Laetissimus Trilogy

Book 1: Chapter 31

The final sacrifice

"I am so sorry, Wanderer," Rainbow said. "I am so sorry it had to end this way."

"No." Lae's thoughts raced like a kangaroo fleeing for its life. There had to have been a mistake. "What are you doing here? I am here for someone else."

"Who?"

Lae studied her from the dim moonlight. "I don't know... somebody else...I don't know!"

The room looked like a storage room. There were goods piled everywhere. It was not even a home. It seemed like a store or something of the sort.

"And I ask again, who could this person, that you are here for, be?" Her voice was a kind whisper.

It couldn't be.

Had Master somehow orchestrated this? Had Rainbow interfered?

His thoughts were getting cluttered. "Rainbow, I need to know who else has been in this room. I am on a mission." He stared at her intently.

But she ignored him and instead said, "Tell me something, Lae."

A silence that seemed to drag on a little too long followed.

"Were you really going to kill the person in this room? Was a human's life really worth your dream?"

Lae never took his eyes away from her. His resolve was breaking but that crack in his will would never be found in his voice,

"Rainbow," Lae began slowly. "You do not understand what it means to have dreams as deep as I do."

Lae could not see her face but he could now sense that a deep sadness had taken hold of her,

"Tell me, Lae, what is it that you see in these dreams of yours? How far would you go for your ambitions? What will you not do for your dreams? If you were really, really, going to kill the person in this room..."

Lae turned away, but she continued, "Then I have failed you, my dearest Wanderer."

"Rainbow, who else was in this room?"

"There was no one else. This is where I live. My death was intended by Nihilo. You are here to kill me."

A feeling of utter horror crept up his back. If Master had found out and intended for Rainbow to die, then the situation was much direr than it seemed.

"I don't believe you." He looked around the room frantically. "I do not believe you." He spoke as though repeating his belief somehow changed the reality of the situation.

"Wanderer, let me ask you for a favor ...please come with me."

She did not wait for his response. Instead, she turned around and jumped out of the window and sprinted deep into the forest.

Lae remembered the last time she did that and he hated to think of what she had eventually shown him. The image still burnt deeply in his mind through all this time. But just like that other time, Lae found himself at her heels without asking questions.

They did not run for too long and soon they were back in the forest. In an open clearing this time, and the rain kept falling up ahead.

She stood a good twenty feet away and watched Lae carefully. Why had she brought him here?

"Lae, I think the time is appropriate... please do what you have to do."

Lae was so confused.

"It appears that you already signed the contract. Your dream lies before you. Mine are behind me and after all these years and all that I did, I could not ask for a better way to die. To die in the hands of an Eximi."