The Power and the Glory

Book 2 Chapter XVII: Abi Beyond

Siarvin set Ilaran down on the bed as gently as if he was made of glass. He disappeared into the small bathroom adjoining the room, leaving Abi alone with the body. In life Ilaran had been one of the tallest men Abi knew. In death he seemed small and more vulnerable than she'd ever seen him look before. His eyes were still partly open, slashes of green in the middle of his chalk-white face. Abi shuddered. Never before had she so thoroughly understood the Saoridhin prejudice against green.

Siarvin came back with a cloth and basin in hand. He leant over the bed and began to wipe the bloody finger-marks off Ilaran's face. Abi had left those as she tried to support his head. Her hands were still red and sticky with Ilaran's undried blood.

"This is a bite-mark." Siarvin spoke quietly but so coldly. He looked up at Abi. She shuddered again at that glare. "It's punctured all the way to the bone. No living person could bite with that much force. So I ask you, what did this?"

Slowly, with a faltering voice, Abi told him the whole sorry story. The barely-suppressed rage in his eyes made her feel like she had personally murdered Ilaran.

"I warned you," Siarvin said flatly.

Abi agreed sadly, "You did."

"You said your creations had never hurt anyone."

There was nothing she could say to that. Not when the evidence of how horribly, tragically wrong she'd been was right in front of her.

Siarvin dropped the blood-stained cloth into the basin. He stared down at Ilaran's face. With a jolt Abi saw he was crying.

"I can save him," she said without thinking. The minute the words were out of her mouth she realised they were true. She could save him. She didn't know how yet, but she could do it.

Siarvin raised his head and glared at her again. "You've done enough."

"I can save him," she repeated. Some power she hadn't even known she had welled up within her. "I am a phoenix immortal, a descendant of the goddess Abihira[1], and I swear I will bring him back if I have to face all seven faces of Lashkó[2]."

For a long minute the two of them stared at each other. At last Siarvin nodded sharply. He turned away and walked over to the desk by the window. Abi watched, bemused, as he picked up the sewing kit.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he sat down beside the bed and began to thread a needle.

"Stitching up the wound," he said. "No point in you bringing him back for him to bleed to death again immediately afterwards."

~~~~

The room was so vast it was impossible to see its walls. You could crane your head back as far as you could and still wouldn't catch a glimpse of the ceiling. A river flowed sluggishly across the stone floor. On an island in the middle of the river stood a throne. And before the throne stood a very unhappy immortal.

"This," said Ilaran grimly, "is an outrage."

Surprisingly the person sitting on the throne nodded. "You don't say."

Ilaran glared at her. He had never given much thought to what happened after death. All the same, he had never expected to open his eyes and find himself in the company of a young woman who took one look at him and exclaimed, "Oh no!" He still didn't know what he'd done to provoke such a reaction. Her explanation was extremely lacking.

"Let me be sure I understand this," Ilaran said -- not that she'd told him much for him to understand. "I am dead, but I'm not in heaven. Or hell," he added as an afterthought. "So in the name of all that's holy, where am I?"