Chapter 13C: Usurper of the Underworld

When we arrived at the unassuming lair of darkness which stood at the edge of the riverbed, I saw Donovan waiting outside with a half-eaten green fruit in his left hand. His right hand clenched a golden pocketwatch which was bound by a thin wire to his pants. He smiled as he stared upon the open pocketwatch, but I could tell by his motionless green eyes that he was not watching the second hand race around the clock’s circumference. As we approached the doorstep, Donovan heard our footsteps and swerved to search the foggy darkness. He recognized me with relief, finished his fruit in two swift bites, and tossed the core into the garden.

He said to me after gazing for one more moment at his clock, “Anna told me that she’s the key and I’m the lock. She has a way of seeing the world that transcends this physical space. To tell you the truth, I think she may be right. I can’t help but wonder if I were destined for the dark before I even met her. Sometimes I think I was born condemned. But she’s such a wonderful person that she changed me for the better. She pulled me from a destiny of darkness and delivered me to the edge of the shadows. One foot in the light and one foot in the darkness. My only regret in this place is that I cannot have her physically at my side; I wouldn’t want her to see the crimes I complicitly commit. She bought me this pocketwatch as an anchor and set a picture of our family behind the glass. I can see her beautiful face anytime I want. It reminds me both of the mistakes I made and the reality that I don’t have to make them again.”

I said to Donovan as he stared upon the picture of his wife, “I believe somehow that we were one and the same in a past life. I have known no other man who would pay this price for love. We can commit calamitous crimes that they could never quite dream of. The difference is that you stand in the light with one foot in the dark, but I was destined to devour this world from the very start. You are a dear friend to whom I owe a debt I could never repay, which is why I ask now that you go somewhere far away. This city itself may be the sacrifice we require; you and your family cannot get caught in the crossfire.”

Donovan closed his pocketwatch and set it away. He gazed upon my skin which shimmered with sweat beneath the starlight. He saw my sword holstered at my side, and then he noticed Aeliana standing at a safe distance behind me. I could tell that he had simply dismissed her distance as a detail of her diffidence, but when he gazed more closely upon her, he quickly realized that she was unwell. Her fair skin had practically turned pale from the plague, and her puffy eyes stared upon the world with an obvious exhaustion. She struggled to breathe, and her legs trembled beneath her feeble weight. He understood in that moment that she had caught the plague for which we were all forewarned, and because he and I were once one and the same, he already knew that I would burn the world to ashes if it could somehow save her life. I would slaughter shelters filled with orphans or heroes if it could in any way free her from her sickness.

“I hope that in the end nothing can keep you apart from each other,” Donovan said as if he understood that we were star-crossed lovers.

I thanked Donovan and shook his hand for the last time. He chose to heed my warning and set out from Bellaina’s home. Now that she did not run the risk of infecting Donovan, Aeliana bounded up to the doorstep and set her trembling hands upon the daggers she kept sheathed at her side. I knocked firmly upon the door and took a backward step, though I prepared to summon a decoy dummy in case we were to come under attack.

When the door opened, I saw a henchman who had worked beside Bellaina when I met her for the first time in a different place. The henchman welcomed us inside with an unenthusiastic murmur, but he asked us to wait in the large kitchen for the underworld queen. He did not seem to react dramatically to our arrival, but he had recognized us enough to know that she would want to see us. He did not lock the door or assign anyone to watch us, which in a way served to settle our nerves as we patiently waited.

Bellaina announced as soon as she entered the room, “Hayatama is determined to see to it that this city is your tomb. I applaud the courage it must take for the two of you to return to a city where the ruling class wants you dead, but as commendable as it is, courage alone is not grounds for survival. I shouldn’t have expected any less from either of you. One of you raced headlong into the badlands while the other was born there. It seems that the two of you are familiar with a territory hostile to your very existence. The only question is, why would you come here? You aren’t an idiot, so I’m certain you realized that Hayatama found your home because of me. But at the same time, you aren’t a man motivated by revenge. I know you wouldn’t make the mistake of coming here just to settle some score.”

“What’s done is done, and I have to let that go – just as you cannot reverse an arrow from a bow. I cannot undo the knowledge that Hayatama attained, at least not until my sword has torn through his brain. But I came to your lair for a different reason, regarding a man who has been missing for seasons. I learned that this city’s underworld once had a healing man, and no doctor in this world could ever do what he can. I need more than anything to know where he is now,” I said to her as calmly as my distress would allow.

“After what I did to you, I figure that I at least owe you the truth. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but the healer seeped into the city without a trace. He had practically left everything from his past life behind. I know he is still alive and still possesses quintessence, but I could never pinpoint his location. After his defection, I know he helped save the lives of two people in different parts of the city, but he gave them both a different name. If anyone would know his location, it’s Hayatama himself, but he never conferred that information to me. The unfortunate truth is that it makes no difference anymore,” explained the queen of the dark as two henchmen came in through the door.

In the moment that Aeliana and I became surrounded, we realized that she had intentionally used menacing verbiage. No one had yet drawn a weapon, so we resolved to push the peace to persist as long as we could. Aeliana turned and set her back against mine. Even through our clothes, I could feel her hair and her sweaty skin. She shivered despite the warmth emanating from her body.

I said to Bellaina as if her actions were absurd, “You betrayed us as soon as Hayatama gave the word. You claim that this underworld is your empire, but you answer him as if he is more than just a buyer. He is the king of the darkness that devours this city, and you are a pretender cursed to deny your mediocrity. You would not have sold us out if you had an ounce of integrity. You are a puppet without purpose or conviction. Your empire is nothing more than a work of fiction.”

But the underworld queen said with a glow in her eyes, “In the end all that matters is you’re worth more dead than alive.”