Chapter 360 - Aioa part 8

Aioa sprang ahead of us, skipping across the fissures in the floor of the cave. We hurried after. On the far side of the chamber, she dropped to her knees. When we caught up to her, she was brushing snow from a pale object that lay propped against the wall of the cavern. "Here it is," she said, as we gathered around her. "The final piece of your body, grandfather!"

Indeed, it was. There it laid, the last remaining segment of my divided body. Khronos had ripped me apart, had commanded his minions to scatter the pieces to the furthest reaches of the world, and they had done just that, eagerly, joyously, but my loved ones had rescued my head from the wall, they had gathered my body together again, and now I would be made whole!

At long last!

"Are you sure this is it?" Sunni asked. She had dropped to her haunches and was helping Aioa clean the ice from my torso. "The God King has divided many enemies over the years. You were not the first."

"Yes, it is mine," I said. Though the body was terribly mutilated, just gory sockets where my arms and legs should be, I knew my own torso. I could see the scar on my hip where I'd been gored by a speartooth when I was a living man. And my penis. I'd recognize my penis anywhere. A man spends more time looking at his penis than at his own face. I was surprised the God King hadn't torn that off, too. Made some grisly necklace out of it. But no, he had left that part of me intact. Probably just an oversight.

Sunni was a little too interested in my penis. She squinted at it critically, flicked it with a fingertip.

"Pull it clear," I said curtly. "Put my arms and legs next to it. Let's see if the pieces rejoin."

Most likely the pieces would remain inert. It had taken fresh mortal blood to fuel the fusion of my head to Yul's decapitated form. We might have to return to Asharoth to rejoin the pieces of my divided body. There was certainly no blood to be had in this wasteland. We hadn't seen a single living creature since climbing onto the ice sheet. But I am an impatient creature. I always have been. I wanted to try before resigning myself to the long journey home.

"If the limbs rejoin, we will try the head," I said to Eris, and the two-natured Eternal nodded.

I wriggled the bundle from my back and laid it on the ground. The others followed suit as I untied the cords and unrolled the pack. Sunni and Aioa had dragged my torso to the center of the ice shelf we were gathered upon. I picked up my leg, grimacing at its floppiness, and placed it near the corresponding socket of my torso. The others did the same. Within a few moments, all the pieces of my body were lying there together, like a child's doll that had been dismembered in a fit of pique. All that was missing was the head, and I only planned to attempt that part if the other pieces rejoined on their own.

I stepped back, watching, waiting.

"Nothing is happening," Sunni said with a frown.

Chaumas had gone to sit by himself. He sat cross-legged on the ground and was crooning in a low voice to Yul's head. Gibberish mostly, interspersed with bursts of mad laughter. Yul, I could see, was trying to ignore him, eyes tightly closed, mouth hooked down in abject misery. I could not help but feel some sympathy for the vanquished Eternal.

I watched the pieces of my body with growing impatience, waiting, hoping, for something to happen. For the pieces to draw back together. For the Strix to come forth and mend the ragged edges of the wounds. But nothing happened. The desiccated flesh remained motionless.

"Perhaps some Blood," Eris suggested, taking his blade from its sheath and bringing it to his wrist.

I gestured for him to wait. Leaning in closer to my body, I probed it with my enhanced senses. There was still life in there. I could feel it, the Living Blood, coursing slowly, sluggishly, through the mangled flesh. Small globules of glinting black blood were pulsating in and out of the severed arteries. The Strix was stirring. I shifted my left arm closer to its tattered socket and waited. A few trembling tentacles extended from the hollow and caressed the torn flesh of the upper arm. They explored the limb tentatively, and then, with shocking abruptness, seized it and drew it into place. A moment later, with violent rapidity, the three remaining limbs were snatched back to my torso. The wounds healed almost instantly.

"It worked!" Sunni cried.

Excited, I turned to Eris. "Quickly, my head!" I said. "Take it off and place it next to my body!"

The two-natured Eternal glided behind me, bringing the knife around my neck. Grasping my chin in his free hand, he tilted back my head. "Prepare yourself, Father," he said. The keen edge of his stone blade had settled lightly against my throat, just below my Adam's apple. I knew the pain that was shortly to come. I had experienced it several times already in my life. Squeezing my eyes shut, I drew a breath just like a mortal man would do, as if bracing for a killing blow.

I did not have time to finish the breath. Eris plunged the blade into my throat and began to saw rapidly through the flesh. "It will be over in a moment," he said, voice taut. Though I tried to govern my movements as he decapitated me, I could not help but lash out at the pain, wriggling in his arms as he sawed through my neck. I closed my eyes and tried not to scream as the others rushed forward to help hold me still, but the scream came out anyway, gurgling from my severed windpipe.

I cannot begin to describe the pain, the white-hot penetrating agony. I saw bursts of light and there was a rushing sound in my ears, like roaring winds, and then the blade struck bone and Eris twisted my head from of my neck, severing the vertebra and spinal cord with a final jerk of his hands.

Yul's body slid limply to the floor. Eris stepped across the twitching form and placed my head beside the stump of my neck.

Pain! Black roiling clouds and roaring winds, and then a sudden, stunning electric shock! Memories flooded through my consciousness, my long life whizzing through my awareness in an unbroken chain of sights-sounds-tastes-smells-sensations. There came an indescribable impression of wholeness, as if I had recovered a part of my soul that I hadn't realized was missing until then. I became aware of my body one part at a time, each limb reawakening with a jolt, and then a curious tingling sensation, like a million tiny insects crawling over my flesh. My arms and hands, my chest, my stomach, my cock, my legs, I felt them all. I wiggled my toes experimentally, curled and uncurled my fingers, then struggled upright.

"Father?" Eris said.

I drew a breath. I felt my lungs expand. I pressed the air out with my diaphragm, forcing it through my larynx to make sound, sound that I molded with lip and tongue.

"I… am… reborn," I gasped.