Chapter Sixteen: Vade In Pace
The reddish light seemed harsh in the corridor leading to where Jack waited in the center of the room. Cushioned railings ran along the walls at waist height, connecting at the solitary window that was letting in the last of the sun's rays. The room itself seemed dim, even with the light casting a crimson glow on everything in sight. Hardly any dust floated in the air at all, and what little did made the air stagnant and cold, like the air of a mausoleum—still as death and twice as chilled. Sera knew that her hands were covered in blood, the blood of Gabriel who lay dying the other room, and it was all her fault.
“It isn't your fault, Sera,” Jack sympathized. “There was nothing you could do for him.”
“I couldn't save him,” she responded without any hint at the emotions rolling over her brain in waves of color. The blues of depression being swept away by the hard reds of anger and rage. Those reds washed clean in the greens of envy of those who would never know the pain she felt, the pain of one who was coerced into sacrificing the one she loved. Those greens swallowed up in a black void of emotionless nothing, which in turn faded back into blues of varying depth, shade and texture.
“Of course you couldn't save him, Sera. He was destined to die, just as all the people who fell before my army, excepting those who turned. Every time you saved his pathetic life, you were only prolonging the inevitable.”
“You didn't know him at all! You just felt like destroying what little happiness I had gained!”
“You know nothing, Sera! Nothing at all! If I could have changed history I would have! I would have made the world see its folly, and none of this would have had to happen! Everything is set in stone, and we can do nothing to stop what comes next. Nothing!”
“You killed him,Jack. You killed him and I wasn't strong enough to stop you! I wanted to save him, but I couldn't. I couldn't . . .” her voice trailed off into the shadows that began to creep through the room as the sun neared the end of its set.
“Yes, I did kill him, but you don't understand! I didn't want to . . . I had to. I had no choice but to follow my own predestined path, just as you did, just as everyone did. We are like the planets, forever stuck in a single alignment to orbit around our star, and that star in turn must follow its own orbit around the center of this galaxy, and that galaxy . . .”
“Shut up, Jack, you don't know everything,” Sera interrupted. “Not everyone is bound to a fate like you want me to believe. We still have free will, the ability to choose . . .”
“Free will is an illusion! No matter how far we stray from our paths, we follow them exactly the same way as was ordained since the beginning. We bound ourselves to this fate as surely as we are bound to this sick and bloodthirsty cycle. Nothing can ever change.”
“And yet, I was able to change Gabriel's fate, he didn't die when I was able to save him before.”
“You did nothing to change what had been set in motion. He's dead now, and that is what he was meant to do. You only postponed his inevitable state, and even then only because you were supposed to.”
“Jack, you oversimplify everything you're trying to say as if I wouldn't understand you otherwise. Say what you mean to say, and don't hold back just because you think me ignorant. I'm no child; I understand more than you could possibly realize.”
“And what is it that you understand, Sera? That I somehow made you sacrifice Gabriel as some sort of perceived payback for what you said to me the last time we met? What was it I said? What were my exact words?”
“One for many.”
“That's right. One for many, and what else.”
“You said my logic was flawed.”
“Wrong. I said 'your argument if faulted,' though I can see where you got confused. You said I should sacrifice myself so that the world could move on, so that you could move on. The world will never move on, and that's why I'm still here. Men created us to be their saviors, their destroyers, their warriors, but more importantly and more insultingly as a coin so that they wouldn't have to make a choice that might force them out of their comfort zone. You realize that now, more than you ever did.”
“Yes, I do, but only because I've seen firsthand what a herd of sheep human beings are as a whole.”
“Then you understand my dilemma.”
“I can see where you might get a part of your cynicism,” she responded. “Just because they don't know how to think for themselves doesn't mean they deserve, we deserve to die off and be replaced as the dominant species on this planet.”
“No, you don't get it at all, We're all on the same side, and I'm not trying to kill anybody, least of all the whole species! We did this to ourselves! It's our cycle, and it leads to our destruction unless we can somehow end it.”
“You're not trying to kill anybody? You killed my friend! He's lying in the other room, and his blood is all over everything! The same with the other man, the one with the tan skin. His blood and guts are everywhere, and you're not trying to kill anyone? What about the Brig, all the people there that were killed by your monsters, your army? The diseases you spread just by being someplace? You started all those plagues and killed all those people, yet you're not trying to hurt anybody?”
“That's right, I'm not.”
“Take some fucking responsibility for your own fucking actions! You killed them! You want to kill them all!” her voice was raised, but she no longer cared about civility.
“I am taking responsibility!” Jack took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. In a lower tone, he spoke again, “I am taking responsibility, and I blame myself for all of it, more than you could possibly imagine. It is my fault, but not because I wanted it to be. I didn't want it to happen, I didn't want any of it to happen. I didn't choose any of this, you have to understand that.”
“I get that, I didn't choose this either, but you dragged me into it all the same! Because of you I almost got killed by a fucked up mountain-cat, because of you I lost my family and friends and the only place I ever called my home, and now, also because of you, I lost the only man I've ever loved, and he's not coming back. Because of you and your friends, your 'generals' as you called them, I could stop your final trap.”
He laughed aloud, “And you think that you're innocent of any wrongdoing? You killed my best friend . . .”
“I thought you said Seth was a traitor?”
“Seth is, or rather was, a traitor. I meant Michael. He was my closest ally, and we rocked the world together. You silenced his voice forever, and killed him without a second of hesitation.”
“He would have killed me if I hadn't.”
“That is no excuse! No excuse at all! That is the way of the world, Sera. Kill or be killed. You chose to kill him, and Seth, and those men in New Zion. You chose that because you had to, and if that doesn't make you as bad as me, then nothing does.”
“I'm not a monster. I'll never be like you!”
“You can't keep playing a victim of circumstance! You have to accept the blame that is rightfully yours, or you'll never be happy again, if you ever were happy to begin with.”
“It's so easy for you to say, but you don't know anything about me, or the boy you just killed!”
“It's not easy at all for me to say! Not at all! You think I've never loved someone so much it hurt me to leave their side! I loved a girl, just like you, and I was forced to leave her behind because of who I am, just as I was force to set those snares in your path, and not because I wanted to weaken you, but because I had no choice. Destiny is not a game of dice, Sera, everything has a purpose, a place in some grand maze of confusion and deception. Nothing has ever been as simple as right or wrong, and you know that. Good people do bad things sometimes, and bad things happen to them in turn. Not because they deserved it, or because somebody was evil, but because it was their fate to feel that pain. Bad things happen to everybody, not just you.”
“So what bad things happened to you, Jack? What horrible things were done to you? Did somebody refuse to give your ball back after you kicked it into their yard?”
“No, and that horribly condescending tone of yours is irritating, stop it!”
“Wee wee wah wah, wah, wah.” Sera mocked him openly, mimicking his voice like a child might when he was angry.
“Don't mock me, If you'll allow me to explain . . .”
“Why shouldn't I? It's the least of what you deserve, and my knife is eager to feel your blood course around it.”
“I've been spit upon and reviled by my own flesh and blood. Have you ever felt that? To have your own family, your friends, your entire home deny they ever knew you and leave you a beggar for a whim? My whole life, all I wanted was to end the bloodshed, to fight the good fight, to end the conflict that divides us as a race like a great canyon that separates us, keeps us from uniting, yet they couldn't see past the ends of their noses. Their own divisive religious beliefs kept them from aiding me in my greatest time of need, and that's when I tried to end it all.”
“What?” she asked incredulously. All this time I thought he was a monster, she thought, it never even occurred to me that he was just a man, like any other.
“Try to understand, Sera, that I spent my whole life trying to serve my people. I helped to heal the sick, and aid the lepers. I supped with criminals and beggars who wanted a second chance, and not because I had to, but because I felt like I owed them. The only thing I wanted to do was help, and I was reviled for my desires.”
“Stop it.”
“I can't stop it. I couldn't stop it then, and I can't stop it now. The cycle is a part of who we are, and that will never end. I told you that I didn't want to destroy the world, but that was partly a lie. I did, but only because of what the world had done to me. If it wasn't me who did it, then some day, someone else would. Men will keep believing in the cycle until it destroys them with their own beliefs, and then it will all be over. Regardless of what we do, the end comes for us all, and this time is no different.”
“Do you know how many times this has happened?”
“More times than I could ever tell you. In terms of years, this conflict has gone on for over ten thousand, and most likely much more than that.”
“How much knowledge have we lost, and had to regain?”
“Enough to fill volumes and shelves and rooms with it. All our technological advancements, completely destroyed by our own arrogance and refusal to acknowledge another perspective than our own.”
Sera nodded. “Might makes right.”
“Well said. Even the things we did relearn were kept hidden, vast stores of information kept secluded in tightly knife circles of the wealthy and powerful. Technologies and maths without number that could have launched our species across the stars to colonize other planets, and solve the mysteries of the universe. We could have been the gods of the furthest stars, and all we'd have had to do is listen to each other, understand one another, and feel the ties that bind every human being together. It would be the end of the wretched cycle, if only everyone could see it.”
“I wish it were possible.”
“I do, too, Sera, but it isn't.”
“What?” How many times would he force her jaw to drop?
“It will never happen. Not in this lifetime, or in any other, and I see that now. Once I believed that men were inherently good, but now it's all become so very clear. We are an evil race, Sera, and we seek to destroy everything we do not comprehend.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“It's true. All the evil in the land is what we deserve. My army truly is holy, made to wipe the human plague from this planet so that another species can rise up and take our place.” His cheeks were twitching angrily, and his left eye was blinking rapidly.
What on earth is going on? She thought. “There is no evil or good in men, only their acts can be considered good or evil. Right or wrong, Jack, right or wrong? It's a false dichotomy, trying to make our shaded grey hues black and white. It's never that simple. Nothing is purely anything, not even the horrid actions and sins of which you are guilty. Do you remember when I asked you my question, Jack? Do you remember how that went? Yin or Yang?”
“Yin or Yang,” Jack murmured.
“It's a bullshit question, Jack. It's bullshit. It implies two sides, but both are created by men, to impose a gap between people. There is only one side, and that's our species. We fight and bicker and argue about something that we created, and then we destroy it. Everything we put our hands to we corrupt, because of our inner conflict, but it doesn't end there. Not everything has to be that way, and you know it. Tell me how to do this and I'll end your pain.”
“You'll kill me, then? Do you really think you know how? I've tried that before, and it leads nowhere, a dead end. I cannot die, and I can't grow old. That is the way of it. And my pain? What do you know of my pain? I started to forget everything that I am. I've lost names and faces, memories that belong to me, not to you or to anyone else, but to me! I hardly remember Michael's face, and I can't even remember the name of the girl I loved, just that I loved her, once, and now even that is fading. I'm losing who I am, Sera. There's nothing you can do to stop that. You can't help me.”
“Tell me how I can save our race, end the cycle. Tell me, Jack!”
“No, I refuse.”
“Why are you being difficult?” Her blood pressure was rising as anger once again took its hold.
“I am what I am, and if I've learned anything over the centuries, its that men do not change, and that is why I won't tell you. It's not possible to change the minds of our species, and this is the end of the line for us.”
Sera became aware of the humming that was slowly gaining intensity as the conversation continued. It was the buzz of danger, of the glimmer that surrounded Jack. What was he planning? His aura was reaching out, like spines on a sea anemone, or needles on a cactus, reaching out and whirling with blackened malice, incorporeal yet real all at once. Her own aura sprang up in response to his: white lightning crackling around her arms and body, static and electric and moving, spiraling around her and pulling up energy from along the golden threads that linked her to every man woman and child. The threads themselves were pulsing as energy was being pulled along them, and the gold made everything around her seem dim in comparison. Jack's own threads, silver and metallic were doing the same, absorbing and sucking the power from whoever gave it.
The room was growing around them, spreading out into a grey plain of unknowable size, but that was impossible. The sun was once again visible in the window, and it was almost as if it was moving from west to east—rising backwards? She knew then that something was terribly wrong, even before Jack began to speak again. Whorls of color began to swirl in the air, green and violet—the color of his eyes—and then the rest of the myriad hues of the rainbow.
“Iris? What are you doing here? Put down that knife, I don't want to hurt you.” His voice seemed pained, distant.
“What the fuck? Jack, I'm not Iris. My name is Sera.” Yes, something was very wrong, almost as if Jack's madness was spreading to her and the roomy expansive plain upon which they now stood. The world was bubbling, rolling with waves of undulating wood and stone like the ocean. Insanity was swallowing both of them, and she knew that unless Jack could come back a little ways from the brink, they would both perish.
“Ah, Sera, guardian of the wastes and breaker of oaths. The betrayer and savior of men born of the fires of Hell and baptized in the blood of the fallen. You disguised yourself well. For a moment you had me fooled: I thought you were my beloved Iris, come back to me after all these years.” His speech was slow, and almost slurred, as if he had been drugged, or drinking. “But no, she is dead. I remember that now.”
Waves of unreality undulated in the air, flowing over her like nausea and pulling at the ends of her reasoning, attempting to split her like a string. As she reeled and recovered from the insanity, she felt the room spinning around her, and felt dizzy and lightheaded. Jack's blade glinted yellowy in the light of the newly risen sun, and its flash brought her out of the daze; she countered the blow with her knife, but only barely. The sword had an arc, a powerful one, and as she had brought her spear-knife up, so the force of the swing had forced her down to one knee.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
“Sera, with you the hope of mankind and the cycle will die together. If you die, the world will be cleansed of our iniquity and can start anew, without violence or the conflict that has shaped the world since we became the dominant species.” His sword flashed again in the sunlight. Sera countered the blow and brought her knife up to his throat.
“Tell me what I have to do to save us. Tell me!”
Jack's blade was trying to thrust at her chest, a kill shot. Quickly, she pushed him away with all the force she could muster—her knife sliced across his throat and his stab fell limp as his arm. Gouts of blood gushed sickly from his jugular, and the bronze gladius fell to the ground as he clapped his hands to his throat. She almost turned away, but instead waited to watch him die. He was coughing up blood, spraying it from his mouth to try and clear it from his lungs. He was laughing. The sounds of his raucous laughter filled the room as his hands fell from his throat. Only a thin white line remained of the gash that should have claimed his life.
“I told you Sera. I told you. I can't die, and you can't kill me. That is why I will win this wretched fight and why mankind is doomed. The cycle brought about a perfect hero, perfect replica of all man's inner conflict, his strength and his weaknesses. I won't lose this fight because I can't. It isn't possible.” He was kneeling to pick up his sword when she kicked him, hard in the face. The kick came from the right, and knocked Jack to the left, leaving him sprawled on the ground.
“You're wrong, Jack.”
“You think you are a match for me? I've killed many men who are stronger and bigger and faster than you; you don't stand a snowball's chance in hell. You are powerless. You couldn't save him, Sera. No one could have, and you can't save yourself now.”
“I couldn't save him,” she repeated, waves of those distracting emotions coursing over her until finally the void came, and she latched onto it, forcing all else into oblivion. Nothing else could matter like this.
He had his sword in hand before she could stop him, and was thrusting again and again. It was all she could do to keep the razor point from her skin as she dodged, and jumped back, knocking the blows away at the last second. He was furious, and his attacks were relentless, keeping her on the defensive. She was being driving back against something, and she had to find out what before he got the best of her. She turned her head slightly, just enough to glimpse it in her peripheral vision; a cliff. In reality it could have been anything, probably the stairs she had climbed to get here, but this was not reality. It seemed real enough, but who could say for certain? This place was a fun house, through the looking glass and down the rabbit's hole. It was the embodiment of Jack's madness, and it was going to kill them both.
Sera struck back, bringing the blade of her knife down against Jack's upswing. “You'll not drive me off this precipice.”
“It's a fine line though, a razor's edge. Who can say what I can or cannot do? The world is my oyster, Sera, and I gave it a pearl necklace!” He was laughing as he brought his blade close to her head, blocked again by her quick reflexes. Pushing him back with her knife against his blade, she continued to change the dynamic of the battle as it had been solely dominated by Jack's aggression.
“You think you're the only one who knows how to fight? I've never lost!” She swung her knife against his blade, forcing it away from her body as she fought her way past his other arm's blows. Jack brought his blade around and caught her knife before she could flay him alive.
“Neither have I,” he spat, tossing her back with his might.
Another swing, diagonal crossing from his right to left, and she blocked it, turned it aside. They fought, blow for blow, as the sun was spinning around them on that grey plain of unknowable size. It rose and fell numerous times, visible on both horizons, and sometimes it was visible at the same time in two different parts of the sky. The battle was a sea of contradictions, with two sides that fought for the same goal without knowing it. It was both light and dark on the plain, with streamers of vivid color flowing along the occasional wave through the air like the aurora borealis, and the waves brought with them a deep sickness that settled in Sera's stomach like a rock and it did not leave.
Sparks flew as her steel blade clashed with Jack's bronze, and those flashes of light illuminated his face in a demonic, twisted light, catching him mid-grimace or grin and lending credence to his madness. Yin or Yang, she had once asked herself, and it became clear as the fight drew on that those sides were inherent in her human understanding, and that regardless of what she had said, the truth of the matter was her actions would always be determined by that false sense of conflict in her brain. Words couldn't change anything, only time could.
The battle was fierce; she was dripping blood from a cut on her forearm where Jack's blade had caught her unaware. Sweat was beading upon her brow as the fight drew past two minutes, and then three. How long could she last?
She was angry, and maybe that was going to be her downfall, yet she fought onward without caring. Jack's insanity was becoming solid, as the world around them began to change with each meeting of their blades that ended in a shower of sparks. First was Rome; Sera didn't know how she knew, but it was, dueling along cobbled streets in front of a mighty Colosseum, an arena that would be worn and broken in her time, but for now it was whole, and intact, and from the sounds of cheering she heard, it was also in use.
Their blades clashed again, and they were in some other place, a place that Jack had also been to, and the words flowed out of his mind as she nearly gaped as she fought. A large church, with fantastic domes atop massive towers. A statue of a man on horseback (a cossack?) sat in the center of the square in which she and Jack were fighting. The Kremlin, his words said, in Russia. The air was cool, even in the bright sunlight, and everything was vivid, far more colorful than it should have been, perhaps, and it seemed to be a reflection of what Jack remembered. Sera's turn, now, to strike. It was becoming a dance, an elaborate pattern of attacks and retreats, and she swung her knife against his gladius, gritting her teeth as they met and grated steel against bronze. Flash.
A new place, perhaps a new time, but all were old memories, and this time was a great wall, in construction at this moment, but very large and wide. Rice fields grew to the south, and great hills filled with herds of horses lay to the north. How much was real and how much imagine? A grand monument to the ingenuity of man, yet Jack had some kind of loathing for it, as if it was a symbol of something he disliked. No matter, he struck at her and the next flash took them far to the west. Great mountains of rock and ice loomed all around, and the path upon which they stood was treacherous and slippery. The air was thin, and the wind whipped around her bared skin, biting and angry and frozen, and her breath and his drew up in large clouds, floating away with the wind. Their blade sparked against each other once again.
The beach was white, and Sera could feel the sand compacting beneath her feet. The sun was high in the sky, and the azure waves gently brushed against the beach. Gulls floated lazily on a gently breeze, and their cries were quickly silenced as Jack's blade met Sera's. Metal against metal, the blades were connected far longer than Sera intended and he was able to throw a quick jab with his fist against her nose. Sera cried out as the blood began to flow from there as well as her arm. It ran along her upper lip, feeling cool compared to the heat of the sun, and she watched horrified as his blade came down again. Barely able to deflect the blow, she saw her aura and his, entwined and strangling each other. Black and white, hope and despair. A complete circle, Yin and Yang, joined as one even as she and Gabriel had been. Only that was love, and this was hate. Sera hated him with all her passion and with every fiber in her being. He was a liar, and deception was his greatest tool. He knew far too much.
White tendrils and black, whipping around her as Jack's blade came down for another strike. She fell to her knees as it came, but behind it was another blow, and she stopped that one as well. Maybe Jack was right, maybe he is unstoppable. The blade shone yellow in the light, and it rang with Jack's rage and his bloodthirsty voice as it came down from high over his head. Sera held her knife up against it, and closed her eyes as it connected; the force was enough to make her wince as the vibrations shook throughout her bones. Something else. A terrifying crack, the sound of metal ripping and splitting, thunderous and frightening, shot out in the air, making Sera gasp from shock. Her spear-knife, forged by the only smith in the Brig, and perhaps the world, had snapped. It held itself together, but it might be useless against any more blows of the same might, and that was exactly what more battle with Jack entailed.
He was laughing, his sword raised for another blow, he head held high and back. Arrogant bastard, she thought as she sprang up from her knees, driving her knife deep into the flesh between his ribs, right where his heart would be and was. In a choking spray of blood and bile, his step faltered, and his gladius fell to the ground, all its inscriptions glittering like gold in the bright light, and as it struck the ground, it gave the same sound as if it had fallen on carpet. It had, and she found herself back in the solitary room in the highest part of Jack's vile temple. Jack was kneeling beside his fallen blade, clutching at his chest, and Sera kicked upwards with her foot, connecting with her knife's hilt with her heel. Pain shot up her leg like lightning, and brought with it a satisfying crack as the blade splintered and shattered, leaving the blade inside of Jack, and the hilt free to fall to the floor. He was gasping for breath, but even this couldn't be a fatal wound; Jack couldn't be killed so easily. Or could he? A vague memory passed over her, yet as it did, it brought clarity and vision and a knowledge that could end it all—hopefully.
In her mind's eye, Sera saw the seed that was the heart of the universe, the beginning and the end, where matter moved back and forth from one time and place to another, where everything had to begin, the source of life and all energy that could ever exist. What had she done with it? It had taken her back, to before she had died, so that she might save herself and her lover, and with both of them, perhaps the whole of the human race as well. Somewhere in the deep recesses of time, that grandfather clock ticked away the precious seconds and minutes. Time was running out. She looked back at the blade, thrust deep into Jack's chest cavity, but already being pushed out as he gasped and choked on his own blood. With all her concentration, she pulled at the thread that linked him to her, once silver and gold, but now completely gold, and looped it around his neck, feeling it grow tight as she sent a ripple along it with her mind to lift him off his feet.
“Sera . . .” he managed to speak, but it was faint, and barely audible.
“No, Jack, you don't belong here. It's your time. You said so yourself that you embody the very nature of man, the cycle to which we both were born, and I have no choice but to banish you from this time, so that we can rebuild, perhaps move beyond ourselves and our petty quarrels.”
“Sera . . .”
“You've overstayed your welcome Jack, and history has passed you by, leaving only an empty shell of a man, a monster even. You failed in your task as savior of our race, and now I've come to solve this problem. You may be invulnerable, immortal perhaps, but I have something that you cannot withstand. Time has switched sides, and I wield it like the two-edged sword that it is. While I cannot kill you, I can send you back to a time when you were less dangerous, and our future will be clear and free of your despotic dominion.”
“Sera . . .”
“The time has come for retribution, and none is more deserving of it than you. Turn around, Jack, and see the fate that awaits you.” Behind him, the glowing white heart pulsed and pounded in time with her heart, and it opened up, revealing a yawning black maw of nothing and everything, and it was pulling at Jack, pulling at her as well, but that was not her place. Slowly, she uncoiled the thread from his neck, and let it unravel like a ball of yarn as he disappeared, screaming into the void. Sweet black warmth surrounded her, and the maw did not close. She could feel that other heart, beating when her heart paused, and she knew what the heart of the universe desired. Gabriel's heart was still beating faintly, and that was the greatest rush of relief she had ever felt.
The wind was blowing gently, pulling the door open into the room where Gabriel lay, and she barely pulled at his thread when he came, floating on his back and unconscious as he flew past her, into the heart's maw. She would have reached out to touch him, but there was nothing more she could do for him; the heart of the universe, the glowing white seed of everything, closed, and it continued to pulse, sending waves out through the black nothingness that rolled and undulated in her mind until she was back in the top of the temple, the highest point of the building, the place its builders had once called the Holy of Holies, in the tongue the shades—Destra ot Destrayes.
She felt alone, bereft of friends and family and her lover, who had gone back to see the man Jesus, who was said to be able to heal the sick and tend to the wounded. The problem of Jack she had known would be difficult, but if his plague existed in the time of the Christ, perhaps that healer could alleviate some of the suffering of the masses that would inevitably be cursed by being near Jack. And, though it pained her to think of, Gabriel would live out the remainder of his days in the same time as Jack, and apart from her, but surely that was better than death, or worse, head injuries like his meant horrible damage to a person's intelligence and memory, and sometimes their personality. Had he stayed, he might never have regained full function of his body, and though her heart ached for his touch, for his voice, she had to deal with the loss and move on.
But where? She asked, Where? Gabriel was right when he said that word would spread, she thought. And as well, I have no weapons to defend against the destrachan, should any attack.
She should have been jubilant, exultant at her victory, but instead she felt miserable, alone, and unsure of the future. At her feet, the bronze gladius that Jack had wielded lay, inscribed with skill and in the language of a people she could not understand.
“Well,” she said to herself, “any weapon is better than none,” and she bent to pick it up. Hefting it, giving it a test swing, she thought it awkward and unwieldy, but it would have to do. A sudden chill ran down her spine, and she was aware of another presence in the room with her, someone who had made no sound in creeping up on her.
“I think we can find you a better weapon than that,” a voice called from behind her, no doubt belonging to the person she had felt at the door.
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