An Untitled Novel

“Basil, is that still you?” Spiro asked, fear and uncertainty in his voice. Basil turned around quickly, face fully healed, and Spiro jumped back. Basil froze in place, mind returning to himself as he stared into the blood soaked dirt, some time later stepping backward and responding in a shaky voice that no longer carried the whispers it once did. “I’m not sure.” Spiro looked as if he was about to vomit, but his words carried a more collected tone. “ACE told us that radiation levels have started to increase, we need to leave now.”

“You go on ahead, I’ll catch up” Basil said with pain in his voice. Spiro turned to leave, but froze in place and turned back in the middle of his first stride. “Basil, come on” he replied, a new worry in his voice. Basil stood silently, so Spiro spoke again. “I’m not leaving without you, so let’s go.” Basil felt a pang of anger rush through him, Spiro using his own death as a means of forcing Basil to avoid his. However, a sense of guilt quickly washed over him, and they began to walk silently toward their camp. The two walked past wounded being brought through wormholes, the Elthrice all evacuated or dead - many with cut throats, and the Domum dead left to share a tomb with their fallen enemies. Walking by the crashed Elthrice ship Basil stepped through a wormhole to the Arkepello. The area was crowded for some time, but quickly cleared as the wounded were brought away for treatment and the healthy returned to their respective nations.

“I was worried I wouldn’t see any of you again” Grey said, walking over to Basil, Spiro, and the Lizard King, the latter speaking to his son. Grey seemed to notice the three didn’t share the victorious expressions as the other captives, those who stayed behind, and the soldiers who hadn’t seen the worst of it. “Are you okay?” she asked, before realizing the nature of the question was realized. Nobody was okay; she certainly wasn’t, and Basil was covered in blood - his own and of others - so she re-worded the question. “What happened?” Basil replied with a quivering voice. “I ordered the death of an entire civilization, and” Basil paused for long enough that Grey thought he was done speaking, but resumed finally “and I got really hurt.” Grey replied, first trying to reassure Basil, although unknowingly misunderstanding what he had meant when he referred to his order. “That was an army, not a civilization, and most probably escaped on crafts. Those that didn’t were there to kill us or worse, what was done had to be done.”

Her words, she found, were not just for Basil. She had taken several lives in the fighting, and having lived her life among scavengers and killers while promising she would never take a life, was something weighing on her as well. She took note of Basil’s later addition to his statement, and seeing the blood on Basil who seemed unharmed, responded with a positive sounding question. “You got the (greater relic of the ancient ones)” back?

Basil felt suddenly uneasy, hearing such meaning behind a word that had been translated to him in the past as simply “Object.” It meant something different, ominous even, and suddenly understanding the Elthrice’s language left him feeling as if more questions were added than answers given. When Basil remained silent Grey repeated her question in a suddenly concerned voice. “Yeah” Basil answered, fatigue deep in his voice.

Cicero, clearly glad to be free but oblivious to the mood of the small group, approached. “I never expected to be saved by your and my soldiers fighting alongside each other” Cicero said to the Lizard King before turning his attention to the whole group, speaking in a rare jovial exception to his usual muted and business like demeanor. “Come on, let’s get something to drink and eat before everyone drinks every drop of wine on this island.” When the group remained quiet, however, Cicero took on a somewhat concerned face. Basil shook his head, fatigue cutting deeper still into his voice. “I just need to be alone for a while. I’m, um, I’m glad you made it out.”

Basil returned to the secluded spot by the ocean where he’d spent what felt like the previous day, even if several had passed. Many hours passed, daylight turning to sunset as he contemplated what had happened. As time passed many visitors came to check on him, but each time he had a short conversation that amounted to asking them to leave him be. As all traces of the sun were vanishing, however, Grey returned for a second time seeming more worried than the first. “Are you going to stay out here forever?” Basil responded “I just might,” words sounding more antagonistic than he had intended, though Grey sounded unfazed.

“You can’t continue to dwell on this, things like this took me years to process, and you will never get better by being alone and reliving the events.” Basil continued to stare out over the ocean, not turning back to Grey standing behind him when he spoke. “I ordered the destruction of the world mender. How many people died? Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions? And when I killed the hooded one, he was horrified of what I had become and what that meant.” Gray seemed to process Basil’s words momentarily, finding the right way to respond. “Basil, when an evil being is horrified of you that’s not a thing that should eat you up inside. That’s something that should bring you pride.” Basil felt an increasing level of weariness in his voice when he responded. “It’s not just him; a lot of things happened, and I just need to take some time to understand them. I just need to think right now, please leave me be.”

Gray began to respond “Basil, I already told you-” but paused mid sentence. “Basil, how did you know to call that device a world mender? Who told you?” Grey asked in a concerned tone of voice. Basil began to respond with “Nobody did, I-” but Grey interrupted him. “(Who told you what a world mender is?)” Basil responded “Nobody” in a suddenly annoyed voice, before realizing he had just responded to a question asked in Elthrice. Basil turned and could see tears welling up in Grey’s eyes as she shouted at him, this time not in Elthrice “Who told you what a world mender is?” before running in front of Basil and seeing he wasn’t wearing the pendant that the Lizard King’s men had made to house the (object) when they acquired it.

Basil looked on with an expressionless face before responding with an “I told you I need to be left alone,” fatigue turning to anger. Grey spoke again in Elthrice, shouting in a panicked tone. “(Tell me brother, if you are still you, who told you what a world mender is?)” Basil shook his head. “(You already know what I am halfling),” and upon speaking Elthrice, he heard his voice carry the thousand whispers as it had before.

Grey jumped and started walking backward as if Basil had transformed into a snake poised to strike, face overcome with dread as she began to run away. Basil, never moving, resumed watching the waves move under the moonlight.