Chapter 82

Hellscape

Sylas groaned audibly as his eyes began to flicker. The pain quickly assailed his head in addition to the burning of his throat. Even still, opening his eyes completely was difficult—an gargantuan task for how groggy he was—not to mention that what awaited him was a hazy, blurry sight he couldn't make much sense of.

“Water…” he mumbled to the world and yet, to his shock, a hand helped him sit up and offered him a cup of water.

“Here you go,” Valen’s chirpy voice broke past the haze as Sylas quickly took the cup and gorged it down whole. “Just how much did you drink? You must have outdrank us all last light.”

“Uuugh,” Sylas bent forward and grabbed his head with both his hands. It was a… nostalgic feeling, actually. It’s been a long while since he’d gotten that drunk. And he was also reminded just why it has been so long—the feeling… wasn’t that great. In fact, it was awful. Beyond the headache, his stomach was atumbling, and he felt like spilling his insides out… and yet couldn’t. It was an awful feeling.

"In any case," Valen said. "Take your time. I'll station a guard outside of the tent—if you need anything, holler at them."

“Wait, wait—” Sylas briefly woke from his stupor and reached over, pulling at Valen’s sleeve. “Last night… did, did you see who carried me in?”

“Carried you in?”

“Yea,” Sylas nodded. “It was, uh, it was a woman. I think. Did you see who it was?”

“Can’t say I did,” Valen replied. “I already found you passed out on the bed by the time I returned. But, if you’d like, I can ask around.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Sylas said. “Was probably my drunken imagination, anyway.”

“Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, go on ahead,” Sylas said, pulling back and lying down on the bed. “I’ll need a day. Or two. Or three.”

“However many you’d like,” Valen said before he departed, leaving Sylas lonesome with his thoughts once more.

Last night was hazy, but he recalled a few moments—notably him whining like a little child to what was likely a phantom, spilling his grievances and soul-buried complaints. Nonetheless, it was a good, therapeutic even, session of sorts. He needed it—especially after witnessing the scope of the attack.

“Ah, the attack,” he mumbled, finally recalling why he’d gotten stupendously drunk in the first place. The sea of the dead, the shredded walls, the banquet of blood and gore, the penultimate end of the world. “Hoooh,” he blew air through his lips as though he was trying to blow his troubles away, rubbing his face in a delirious attempt to wake up and make sense of things. But he couldn’t—because things… didn’t make sense.

He was asked to be the hero, but he didn’t have even an iota of strength a hero should have. He didn't have the tools, the means, nothing, really, but the inability to die—but the inability to die was worthless in the face of the perpetual death. In the face of something even a hero would struggle to defeat. To be a hero, yet not heroic; savior, yet not salvation—all with the scarred, broken, drifting mind that kissed the health a lengthy farewell.

Sitting back up, he reached for the bowl of water once again, drinking some and using some to wash his face and neck. It was pointless to make up excuses, to wallow in pity and the sense of impossibility. He’d have to do it, one way or another. What was the alternative? Taking the few dozen ‘good seeds’ and trying to escape the castle in the middle of the worst winter he’d ever seen? Could he even do it? He was uncertain. Possibly.

But could Valen? Could Ryne? Could Tenner? Would they? He’d have to lie and deceive every one of them and then escape, leaving hundreds to die. That was why he held on to hope—hope for the talismans based upon the ancient characters. Ryne was excited when it came to them, citing unimaginable possibilities. He had to be excited too—and he had to pray. Pray that they could undo the death itself. Because even if there was another solution… he couldn’t see it. He wasn’t clever enough or cold enough or brilliant enough to see it. He was a petty man tasked with being a hero in a world that he knew nothing about.

He recovered for the rest of the day practiced for the next few before resetting the loop, befriending Derrek, informing Valen, and then rushing back to the castle to deal with one ‘death’ he’d already solved—Iun.

After Valen captured the boy’s attention, Sylas immediately shoved Ryne and him in the same room and ‘forced’ the ancient characters out of Iun. This was the only way, he believed. And even if it was… he couldn’t possibly comprehend just how long it would take. He studied for just under three months relentlessly… and then the dead came. And the dead won. The darkness swallowed the light, and the spirit of man was unkindled.

You have died.

Save point ‘Pup’s Blood’ has been initialized.

Characters, unlike what Sylas thought they were—words—were more akin to entire languages. Depending on the bend and the angle of a line, the meaning changed. They were words, but words in a language that was akin to a thousand languages from Earth combined. A slight alteration could change the meaning of everything.

You have died.

Save point ‘Pup’s Blood’ has been initialized.

The characters, the letters, the words, the writs, they were like the prayers—like the solemn sermons, gospels of gods. They begged, they pleaded, they bled. Give us. Take us. Approve us. Save us. Undo us. Rescue us. Save us. Save us. Save us.

You have died…

You have died…

You have died…

You have died…

You have died…

…

The hazy world blurred into a blend of shapes and colors. All was one and one was all. At least, Sylas thought so in his drunken state. He mumbled and stumbled and stuttered, his obsession with the ancient characters bleeding into random ramblings of a madman.

“Rik commences the change, line dotting two meanings—cruel and indifferent; blend configures the cold, and in the cold’s variant, rik becomes riik—obsessive—or rikk—gradual. And therein they merge in a blend…”

It burned.

You have died…

It hurt.

You have died…

It waned.

You have died…

It cried.

You have died…

It sang. It sang the words and it sang the melodies and it sang the letters. A piece of paper to alight the entire east. To melt the frigid snow. To make it rain ash. A piece of paper. Letters. Numbers. Lines. Words. Characters. Meanings.

You have died…

“Ha ha ha ha ha,” Sylas laughed madly, his eyes inspiring deft retreat in those around him. “I got it! If ulk is combined with tok they don’t just merge, like fuckin’ moronic, modern, normal languages! They—they fucking cancel each other! Brilliant! Fuckin’ brilliant! So, ulto? WHAT THE FUCK DOES ULTO MEAN?!!”

You have died…

“Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me,” he mumbled in a drunken haze, uncertain to whom he was even apologizing at this point. It could be Valen—after all, he’d seen the Prince die a hundred, a thousand times by now. Beheaded, speared, dismembered, blown up into smithereens… all manner of horror and pain.

It could be Ryne just the same—he’d watched the life leave the little girl innumerable times. He watched her keel and bend and he’d watched her cry and break. He’d seen her paralyzed with fear, with the cosmic kind of horror that knew no bounds.

It could be Tenner, it could be Cyrs, it could be Derrek, it could be hundreds of others he’d watched die and die and die and die. They would all die. There would always be blood—everywhere. Bits and pieces of what made a person whole.

It was a hellscape. It was his personal inferno, a cast made out of the sinner’s chains. A molten grasp of the cruel that held him amidst the fires and amidst the pain and amidst the suffering. He couldn’t escape. He couldn’t save them.

You have died…

You have died…

You have died…

He stopped watching. He could watch no more. He would kill himself before it all began. Shaking. Shivering.

You have died…

You have died…

Lifetimes are a passage of eternity. Boundless merit, he learned. All of the world was within an hourglass, and he would flip it. Over and over and over again. He knew everything. He’d seen everything. Learned everything.

He knew how every maid and every servant and every bandit and every prisoner would react to everything. If he yelled, if he mumbled, if he did nothing. He knew where they’d be, what’d they do, everything. Sasha would be in charge of potatoes and would spend every day mashing 'em at dawn, from the first croak of the cock to the mid-morning. Sam would broom the stairs, up and down, every day, at the same time. Every time. All the time. Forever. Hardin, Byle, Sylca, Fetyl, Sio, Greg, Cod… hundreds of names swirled in his memories. He knew everything. Everything.

You have died…

You have died…

You have died…

…

Sylas recounted. He knew he was wrong, but he recounted nonetheless. Many years he’d completely erased from his memory, but he recounted nonetheless. Many more he’d blended together as they were all the same, but he recounted nonetheless. And many more simply… vanished, like wisps of smoke, never to be seen again. Sixty-four. Sixty-four…

“… sixty-four,” he mumbled into the wind. Sixty-four years, altogether, he recounted. And yet… he wasn’t a day older. Not a wrinkle to show for it. Not an iota of change for others to see. As every time, they celebrated. They danced. They sang. They drank. He'd forgotten most of life's joys—beyond occasionally drinking to prevent his mind from completely cracking like glass and shattering into millions of shards. He was a statue, a cold, boorish, limp, soggy, wet paper. He was nothing—and nothing was him.

You have died…

You have died…

You have died…

…

Sylas stood on the wall, staring, waiting, anticipating. The tiny wisp of flame that continued to burn in the depths of his soul all this while was gently rekindled. The talismans… the talismans were done. Some, at least. Four in total, to be precise. That was it—he knew. Four was as many as they would be able to make in the time they had. He'd tested it—spent over five years, actually, testing it, time and time and time and time again. Four. They had four grenades for the army of tens of thousands.

“Please, God, please,” he mumbled a prayer. “I can’t. Not anymore. Not anymore. Please. Please. Give me tomorrow. Please. Please… please… give me tomorrow… give me tomorrow… give me tomorrow…” his prayers went off with the whipped winds as the atmosphere of magic changed. They've come. The dead, once more—like all the times before—have come. "Just once. Just once, please. Just once…"

You have died…

You have died…

You have died…

…