
“What’s gotten into you?” the other guard asked in disbelief.
“It’s the Archmage, you fool!” he barked through gritted teeth. “Get down!”
Paling visibly, the guard immediately dropped down as well. “Forgive my rudeness, sir,” he said with his head down. “I am at your command.”
Gabriel stared wide-eyed at Era. “Please tell me this is some sort of mistake.”
“On your feet!” Era begged. “We just… we need healing. There’s been a terrible scene at Attiricus’s mansion. I’ll explain it all when we get to a place to rest.” He looked apologetically over to Gabriel. “That applies to you, as well.”
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, still shocked. “That explains a lot.”
“I tried to defy Death itself,” Era explained between visits from the healers. “I tried to turn myself into a Lich.”
“No shit?” Gabriel asked incredulously. “I thought Liches were just made up. A wizard’s pipe dream.”
They sat on adjacent cots in a healing center with Jarred stretched out on another cot nearby. Medics had tended to the fracture in his skull, healing what they could with magic and patching up both Era and Gabriel as best as they could. Era was suffering from anemia due to major blood loss and was covered in burns and cuts, but miraculously, the sword hadn’t pierced any major organs; arteries had been slashed, but his patch-healing job had managed to keep it under control. It had, like when he healed his neck, left a prominent scar on his lower chest. Gabriel, on the other hand, had several minor fractures and was also scraped up.
“They aren’t real,” Era explained, “but I tried to recreate the archetype exactly. I wanted to bind my soul to my bones, enabling me to live forever as an undead magical force.”
“Disgusting.”
“Very,” he said, hesitating to continue.
“And? How did Caine play into all this?”
“He… was my apprentice when I was Archmage.” Era cringed. “He was normal back then. I became Archmage fresh out of school, taking the position from him. He hated me for it, but he never showed it.” Swallowing, he continued quietly. “He never complained. He always did… exactly as I asked.”
Gabriel paused, dreading what he might hear next. “What did you do to him?” he asked quietly.
Era closed his eyes, trying to bring up just a tiny, tiny bit of the emotionless state he had felt earlier. “I used him as a test subject,” he said quietly. “I pushed my abilities to the limit on him. I wanted to… figure out the nature of the soul, study its connection to the body in preparation for the ritual to truly become a Lich.”
“So you…”
“…Figured out how to separate body and soul.” He shuddered. “It is an… extremely painful process, if Caine’s screams are any indication. I did that several times to him, mostly just to perfect my technique.”
Gabriel clenched his jaw. “No wonder he was fucked up in the head.”
Era nodded glumly. “The worst part is, I didn’t care. Before I got it into my head to become a Lich, I was distant emotionally, but I hadn’t… ‘turned off’ my feelings yet. I guess I knew that I was going to be doing some very inhumane things to the both of us, so I just… stopped feeling. Instead of empathizing with his screams, I was just irritated. I didn’t think of anyone as human anymore. The only one deserving of my attention anymore was myself.” He rubbed his temple. “It sickens me.”
“You’re not the same person,” Gabriel assured him, “not anymore.”
“But I am,” he insisted. “Back at Attiricus’s home, when you and I were arguing… I was different. I was still there, but I’d ‘reverted’ to that emotionless state. That’s how I was able to kill Caine. That’s how I was able to shrug off Crisilla’s…” He choked on the last word.
Gabriel sighed, remaining silent for several minutes as they both let their thoughts gather. “Well,” he finally said, “you’ll have to be vigilant. You can’t let yourself slip back into that.”
“I know.”
“I’m sure you can do it,” he said. “You’re much different now, even if your old self is resurfacing. You can make up for lost time.”
“I really hope you’re right,” Era said quietly. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to atone for this, though. People will remember me now. How many will remember me for who I was? Who I really was?”
“People can forgive,” he replied. “It’s tough as shit to earn that right and you’ll never be able to redeem yourself in everyone’s eyes, but you can try your damndest to prove you’re a better person.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself. I’ve ruined too many lives on selfish whims, both before and after my three-year stay in limbo.”
“You’ll have a lot to make up for from before, but don’t you dare beat yourself up for what happened afterwards,” Gabriel commanded. “Weren’t you the one who told me you can’t be blamed for ignorance? What happened to Crisilla is not your fault.”
“I hope that I’ll be able to believe that someday,” Era said weakly.
Desperate for a change of subject, Gabriel spoke quickly. “So what happened with Death?” he asked. “How did you end up there?”
“I actually managed to nearly complete the ritual successfully,” he explained. “Near the end, though, I suddenly felt like I was being sucked away from everyone and everything.” He chuckled. “Turns out, I was. Death appeared before me in a void not unlike the ones Caine created, and he told me on no uncertain terms would he allow anyone to cheat him. That’s what he was for. He no longer harvests souls; he exists to ensure that people like myself don’t stay longer than we should.”
“So what’d he do?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“He couldn’t rightfully kill me; my candle hadn’t yet gone out. That’s some sort of rule he must abide, he can’t take a life before the candle goes out. He said that he was curious about me, so he took me to his realm and I remained there for three years before I met you.” He smiled. “And you know what happened after that.”
“And everyone forgot you because of that?”
“I told you that everyone has a candle that measures how much time people have left to live and a book containing their life story,” he explained. “Death tore out the pages of my book, making me forget everything and making my presence forgotten here. He put them back during my near-death experience. He said he ‘owed me that much.’”
“Death owing something to somebody else,” Gabriel said with amusement. “Now that’s something to keep you up at night.” Era chuckled, and Gabriel continued. “So what about Caine? He sure didn’t forget you.”
“He could see beyond this plane of existence,” he explained. “Death said he could see things he shouldn’t. Because of that, he somehow managed to remember who I was and my connection to him.”
“Damn,” Gabriel replied, “so his little ‘audience’ in the void was actually there. That’s really creepy, if you think about it.”
Era nodded. “It is.”
They were silent a while before Gabriel spoke again. “So I never did ask,” he said, “what’s your real name? That is what this whole quest was about, after all.”
He smiled. “Lucien Baines. Lucien Dior Baines.”
“Lucien, eh?” Gabriel grinned. “Yeah, you look like a Lucien. Sort of. Probably fit you better when you were less of a nice guy.”
“You don’t think Lucien’s a ‘nice guy’ name?”
“Not really. It sounds like a name that commands respect. Like ‘I respect you out of fear’ respect, not ‘respect because he’s a good person’ respect.”
Era chuckled. “I suppose I can see that.”
“What do you want me to call you now?” Gabriel asked.
“What?”
“Well, Era’s not really your name, right?” He shrugged. “I can start calling you Lucien, if you want. Or ‘Luc’ or something.”
He thought about it. “No,” he replied, “Era’s fine. It’s what I’ve been ever since I started over, and I think I’d like to cut ties with who I was.”
“I can dig it.” He laid back into his pillow. “‘Era’ it is.”
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