The lessons never learne.., p.1
The Lessons Never Learned, page 1
Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
From Cold Ashes Risen
Chapter 1
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Acknowledgements
Copyright
The Lessons Never Learned
(Book 2 of The War Eternal)
By
Rob J. Hayes
Prologue
I've heard people talk about hell as though is it some place that awaits them when they die. A land of eternal torture for those who have committed the worst of atrocities. They're wrong. Life is hell. Living is hell. And there is no greater torment than the ones we fashion for ourselves. I have done a great many things in my life; more bad than good, I think. The memories of them play out in my mind again and again. I am ashamed of so much of what I have done. The guilt of my actions remains even after all other consequences have faded. People may speak of hell as though it is some other place, but I say I am living it every day of my life.
The Pit was finally behind me, or more accurately below me. I struggle to say exactly how long I spent down there. My mind tells me it was just over six months, but my body tells me it was over a decade. All part of the unnatural ageing, I suppose. Ten years stolen from me by the magic of Chronomancy. Ten years paid to save Hardt and Tamura. Ten years lost to kill the man I considered my brother. I suppose it was a small price to pay all things considered, and I paid it willingly. I would freely pay it again and again and again. To save my friends there is no price I wouldn't pay. That doesn't mean I'm not bloody well bitter about the cost.
It is a strange thing, but I have noticed the older I get and the fewer years that remain to me, the more I dwell on the choices of my past. I consider my mistakes and belittle my accomplishments. I find myself reliving the hardships, as though they are old friends long lost and fondly remembered. I brush over the joyous times as though they mean nothing to me, the things I have achieved minor in the face of the mistakes I have made. My life has always been fraught with hardship, but rarely has it only been that way. Down in the Pit, I will admit I struggled to find any happiness. But then prison is not meant to be a nice place.
The war was lost, the Orran bloodline was gone and their lands engulfed by the Terrelan empire. It is somewhat odd to think I went into the Pit bound hand and foot, beaten and bloody and stripped of my magic; my Sources taken from me. Down there in the dark they tortured my body and mind. The overseer, the man in charge, did everything in his power to make me swear allegiance to the Terrelans. Not once did he manage to break me, though I have already admitted he came fucking close. I think he made one vital mistake: he tried to use Josef against me. The overseer enlisted the aid of my oldest friend to help turn me. That, more than anything else, galvanised my will to defy. Defy him, defy Deko, defy Josef. I fucking-well defied them all! I went into the Pit as an Orran, daring to hope my emperor and the resistance was still alive. I came out of the Pit as a Terrelan; not because I was broken or my allegiance wavered, but because we were all Terrelans. Six months of peace after the greatest war mankind has ever known had given the Terrelan empire more than enough time to secure the last of the Orran lands. I doubt they did it peacefully though. I met the Terrelan emperor eventually. He made Deko seem like a puppy.
I stared back into the cave that led underground. We were finally free, after so much blood and sweat and sacrifice, and yet some part of me yearned to go back. Some fucking weak and pitiful part of me had decided the dark was my home, that I deserved to be there. As Tamura played in the snow like a child seeing it for the first time, and Hardt stared at the back of Yorin; marching away from us… No, not us. And not marching. Yorin ran away from me. Away from me! From the fear I put in him after he killed Josef. I stared into the darkness of the cave, little more than a crack in the cliff face really. I imagined I could hear scratching, scrabbling. I imagined I could hear the screams of the Damned chasing after us. Still, that weak little part of me wanted to go back. Fuck it! Maybe it wasn't really a part of me at all. Perhaps it was Ssserakis, the ancient horror I had agreed to carry until I could send it home. Ssserakis hated the light, that was why I found it deep underground where the darkness was complete.
For so long I had equated the sky with freedom. Long before my incarceration I looked up at the sky and it was full of promise and wonder. Down in the Pit I used to dream of it, blue or grey, clear or shrouded in cloud, it didn't matter. I used to dream of the sky and promise myself that one day I would see it again. One day I would look up and see stars shining down upon us, the twins moons locked in their crushing embrace as they passed overhead. Now I was free. Now I could see the sky again I found it scared me, made me uneasy. The light made my skin itch. My little victory had been stolen from me and I resented it. I resented the horror that possessed me and the fear it inspired within me. But resentment wasn't enough. I was stuck with it.
We had all sacrificed so much to the Pit. Tamura had long since lost his sanity, though in truth he had perhaps never had it, but I doubt it helped that he had been trapped underground for longer than I had been alive. Hardt had lost his brother, Isen. I would say I regret my actions with Isen, I certainly didn't enjoy it, but that would be a lie. It has just taken me many years to see the truth; of what it cost me and what I gained. I had also lost Josef, though I lost him long before Yorin slit his throat. I think I lost him before we were even sent to the Pit. I lost Josef up on the tower of fort Vernan. I lost him the same day the Orran empire fell. It is a loss I have never quite managed to come to terms with.
But I should move on. The Pit was finally behind me. The sky and the freedom I associated with it were in front of me. There were brighter times to come, and darker. Not just for me but for all of us. I will pick up where I left off: staring into the darkness of the cave, my bare feet cold in the snow, and a clear sapphire sky above.
Chapter 1
A terran philosopher once told me that when you stare into the darkness it stares back. I've always thought it was yourself you should find staring back at you. I found Ssserakis. The ancient horror wore many faces, always of those whose deaths weighed upon my conscience. I stared back into the cave on that cliff face and I saw the ghost of Isen standing there.
My friend. Hardt's only brother. My first love, though I'm not sure I should really call it that. My first lust maybe, my first encounter with sexual desire. My first time with a man inside of me. Isen was a mess, his leg cut open and oozing, his rags torn and bloody, his eyes were pale and misty. For just a moment I hoped it was him. I hoped he had somehow survived. I hoped Hardt would turn and see his little brother and all the pain his death was causing would be forgotten in an instant, but I knew better. I knew I was looking at nothing but a ghost conjured by Ssserakis in an attempt to scare me. But I wouldn't let it. I was not afraid of death. I would not let it affect me. I am the weapon. The mantra drilled into me by the tutors at the academy, designed to absolve me of guilt, of conscience, of doubt.
I was still staring at the face of my lover when a creature erupted from the darkness. It was not much larger than a child, but then, neither was I. The creature hit me and we went down in the snow. Sharpened nails tore at my skin as I fought to keep the thing from my face. The wail it let loose set my ears crackling. Hardt tells me I screamed bloody murder and his recollection is often better than my own. If I did, I'm sure it was more battle shout than cry of terror. I think, these days, the little beast wouldn't have shocked me at all. These days I expect monsters to come flying out of dark corners. Such is the way of raising mischievous children.
Hardt was there in a moment, dragging the wailing thing off me and throwing it to the ground. I have no doubt he could have crushed its skull in his giant hands, but Hardt wanted nothing more to do with violence or death. Too much blood on a person's hands can do that. Blood never washes off. It sinks into the skin and stains a person's soul. I didn't know it then, but Hardt was stained the deepest of crimsons. I was relatively clean of it at that point, though I soon managed to change that.
I saw then the creature was one of the Damned we had met down in the ruined city of the Dji nn. It was small and stooped at the shoulders with grey skin and wispy hair on its head and arms. It wore no clothes and I could see yellow puss oozing from a number of wounds that looked to be caused by tooth or nail. The poor man, and it had obviously once been a man, writhed on the snowy ground. It clawed at its face and shrieked loud enough to raise the dead. And believe me, it takes quite a din to bring anything back from the grave.
We stood there for a while watching the thing roll about and wail. I think none of us knew what to do. Hardt had already killed so many of the poor creatures and I could see the guilt written in the dirt-smeared lines of his face. I've always thought it foolish to feel guilt over killing the Damned; they're little more than beasts and I wouldn't feel guilty over killing a lion before it killed me. Tamura obviously felt no guilt either, by the look on his face he was probably thinking about jumping down beside the creature and joining in with the thrashing about. The crazy old man likely thought it looked a lot of fun.
"What's wrong with it?" Hardt asked, his voice a deep rumble like drums in the distance. "I didn't hit that hard."
"Absence followed by excess. It is easy to drown when you don't know how to swim," Tamura said with a grin before turning away from the writhing creature.
I could see Hardt's jaw clenching. He finds Tamura vexing, always has. Some people don't like riddles, and Hardt was one of them. Unfortunately, that's just the way Tamura speaks. I decided to put myself between them lest the misunderstanding grow. It's probably worth repeating that Hardt had just lost his younger brother. The big man was putting on a brave face, but there was grief festering below the surface and I know first-hand how grief can cloud judgement.
"It has spent its entire life underground," I said. I should have left it at that, but I foolishly thought I could ease my friend's pain. "Even before that, imps come from the Other World and there is no sun there. It's a place of darkness. And wonder."
"It's not an imp." Hardt caught me in the lie designed to spare his feelings. Lies are useful things, especially when designed to save others, but lies can sour a friendship within moments, almost as quickly as betrayal. Luckily Hardt has always been wise enough to see the reason behind my lies. I wonder which of us is more at fault there. Me for telling so many falsehoods, or Hardt for excusing them.
"It's never seen the light before," I said, forging on before either of us could dwell on my mistake. "It probably burns. We should go. Before it gets dark." It's strange to think back on it, but my voice sounded different even to my own ears. I still had the slight croak given to me by Horralain the first time he tried to strangle me to death, but there was something else now. I sounded… older. One more thing I could thank Chronomancy for; due to the magic of time, I no longer recognised my own voice. Change is like that. When it happens over time it's insidious, subtle alterations here and there, you don't even notice it. But when there's a catalyst for sudden change, it feels so wrong and alien. We resist sudden change, perhaps because we fear it.
I turned towards the forest in the distance and started walking. I expected them both to follow without question. I had gotten used to being in charge, to the others responding to my leadership, and my decisions being final. Tamura fell in line, dancing his way through deep snow just as a child might, stopping to marvel at the sight of his own footsteps in the powdery white. Hardt remained, staring at the creature now quieted to a low mewling.
At first, I thought Hardt might kill the thing, reach down and end its suffering. It was a miserable looking creature even in the dark, but out in the light it was truly pitiful. Small limbs, wasted by malnutrition, and cracked grey skin. A stench of rot and decay rising off it that even we could smell, and I assure you none of us smelled pleasant. It had been so long since I last bathed, I couldn't even remember the true colour of my own skin. The Damned might have been terran once, but too many generations underground, inbreeding and infighting, feeding off imps and each other… There is nothing terran about the Damned anymore. Perhaps there never truly was. They are a plague upon the dark places in this world.
Hardt reached down and picked the little creature up as though it weighed nothing. It screamed and thrashed, yet Hardt gave it no time to strike, he threw it towards the cave mouth and into the waiting darkness. Then he turned and walked past me. I hurried to catch up, eager to be away from the cave. Somewhere inside, deep within my mind or heart, Ssserakis mourned the loss of the dark. I felt it as a strange pull, like a rope stretching between myself and the cave, trying to drag me back as it pulled taught. Resisting that pull was hard. But I would not go back. I could not go back.
I stole one final glance back towards the cave. For so long it had been my focus, my way to escape the torture of the Pit. It had been my path to freedom and my glimmer of hope. Now, as I looked back, it seemed a portal to my past. A dark place that held some of the worst mistakes of my life. I once again saw Isen's ghost staring back at me.
For a long time, none of us spoke. Unless you count Tamura's humming and occasional muttering. We were, all three of us, exhausted. It's probably not surprising. We lived in a constant state of fear and tension down in the Pit, never knowing when we might wake to find that day our last. Never knowing when Prig or Deko would decide they had had enough of us. If anything, things only got worse in the Djinn city. Surrounded by the dark, the unknown, trapped down there with the imps and the Damned and chased by Josef and the overseer's cronies. Now the tension was gone and I felt weariness flood me in its wake. I believe I could have slept for days. But we had no time for that. We had to get ahead of those chasing us. We had to get away before the overseer sent more of his minions to find us.
We aimed for the forest as the sun made its slow daily routine across the sky, warming our backs. Maybe it was the weariness or maybe I misjudged the distance, but it was almost night by the time we reached the first of the trees. That was when my strength finally gave out. I collapsed into the snow, ankle deep in powdery cold, and felt myself slump. The last thing I remember seeing was Hardt rushing towards me, then everything tilted sideways and went black.
Chapter 2
I dreamt of the Other World, the place where monsters and horrors reside. It was not the first time I had been there; as an Impomancer I was long since used to contact with that world. It is a place of muted shadows drawn in grey, as though permanently lit only by moonlight. Though there is no moon, no sun, no stars. I'm not even certain that place has a sky. I suppose it must. I've never seen any clouds, just a lighter shade of grey above the landscape.
The Other World is a vast expanse; even after a lifetime of study I have barely begun to investigate its wonders. But for all its vastness it is surprisingly empty. There are nightmares there, plenty of those, but they haunt the cities and places where the mindless monsters congregate. For as different as the Other World is, and as different as its inhabitants are, they are also strangely like us. They gather in great communities, both the mindless beasts, and the horrors like Ssserakis, insidiously intelligent. I knew none of this at the time, the tutors at the Orran Academy of Magic were fools who taught lies and half-truths, but their teachings were all I knew. It was Ssserakis who truly furthered my education, though I feel I may have seen everything through the horror's tinted vision.
I stood on a rocky plateau, far too sculpted to be natural, with sharp edges leading to a severe drop. There were no loose rocks, no dust, no signs of erosion at all. A city spread out before me glowing green with lethargic pulses of light. Strange to think about it, but it reminds me of blood pulsing through veins; as though the city were somehow alive, and the green light was its essence. The city was built in ordered blocks, symmetrical in every way. It started off small with low buildings before growing to mighty towers and one impossible spire that reached into the grey expanse above. It was larger than any city I had yet to see, though my experience was somewhat lacking, and it buzzed with activity. Even from far away I could see the roads were crowded, though I recognised few of the creatures I saw. Some were huge hulking monstrosities, others were smaller beasts dodging around their larger cousins. There was peace there. It seemed so strange, perhaps because we Sourcerers always used the denizens of the Other World for war.
