Reaper gulped in the cold spring air and shuffled unsteadily toward a niche to the left of the entrance, behind one of the caryatid columns. He slumped down heavily on a worn bench, and leaned against the wall of the niche, shielded from the sun and wind. His breathing became deep and regular and his eyelids slowly drooped.
“Damn it all to Tartarus, Luna! What is going on with you? These dreams...these dreams…”
He opened his eyes after a few moments, and found himself back in the bath chamber. As his eyes adjusted he could make out the sleeping forms of Luna and the parzailen entwined and sprawled on a pile of blankets and sleeping mats. One of Luna’s hands was still tucked between Nahko’s thighs, and Eska’s head was resting on Luna’s breast.
Suddenly a cold light fell on the three women from above, and sounds of battle and screaming arose from the distant corners of the chamber. Reaper could smell smoke and burning flesh, and walls of flame began creeping in from all sides.
He tried to stand, but his knees buckled and he slumped to the floor.
“What do you fear, Harbinger?”
Reaper’s head snapped around, and he saw a dark form, silhouetted against the rising flames: “You! I knew you were behind this! Who are you? Are you real, or just an extension of Luna’s unconscious?”
The dark figure’s eyes flashed silver-white for a moment: “I am unsure how to answer that question. I will ponder it if you will first answer my question: what do you fear?”
“I fear getting stuck here and missing my date with death!”
“No, that is not true fear. That is worry or concern, not bowel-loosening, heart-stopping fear!”
The smell of burning flesh began to overwhelm Reaper, and he could make out figures writhing in the distant flames. The fire beneath the cauldron flared and room was swept with the acrid aromas of boiling pitch and coal tar.
“What do you fear, Harbinger?”
Reaper felt a cold sweat run down his back; he swallowed hard: “I do not fear death--I welcome it!”
“Clearly. And you do not, I think, fear death for me--or is it my True Sister? We shall return to this in a moment.”
“No, let’s dig into that now, dammit! Who are you?”
The eyes flashed again: “I am the one asking the questions, that is who!”
Reaper tried to stand again, but dropped to his knees in frustration.
A white smile flashed in the dark: “Let us instead dig into these, what did I or she say, ‘dreams of fire and smoke?’ That was it.”
The walls of flame closed in and dark figures now could be seen forcing other wailing shapes back into the encroaching maelstrom.
Reaper fell back and tried to crawl away, but a jet of flame sprang up directly behind him. It took the form of a writhing, melting child.
Reaper gasped and lurched away, sprawling forward in a pool of blood.
“WHAT DO YOU FEAR?!”
The smoke and flames suddenly cleared and Reaper found himself on the outskirts of a ruined and smoldering village. He was clean-shaven and bald, wearing a trim, dark-green doublet and cloak.
A tall, black dalzi, sporting a slender silver horn walked up beside him and spoke: “Where are we, Harbinger?”
Reaper rose from his knees, brushed himself off and took a plug of zaka from a pocket: “The village of Bel’az.”
“Why?”
“It’s the last major settlement before Fort Torlek.”
Reaper popped the zaka into his mouth and pointed to the west. The dying rays of the setting sun broke through the haze and smoke and glinted off the waters of a nearby river.
“That’s the Zuri over there. Two days from now Fort Torlek’s commander, Gindu, will sally forth in surprising numbers and take us in the right flank.”
“So why are we in Bel’az, Harbinger? What do you fear?”
He looked at the charred bones at his feet: “I fear killing. I fear the deaths of others; they haunt me.”
The dalzi raised an eyebrow: “You? It is all you do! It is your very reason for being!”
“That’s different. I take ponies’ lives at the behest of Fate. I am merely, what was Grey Thorn’s expression? ‘Entropy’s errand colt.’ That’s a fair description. It’s a clean, relatively unencumbered job. The ponies I reap are slated to move on beyond the world to their ultimate fates.”
“Then what of Kur? Whom did you kill here?”
“Anyone. Everyone. Whoever Yunada decided needed to be killed next.”
The dalzi tilted her head: “You were a killer for Yunada?”
“Of a sort. I was one of his factotums--a Tunzal in the local dialect--probably his most senior, to be honest. I rarely got my own hands dirty, but I was quite good at rounding up hostages, organizing burnings, making efficient use of local troops or gangs.”
“Why?”
“Fear. Yunada is ruthless and a brilliant tactician, but he never had an especially large force. He needed terror to keep local towns in line. I specialized in seemingly random acts that were actually carefully-orchestrated for maximum effect.”
“And fire is part of that effect?”
“Always. Yunada has a fire fetish. It’s his preferred tool of discipline, torture, execution, arousal and terror.”
“And so by extension, yours.”
The dalzi began walking across the charred field toward the center of the ruined village. Reaper followed, eyes averted, sucking wet zaka pulp through his teeth.
The dalzi stopped next to a burned-out row of cottages. The hay barn directly adjacent was untouched.
“I do not understand the pattern, here…”
“I made sure to leave villages viable. If my gangs destroyed all the buildings or crops or people, then there would be nothing to extract for Yunada’s armies. It took some time to get that through his flame-addled head.”
The dalzi turned to a pair of nearby corpses. The bodies were naked and bound, but relatively unscathed. The heads, however, were merely charred, shattered stumps.
“Speaking of ‘flame-addled heads’...”
Reaper shuddered, spat out a mass of chewed leaves and reached into his pocket for a new plug: “Like I said: terror. Merely beheading is frightening enough when done by a blade, but beheading by fire, is slow, gruesome and induces a whole other level of blinding terror in all involved.”
“I can imagine.”
“I’m not sure that you can. It’s true you had a thousand years to think up the worst of the worst, but you were always kind of rushed. It takes quite a while to decapitate with fire. The sounds continue long after the victim stops screaming. The hisses and pops and crackles go on for several minutes until the skull finally bursts.”
Reaper suddenly lurched forward and vomited violently. He heaved and sobbed for several minutes, dropping to his knees, splattering his breeches and cloak.
At last he looked up with tears streaming down his cheeks, and wiped a sleeve across his mouth: “So from one monster to another, what do you think of my handiwork?”
The dalzi blinked slowly and looked to the west, beyond the river: “Why were you at Fort Torlek?”
Reaper shoved more zaka into his mouth: “What?”
“You were not military, per se, so why were you at the battle? I assume you knew there’d be some risk.”
Reaper nodded: “I knew. Yunada was concerned about the unknown strength behind Torlek’s walls. He was uncertain about Gindu’s whereabouts, but had just routed Gindu’s vanguard, and wasn’t about to let that prize slip inside the fort.”
“Again: why were you in the battle? Would you not have avoided it in favor of scouting ahead, or gathering local intelligence?”
Reaper stood and walked toward a broken prison cart: “I did gather intelligence. Then I rerouted a vital bit of it to a prisoner who effected his escape during the riveting execution I just showed you--well, its results, anyway."
“You betrayed Yunada?”
“I couldn’t let him continue any longer. I had been his servant in some form or other for years. He had always paid well: food, wine, fine clothes and jewelry, the best accommodations, girls. Anything I wanted.”
“And zaka.”
“Yes--all the zaka I could chew or smoke or ingest or whatever. You’ve felt its effect--imagine living on the stuff for years! Between that and my knack for staying out of direct action, I was able to turn a blind eye to his savagery until this last year, or so.”
“Then the aphrodisiac and spirit-lifting qualities of zaka turned dark, I take it.”
“As bad as anything you’ve ever conjured. I couldn’t live with it anymore. He had to be stopped; I had to be stopped!”
“So you gave him away to one of Gindu’s agents.”
“Yes. After I interrogated the agent I realized Gindu had the right troops at the right place. I hoped Yunada would be captured or killed, but only if information could get to the fort in time.”
“And clearly it did.”
A gust of wind blew a thick bank of smoke across the village, and when it cleared Reaper and the dalzi were standing in the midst of a pitched battle.
“And here you died. Did Yunada fall as well?”
Reaper turned north and pointed to a low hill where a handful of ragged men-at-arms in bloodied green livery clustered around a tattered standard of a scarlet flame on a hunter-green field. A great shout went up as opposing troops finally overran the hilltop and the standard fell.
Suddenly a soldier in blue and white gear, bearing a short spear and buckler rushed past and engaged a man in a green doublet and cloak, wielding an ornately-chased long sword.
The two combatants grappled briefly, then the man in green stepped back, threw off his hood, and made a clumsy, wide swing at his opponent, leaving his left side entirely exposed.
The spearman took the opening and thrust his broad-bladed weapon deep into his enemy’s chest. The man in green dropped to his knees and fell sideways as his vanquisher pulled his weapon free and dashed off to another encounter.
Reaper furrowed his brow: “That’s odd.”
The dalzi turned from the battle and looked at him: “What is?”
“That’s Gerrar. I’m Gerrar. Shouldn’t I be the one speared now? Celestia knows how many times we’ve been over this scene. Why am I not in it?”
The dalzi shrugged and tipped her horn at Reaper’s chin: “Perhaps because you are no longer Gerrar?”
Reaper looked puzzled, then ran his hand along his chin: “My beard!”
He quickly reached for the top of his head, which was now covered in thick, grey-streaked brown hair, again.
“I don’t understand…”
“There are two of you on Kur now. You must reconcile that.”
“It won’t matter as long as I get to this battle and die.”
“You may not find thwarting the will of your other self to be quite so trivial. I speak from some experience.”
“Who are you?”
The dalzi turned away and began walking back toward the village: “What would happen if this does not come to pass?”
“What?”
“Yunada’s capture, your death.”
“His troops would defeat Gindu and leave the whole north country exposed, I presume.”
The dalzi and Reaper were suddenly in the middle of the ruined village again, looking at the moonlit pile of three naked sleeping women.
Luna’s dream form shifted from the group, rose and walked away, eyes still closed.
Reaper furrowed his brow and looked back at the remaining two women. They were now headless corpses, bleeding out into the dust.
Reaper nodded: “Most likely, yes. Rixk’a would be taken and many of its citizens would fall to the sword--or worse.”
“Is that not a possibility in any event? Even if Yunada is captured, will his forces collapse, or seek refuge behind defensible walls?”
“Hard to say. Yunada’s second, Nai’a, is tough and bloodthirsty as well. It‘s unlikely he’d surrender if he has a chance to break out and head north.”
The dalzi nodded and turned to see dream Luna sit on a low stone wall, her gaze fixed on Reaper.
Luna stirred and her eyes fluttered open. She carefully and quietly extracted herself from the tangle of oily, sweaty limbs and furs and blankets shared by her and the exhausted, passed-out parzailen.
She slipped into the bath pool and rinsed away the heady mixture of sweat and mets’il and wine and other fluids on her skin and in her hair.
Luna stepped out of the bath, toweled off, pulled on her robe and began to leave the chamber. She suddenly stopped, turned and bent down beside the dying embers of the fire. She picked up the stone jar of mets’il, pressed its lid into place and dropped it into the robe’s pocket. She then slipped silently out through the screens blocking the entrance.
Luna made her way quietly and furtively through the passages to the old temple’s heavy doors. She squared her shoulders and walked boldly up to Dux’a who was startled by her approach.
“T’zesa! You look well! I am glad. Your companion is greatly concerned and said he would return for you shortly. Let me find him for you--it would be best if you remained here.”
Luna furrowed her brow as though she had only understood a little: “I go now. Reaper will know.”
“I’m sure his intent was for you to stay here until…”
Luna glared imperiously: “O'rane bandu!”
Dux’a put his hands up and backed away, then scurried around Luna in order to hold the door open for her.
“At least let me send a servant with you!”
Luna stepped out onto the cold, sunlit portico and looked around. She noticed a figure half-obscured by shadow in the niche to her left. She waved off Dux’a and approached Reaper’s sleeping form.
She sat next to him and gently stroked his hair: “Reaper--please awaken. We should return now to the inn and eat. We have much to discuss. I understand things much better now.”
Reaper cracked one eye open and peered blearily at Luna: “I’m glad you’re OK. How are Eska and Nahko?”
“I am sure they will remember the whole thing as some hallucination, what little of it they recall at all.”
Reaper struggled to his feet; Luna offered him a steadying hand: “How much of my dream did you see? I still don’t really know if that was you I was with or Nightmare Moon, or some figment of my imagination.”
“I know much of it, and I strongly suspect my alter ego will make herself known to me soon. I will take the opportunity to debrief more fully at that time.”
They descended the broad, worn steps to the narrow street, arm-in-arm.
“Who is she really? There can’t actually be two of you, can there?”
“Unclear. But would that truly be so hard to accept? There is every reason to be believe that there are two of you here on Kur, yes?”
“I guess. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around who and what’s real right now. Everything’s starting to feel like a dream half the time!”
They rounded a last corner and found themselves heading back down the town’s main thoroughfare toward the inn.
Luna smiled: “Then if all seems like a dream, trust me to figure out the truth of things. It is my specialty after all!”
Reaper nodded wearily: “I trust you, Luna. I just wish I knew if it was really you at any given time.”
Luna frowned and chewed her lip silently.