THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 3: In Time
“Wherever there is light, first there was darkness.”
– Gavriel Euvo, Cult of Nihil founder (230 PA)
Gavriel considered the darkness. The lightless void was perfect. It was deep and distant as the space between stars even as it clung sticky-close as spider webs on his skin. It hid the ugliness of the universe, swallowed nations and worlds into bottomless oblivion. In time, the darkness consumed even suns and stars. Everything.
Gavriel held his hand up before his eyes, but could see nothing. The shadows concealed his thin, brittle skin, spotted by age and too many years under the suns of a dozen worlds. He was stronger now, since Elsa’s unwilling sacrifice. His age had not left him, but he wore it now like the robe around his shoulders instead of a weight around his neck.
But even in the darkness, Gavriel could hear his joints creaking, feel the bone-deep ache of long years of life and suffering… if there was any difference between the two. The dark only masked the things that seethed in shadows. It didn’t conquer them. That lesson had been hard-won…
He waited in the darkness. The dead girl’s blood was warm and sticky on his hands, but cooling rapidly in the night air. The street outside the old mill house flashed with blue lights as the Sunjarrah police searched for him. Gavriel cursed silently to himself. They would tire of the hunt, but not before dawn. Until then, he would have to remain hidden.
The work was too tedious, too time-consuming! Every time someone screamed, the police gave chase and Gavriel had to hide again. Too many such encounters inevitably drove him away, into a new city and then further, onto a new planet.
There were so many billions who needed the gift Gavriel brought, yet he was forced to grant it one at a time. It was too slow! Why did no one ever understand the blessing he gave? The sweet, deep death like falling into a soft bed at the end of a long, hard day?
Gavriel sheathed the nanoknife and scrubbed his hands briskly together. The girl’s blood had grown flaky on his palms and sifted to the dusty floor like red snow.
He couldn’t hide forever. Eventually, they would find Gavriel and haul him away. The trial would be short and then they would throw him in prison to rot. No one would ever know, ever understand that he was only trying to help. They would think Gavriel Euvo was some common criminal who killed for cheap thrills or perverse pleasures. The very idea made him bristle indignantly.
There had to be a better way.
Gavriel flicked his brittle fingers in an intricate symbol. “Ka li’ae avael!”
An ember kindled in the darkness. The spark of light flared and golden-red tongues of fire filled the shadows, illuminating Gavriel’s wolfish smile. The flame died away and left nothing behind but the faint scent of smoke. Soon, even that was gone.
There would be nothing left for the police to find this time.
