The Ash Plain stretched before me like a desert of dust and dry lava. The ground, black and cracked, smoked beneath my hands every time I dragged myself forward. My legs, broken, hung behind me like two useless burdens, the wooden splints that had immobilized them broken during the journey or the fall – I no longer knew. The pain was a constant river, a stream of lava running through my bones, but I didn't scream. I never screamed. I no longer knew how to scream.
The dark red sky had no stars. No moon. Nothing. Only an empty, oppressive vastness, as if hell itself were a wound that never healed. The air, hot and heavy, burned my lungs with every breath. And the smell of sulfur – the same smell I had felt on the portal island, the same smell I had felt in the cave where I killed Trussum – was everywhere, stuck to my skin, my hair, my soul.
The backpack, pressed against my chest, pulsed. The egg had not yet hatched. The purple and red shell shone faintly through the cloth, a slow, regular pulse, like a sleeping heart. Not yet, I thought. You're not ready yet. Neither am I.
I dragged myself for what seemed like hours. My calloused hands bled. My palms, opened by the cuts of the black stone, left a dark trail in the ash. The sun – if that pale, distant light could be called a sun – did not move. Time, there, did not pass as it did in the world of men. Or it passed too quickly. I no longer knew.
It was then that I saw him.
The tall, skeletal silhouette stood out against the red sky, moving slowly toward me. His skin, black and cracked, let out a red smoke that dissipated in the air before touching the ground. His eyes, empty, shone with a pale, cold light. He had no mouth, but I knew he saw me. I knew he smelled me. I knew he wanted me.
Vharzug, the name came into my mind as if I always knew it. The Devourer of Memories.
The name came to me from the pages of one of Alice's books – one of those she gave me on the nights I couldn't sleep, before all this, before the chaos, before the second sun died. A rare, dangerous creature, from the far reaches of hell. It feeds on memories. The longer you look at it, the more you forget who you are.
I looked away. The red smoke already enveloped me, a toxic mist that tightened my lungs and weighed on my head.
"Don't look," I whispered to myself. My voice came out trembling, weak. "Don't look, don't look, don't look!"
But I looked.
Vharzug's empty eyes fixed on mine, sensing my fear.
At least the memory of Mira disappeared.
Not gradually, not with pain. Simply... erased. Her face, her curly hair, the way she laughed when I told her stories. The first time I saw her, in Lysara's house, sitting on the floor playing with a rag doll. The first hug, clumsy, full of fear. The first time she called me hero.
All gone. Only a void remained, a black hole where once there had been something warm.
"No!" I shouted. My voice echoed across the empty plain. "No!"
Vharzug took another step. The red smoke tightened around me.
The memory of Zerane disappeared.
My sister. The sweet, the kind. The one who cried at everything. The one who trusted me when others already distrusted. Her golden hair, her clear eyes, the way she hugged me when I returned from trips. The last time I saw her, on the falling ship, her dress burned, her eyes full of tears.
All gone.
"Stop!" I shouted, my voice breaking. "Stop!"
Vharzug did not stop.
The memory of my father.
Zickony. The king. The man who taught me how to fight. The man who closed his eyes to my atrocities. The man who died before me, his head severed from his body, blood gushing onto the floor of the ballroom.
Erased. Suddenly gone. All of it.
Only the void remained. The same void I felt when I killed, when I raped, when I lied. The same void that had accompanied me since the night I killed the drunkard who murdered my mother.
I am a monster, I thought. So what? Should I just give in?
Perhaps that's better.
Vharzug approached. The red smoke now enveloped me completely, and the pressure on my head was unbearable. The empty eyes, closer and closer.
He opened his mouth – a black slit in the cracked skin, without teeth, without tongue, only a dark hole that seemed to have no bottom.
I prepared to forget the rest.
My hand touched the ground and found the shard of abyssal iron, another thing I learned reading books.
I didn't think. I didn't hesitate. I just acted.
I drove the shard into Vharzug's eye.
The creature's scream was sharp, deafening, a sound that didn't seem to come from a throat – because Vharzug had no throat. It came from everywhere, from the invisible walls of the plain, from the ground, from the sky. The red smoke dissipated. The empty eyes, now one of them pierced by the black iron, shone with a different light – pain, perhaps, or fear.
"Run," I whispered, my voice hoarse, my hands bleeding. "Or die."
Vharzug fled.
The creature dragged itself away, the smoke seeping from the cracks in its skin, its steps uncoordinated, the pierced eye dripping a black liquid that smoked on the ground. It disappeared on the ash horizon, swallowed by the darkness that never ended.
Silence returned.
I was left alone on the Ash Plain, my legs broken, my hands bleeding, my head throbbing.
The void remained. The hole where Mira, Zerane, my father had once been. But now, at the bottom of the hole, there was a dull pain – a pain that wasn't physical, but that tightened my chest as if someone were squeezing my heart.
I forgot Mira, I thought. I forgot Zerane. I forgot my father.
Who am I?
The name came to my mind, engraved in fire in the darkness.
Zirinos.
I am Zirinos.
And I will survive.
The backpack pulsed. The egg, still unhatched, seemed warmer than before. More alive.
I dragged myself forward.
---
A corpse appeared in the middle of the plain, half-buried in the ash.
The clothes, black and torn, had no coat of arms. The face, pale and thin, was turned to the sky. The eyes, open, fixed on the red void. A broken sword lay beside him, its blade covered in rust.
I approached. My hands, still bleeding, touched the body. The skin was cold, hard, like leather tanned in the sun. This man – or what had been a man – had been dead a long time. Perhaps years. Perhaps decades. In hell, time did not pass as it did in the world of men.
I found the Soul Crystal in his tunic pocket.
It was small, the size of a pigeon's egg, translucent, with a faint blue glow that pulsed like a heart. Inside, fragments of light danced – memories, I thought. Souls. Pieces of lives that ended there, in that desert of ash.
I put it in my pocket. The crystal was warm, warmer than my skin. It seemed alive.
"Who were you?" I asked the corpse.
The corpse did not answer. How could it?
I looked at the sky. The first sun was not visible. Only the red and dark stain, eternal, unchanging.
That damn masked bastard!, I thought. He exploded the second sun fpr what? To punish me? Or to remind me...
And he succeeded.
I closed my eyes. The image of the second sun exploding – the white light, the heat, the void – still burned on my retina. Everyone saw it. Everyone felt it. Everyone stood still in time, conscious, powerless, watching the end of a part of the world.
He could have killed me, I thought. He could have let me die on the scaffold. But no. He wants me to suffer. He wants me to learn.
He wants me to become the monster he needs.
I dragged myself forward.
The Ash Plain continued, infinite.
So did hell.