Furious fire.
It came from beyond the Veil, carrying boundless rage. It illuminated the darkness, but brought even greater horror.
Kariél collapsed to his knees, clutching his throat, trying to stop breathing. The intensifying smell of blood furiously attacked his mind. Veins bulged on his neck, boundless hatred boiled in his soul.
"No, this is not my hatred," he thought.
"I can still hold on. I must hold on."
So he thought, and the voice continued.
"Take the blade, put on the armor, tear off the ugly masks from these smug creatures."
"Hang them, behead them, turn their pathetic bodies, clad in light silks, into dry bones…"
"Make them pay."
"You want this, don't you? You want the world to burn, for everything to be consumed by fire. I hear your thoughts, come out, don't hide anymore…"
"I will give you everything."
"And I need nothing."
Kariél, trembling, closed his eyes.
He didn't know who or what was speaking. But he didn't care. The voice hovered in the darkness, trying to make him "come out."
These few words had already said enough.
The situation was the same.
As long as he remained silent, they wouldn't see him. In those long years of wandering, this was how he observed the shadows beyond the Veil.
Now he just needed a little time.
"Yes, a little time…"
In solitude, he always had time.
Kariél closed his eyes, and his thoughts transported him to a dark, rainy night.
…
A dark rainy night, desolate ruins.
Silence all around. Countless shadows stood silently in the darkness, in dense rows, their appearance was terrifying.
"Will you avenge us?" asked a skinless child, standing on the edge of the ruins.
"I will," the ghost replied, clenching his lips.
"Avenge us," said a emaciated worker, crushed by debris, coughing blood.
"I will," the ghost squatted, nodded to him, and then straightened up and walked on.
"You don't have to do this."
Said a woman in torn clothes, hanging from a lamppost and swaying in the wind. "You don't belong to Nostramo."
"But I saw everything."
The ghost stopped. "I can't stand it."
"You don't belong to this place."
The woman repeated. Her pale face was bruised, her eyes swollen. She was hanged for resisting a bandit's robbery.
"You are a ghost, you don't have to suffer for strangers."
"Perhaps," the ghost nodded and walked on.
"You don't have to do this," a voice came from behind again.
In the rainy night, countless dead, just like her, silently watched the scene.
"No, I have to," the ghost said firmly.
"And what about that child?" asked the woman. "What will happen to him?"
"He will find his way."
"You gave him light."
Whispered a man's head, lying in the middle of the road. "And now you want to take that light away with your own hands. Even if you light a flame, can it truly cleanse Nostramo's darkness?"
"I gave him a false light," the ghost replied just as quietly. "It is not noble."
He looked at the head. Its eye sockets were empty.
This head belonged to the leader of the workers' rebellion. He had lost, and the aristocrats had subjected him to a torturous execution.
"False light?" asked the head.
"Yes."
Said the ghost. "If he hadn't been useful to my plan, I wouldn't have taken him out of that mine. If he hadn't had the strength, I wouldn't have taught him to kill, to judge evil justly. I just used him."
"Lies. In the mine, he was just a wild beast, afraid even of the light. How could he help your plan?"
The head retorted coldly, its empty eye sockets black. "And even if you're telling the truth, in a world like Nostramo, devoid of light, isn't a false light better than the real one?"
The ghost no longer answered. He was silent. After a while, he said:
"I didn't come here to argue with you."
"I know, you always have a purpose. You don't do anything superfluous. You want to burn yourself, don't you?" the head asked calmly.
"Yes."
"Then you will die."
"Yes."
"We are just memories, ghost. We have no names, no past, no life. We have nothing but pain. We are emptiness."
The head stared at him and said quietly:
"But you are different. You still have hope, you have received a chance, you must use it."
"No more," the ghost shook his head. "I made a mistake, my caution has left me. And one of them found me."
"…"
The head fell silent, then sighed.
"What a fool you are, ghost. I don't understand why you yourself stepped into this cruel world. You wandered for a long time, you saw the horrors that people are capable of, why did you decide to change everything personally?"
"They are not human," the ghost replied. "Is that enough?"
"Not enough."
"How can I convince you?"
"You can't convince me," the head said. "And you don't need to convince me. You use power without asking our permission."
"I have been dead for a long time, I am just a painful memory. I can speak to you because you came. If you leave, we will all stop thinking. You are talking to an echo, ghost. You cannot convince the dead."
"But I need your help," the ghost said quietly. "I need… flint."
"You don't need it," the head said calmly. "The dead cannot help you. Behold the truth, ghost."
"What truth?"
"The truth of your power," the head said.
"We never gave you any power. It belongs to you. It's not what you imagine, not 'souls of the suffering' or the crystallization of our pain. No. It's something else."
An icy blue light slowly ignited in the head's empty eye sockets. The rain continued to fall. All around, in the dark ruins, millions of similar blue lights ignited.
Ghost lowered his head.
"So that's it," he finally said. "That's how it was."
…
Kariél opened his eyes.
The smell of blood still hung in the hall. The Duchess's body had already cooled, its appearance was terrible, almost unbearable to look at. An icy blue light still smoldered in her dark eyes.
The voice did not cease.
Kariél vaguely distinguished its outline – enormous, filled with deep anger. Undoubtedly, this was something that did not belong in the ordinary world.
Silently, Kariél slowly raised his right hand.
"Countdown."
Suddenly, he remembered these words, which he himself had said to Ghost.
He said that he was a time bomb, with an invisible timer. Now it seemed to him that it was half true, half false. The timer was always visible, and the detonation button was in his own hands.
"How funny," Kariél thought. "Because of your stupidity, an innocent child will bear the burden of your mistakes throughout his short life, and perhaps also an unnecessary sense of guilt."
"And how will he live after this? Will he notice the problems with his body?"
"And what will happen to Nostramo?"
"Will the sun appear from behind the clouds? Will the pollution be cleaned up? Will the beasts outside the city be driven away? Corruption, gangs… will the lives of the workers improve?"
He had no answers. His thoughts were in terrible disarray. A long-forgotten name surfaced in his mind.
Two syllables, azure color. It wasn't perfect, but it was much better than Nostramo.
A thousand times better.
Kariél closed his eyes, then opened them again.
In the next second, his eyes flashed with an icy light. Never before had it been so bright, like a blue sun illuminating the room.
With it came terrible pain. Kariél felt his internal organs being destroyed. The power, at the master's will, reluctantly crushed everything in this body.
Liver, lungs, heart… and then up. The blue light, like a flame, swept through the body, destroying everything, burning everything. Finally, in a thousandth of a second, it reached the brain.
"Goodbye," Kariél said into the darkness.
At that moment, he felt no pain, only anxiety.
"No!"
The voice in the darkness let out a furious cry. Scarlet flame flared up, trying to engulf him, but, held back by the Veil, it couldn't advance an inch.
It could only helplessly watch as its chosen victim turned into a lifeless body.
"No! No! No!"
Rage shook the room. A terrible howl came from beyond the Veil. Immense pressure, having nothing to do with the real world, descended, causing the sturdy room to tremble, but in the next second it disappeared just as suddenly.
The darkness receded with it.
The candles flickered. Silence reigned in the room.
Footsteps were heard outside the door. A shadow, stumbling, ran into the room and, seeing the body, rushed to it.
He carefully lifted the body, blinking rapidly. The tips of his fingers trembled. After a moment, Ghost opened his mouth, and a quiet, indistinct sob escaped his throat.
"…"
He wanted to say something, but couldn't.
The body trembled, teeth chattered, muscles cramped. And then emotion overwhelmed him, almost destroying his mind, shattering his inexperienced heart.
"Ah, ah…" he cried softly, hugging the body and shaking his head.
His face was impassive, but his movements were so gentle. Drops of rain rolled down his dirty face.
There was no rain on Nostramo that night.
After a while, Ghost released the body. He laid it on the floor, turned away, his shoulders shaking. He was silent, only emitting strange, broken sounds.
"You need to be calm, Ghost," he used to say.
Ghost told himself, imitating Kariél's voice.
But it didn't help. Immense grief washed over him.
He stood in torn clothes in a gilded room, broken and alone. And at that moment, a voice came from beyond the Veil. Using Ghost's grief, it touched his heart.
"Take his hand." — the voice said.
"What? Who?"
"You will soon know who I am. But now, Konrad Curze, take his hand."
"Who are you? And who is Konrad Curze?"
"Do you want to save him?"
The voice did not answer directly, but changed the subject. It called Ghost an unfamiliar name, but for some reason, its even, emotionless tone seemed familiar to Ghost.
Strangely familiar.
"I want to."
"Then take his hand."
After a pause, Ghost gritted his teeth and did as he was told. Trembling, he approached and took the body's right hand.
"Good. Now don't move."
The voice, full of compassion, almost like a sigh, broke through from beyond the Veil. For a moment, Ghost thought he saw a golden light.
In the next second, he was thrown back as if struck by lightning. A blinding light flashed in his dark eyes.
***
Read the story months before public release — early chapters are on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan