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."
Lae's chest was falling and rising in slow wavelike rhythms.
How could this be happening?
Through the past year, he had gotten to know her without really knowing her. He had carelessly eschewed the questions and her past had never mattered to him.
Who was she really? Why had she cared for him?
But the time for these questions was long past.
"Run away, Rainbow," he said slowly.
"No, Lae, this is inevitable. You don't know of the things I have done...this is the kindest death that I could ever ask for. And no matter what you do, you will always be my favorite Wanderer." She managed a smile.
Lae ignored the smile.
But why was he feeling this way? A Bioveritist did not feel emotions. They were the worst of the vices. A virus to the soul, the very things that someone who aspired to the heights he desired could not afford to have.
Alas! He could not escape this subtle feeling. Was this what people called sorrow?
"Please...run away," he said, breathing very audibly.
"There is a man named Lucem. You must trust him. This is important, Lae. Remember the name Lucem. Trust its owner. There is a school called Coeptus. The Children of God are there, Eximi like yourself. Trust Lucem."
What is she talking about?
"Now please, Lae, just do it. I am afraid you are the only one who can grant me a peaceful death. Not that I deserve it, but I am here at your mercy. Please, end this."
Lae remained unmoving. He looked at her like as though it were their first time together.
"Wanderer, please do it now!"
Lae's head was racing. The powers of the Underworld had marked her for death. He did not know why. But this seemed to be his fated and only pathway to freedom.
It was time for him to face the truth, the little dark reality that had been lurking deep within him.
He had always suspected that someday the very nature of his life would require their separation. But not like this... why did it have to end like this?
No glory without sacrifice.
His friendship with her...
No!
His 'partnership' with her was at its end. Yes, "partnership" was a much better word. He had no friends, had never had any friends. Friendship was one of the bittersweet lies of this life and his partnership with her was incompatible with his dreams of rising in the Underworld. But even so, he had never imagined it would end this way.
No matter, he would become a Bioveritist. That was his glory. Rainbow would be his sacrifice.
He looked at her and got the non-verbal confirmation.
It would be swift...
Swifter than the fall of a raindrop.
The raindrops fell so mercilessly. The water dripped down his eyes...water from the skies.
Oh my Rainbow!
It was all making sense. It was all falling into place. She would die by his hands and then he would achieve his highest dream, his highest goal.
His thoughts were racing violently as he flipped the little cylindrical syringe that held within it the power to take life. He sprinted toward Rainbow, the only friend-no partner!-he had ever known.
The wind was violently clawing at his face and yet it seemed to dance so gently around her lithe figure.
Was the wind trying to stop him, trying to protect her? The wind could not stop him. It had no mind of its own, just another mindless child of nature.
He ran furiously, ignoring the rough breeze, ignoring the cold rain, but the pain was building.
This was the end.
Her end. His sacrifice. His glory.
No glory without sacrifice. Words he had been taught - his most precious prayer.
It was going to be very fast. So fast, he would not think about it. She would not feel it. She would never feel a thing.
"Goodbye!" he screamed as the distance melted away between them. Laetissimus was less than a meter away from Rainbow and the time was now.
Her heart would beat no more. He closed his eyes and plunged with all his might, slicing through the thin air, cutting away the raindrops and stabbing at her heart.
He thought he heard Rainbow gasp.
Slowly he opened his eyes.
Her posture had shown acceptance. There was a clear liquid dripping down both her cheeks. The raindrops?
Teardrops
Her cheeks were pierced by the curve of a single smile.
Slowly his eyes rolled over to his hand, which held the needle of death.
There was no blood.
The point of the needle was a hair's breadth away from her chest; the needle remained clear off her skin.
"Something is wrong with my hands," he said with a stuttering voice that sounded so foreign. "They refuse to move any further."
But in truth, Lae knew that his hands were not to blame.
She said nothing and they just stood there, face to face, for what seemed like eternity. The raindrops did the only talking, but in a movement that took Lae totally unawares, she clasped her slim arms firmly around his neck. They were locked in an embrace and she was now sobbing on his shoulder.
The syringe of death dropped to the ground, completely ignored.
"Thank you," she said softly. "Oh thank you so much, my little Wanderer."
Lae did not know how much longer she held him.
"I swear that by my life or demise," she whispered and Lae heard the words through the thundering rain. "I will preserve your dreams..."
All of a sudden her grip around his neck tightened, she twisted his neck in a sweeping motion and he groaned as his entire body turned around on the spot around the axis that was now Rainbow's body.
He heard her whisper again into his ears. "I am so sorry, my Wanderer."
She had spun his entire body a complete one hundred and eighty degrees.
He could not have prepared himself for what next happened. There was the sound of two gunshots that drowned the raindrops.
Rainbow staggered away. Her hands clutched the right side of her stomach.
"I am so sorry," she said again and fell to her knees.
And all of a sudden that dreaded emotion descended on Lae and he felt as he always did that terrible grip of misery. He too slumped down and in a moment of realization he understood what had happened.
Rainbow had just used her body as a shield for Lae, instinctively shielding him from bullets shot from a deadly gun. He stared up with effort.
From the dark bush forest emerged three cloaked figures. The person in the middle, who towered above the other two, had a smoking gun in his hand.
"Lady Sarandiel," Master said as he kept the gun leveled at Rainbow. "Nice to see you."