Requiem (82 page)

Florence looked
away. She concentrated again on the body of Icarus. The Warlord's
grasp had long since fallen from the controls. She began turning
Icarus around. The black hole was so far. She ordered more fuel
into the straining engines. If the body tore itself apart before
reaching the hole then so be it.

As hard as she
focused she could still see flashes of Donny's memories in her own
mind as his battle with Icarus raged on around her. She saw Donny
talking to Seline, the girl he believed was an angel. She had blood
dripping down the side of her face. She was smeared in dirt and
there were scars on her shoulders and chest. She saw Donny with a
gun in his hand. He was standing before a dog, lying in the gutter.
It was breathing awkwardly and staring up at him through a wide,
shifting eye. Donny held the gun to the dog's head. He said, 'I'm
sorry,' and pulled the trigger. He knelt down next to the dog,
hugged it, and cried into its ragged fur.

'What have I
done?' said the Warlord. 'I gave up on them. I let my world
die.'

Florence gave
no reply. She ordered even more fuel to the engines. She ordered
the sentinels ahead so that they might reach the black hole before
her.

But Donny's
thoughts were loosing their potency. She didn't know how much
longer he could last.

'What have I
done?' the Warlord repeated.

'It no longer
matters what you've done,' said Florence. 'What matters is what you
will
do.'

Icarus was
fighting back. It was learning how to distinguish Donny's thoughts
from its own. It wasn't learning how to understand them but it was
learning how to ignore them.

They'd almost
halved the distance to the black hole but she knew it wasn't
enough. Florence tried to force more fuel to the engines but there
was none to be found. The reserves were empty. She had no idea how
fast they were going. Only it wasn't fast enough.

'What have I
done?' repeated the Warlord. 'I did what I thought was right. I
always did, but... how could I have been
so wrong?
'

Donny couldn't
hold Icarus back on his own.

'Listen to me,'
she said. 'You can't just stand by and do nothing! You need to help
Donny. He can't do this alone.'

'But what if I
fail? How can I trust myself to do the right thing? I no longer
know right from wrong.'

'You've
glimpsed happiness. You found the hope you had lost for so long.
You must use it. You have to fight!'

'… What have I
done?'

'It doesn't
matter! What matters is now and you know what you must do.'

'I... I
can't...'

'He needs you,
Cassidy. You must save him!'

'He needs
me...?'

'For Christ's
sake, yes! You saw what he saw. You felt what he felt. He is dying
for you. Can't you see that?'

'But how do I
know this is the right thing to do?'

'Follow Donny.
Follow the boy. He knows better than anyone.'

'Follow
Donny...? Yes... The one who showed me happiness. The one who
showed me hope.'

Fear. Doubt.
Shame. They had grown so rapidly in the Warlord's mind. They had
almost supplanted everything that he once was but he saw now what
Donny meant to him.

'I... I...'

Icarus pushed
through the last of Donny's exhausted mind. Its voice, its every
thought roared down up the Warlord and smothered the life within
him. The Warlord's voice diminished. His mind flickered and
darkened as he collapsed upon himself and disappeared into
nothing.

Florence
searched for him but couldn't find a trace. She screamed into the
storm, 'Come back! We need you Cassidy!'

She reached out
for the Warlord but was forced back. Metal was tearing apart around
her. She could feel Icarus's sickening smile, its mind begin to
curl around her once again. It would tear her apart. It would let
her own insanity have its way with her before it extinguished her
life.

The black hole
was so close. The sentinels had already reached it but they were
stopping. They wouldn't go far enough.

‘
You are in
my mind, human. In here, your strength means nothing.'

The Warlord's
mind ignited the darkness. His voice ripped through its heart. He
spoke the clearest thought he'd ever known.

'No. This is
my
mind. And in here, your strength means even less. I am
Charon. These souls have paid the toll and I will see them to the
underworld.'

The Warlord's
shadow burst outward, enveloping everything Icarus touched.
Wretched memories burned through the darkness, lifted and
tempest-tossed against the storm of Icarus.

Rotted,
decaying flesh, bleeding, tearing of skin and muscle, bones
bending, snapping, screaming voices begging for forgiveness,
begging for mercy. A gun firing. A knife cutting, slicing. Cassidy,
a child tied to a wooden pole. He calls the pole 'Friend'. It lets
him wrap his arms around it when the whip strikes his back. It lets
him hold it close when they rape him. In the dark, it is his only
friend. It is covered in his blood but it never hurts him.

There is such
coldness in his heart. In the years to come it will be softened
just enough. McCullum shows Cassidy kindness so that he may serve
the Warlord's purpose. Killing. More killing. An endless line of
killing. Hands that know only the warmth of blood and eyes that see
only its colour. The passing antidotes of life can never escape the
gravity of death.

Cassidy tore
the memories from his head and heaped them upon Icarus, driving
them inside its mind; ardour and strength like none it had ever
known. Where Donny had fallen, Cassidy stood. He held the weight of
his hell upon Icarus.

The Warlord
shielded Florence and what remained of Donny from the worst of it,
from the real horrors he had endured. This much Florence knew was
true. But, as she stared, she glimpsed Cassidy's heart now
separated from the shadows he wielded. At its centre she could see,
she could
feel
the boy, Donny, and she knew that Cassidy was
in control.

'To the black
hole!' came his voice, screaming through her head. 'Destroy this
abomination! I will hold it as long as I can.'

Her mind was
stretched from one end of the galaxy to the other as she tried with
every sane thought she had left to direct Icarus one last time.

She sent the
sentinels forward once more and felt them drawn into the pull of
the black hole, falling from the lip of the known universe into
nothing. Their red irises flickering one final time. As the
billions of sentinels hurled themselves onward there was a growing
release. The black hole pulled at the body of Icarus. The tension
in her mind continued to unwind.

Florence looked
down at the black hole, spinning, and churning, and grinding
everything to dust as she plunged Icarus into its waiting jaws. It
twisted and stretched down into the darkness. The voices were
falling with her, over the horizon, drifting into nothing. Not even
Icarus could escape now. Its storm thundered on in vain while it
all slipped away towards the darkness.

Cassidy
continued to fight, continued to force the pain and hate from his
mind. And with the boy, Donny at his side he hoped for nothing
more.

Florence
realised the eyes of her daughter were upon her. More than her
eyes. Her thoughts as well. She could see the ship and her daughter
aboard it, kneeling, her hand raised to the plate glass, trying to
touch her one last time.

The passing
antidotes of life can never escape the gravity of death.

The words swam
through Florence's mind. A fragment. A piece of debris from the
Warlord's battle with Icarus. The words, she realised, were true.
They were true but they were incomplete. They were only part of a
truth and without their other half were rendered meaningless,
hopeless.

Florence looked
one last time upon the Milky Way. She imagined she could see a pale
blue dot somewhere in that sea of stars. She knew the Earth was
gone but from where she was the image of its surface would still be
visible. The light emitted from its expired source would still be
radiating outward towards the edge of the universe. Maybe if she
waited long enough, maybe if she waited just a few thousand years
she could see her daughter and herself, together again. She could
relive the memories as the reality they once were.

She imagined
herself, still on that pale blue dot. She imagined herself in a
dishevelled, peeling room. The sun, beaming through broken frames
where windows used to be, offering its warm, comforting light to
her and her infant daughter. Glowing, both of them. The warmth and
light, passing between them, penetrating through flesh, bone, and
blood, constructing elaborate reservoirs in depths that, unknown to
both of them at the time, would sustain them to the end.

The passing
antidotes of life can never escape the gravity of death.

And a partial
truth is no truth at all.

As she fell
into the darkness, Florence opened her mind as wide as her strength
would allow. She thought that she could touch Seline once again,
feel her fingers reaching out. Their fingers touched and in that
moment the partial truth became complete. Together their final
thought ran clear and absolute in the silence.

If the passing
antidotes of life can never escape the gravity of death, then find,
swimming in that black hole's centre, the collective hope of every
creature that has ever lived, for its mass approaches the infinite,
and in its grace, surpasses it.

###

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About the
Author

Brent Tollison was born
in New Zealand and currently resides somewhere on a beach in the
Horowhenua.
Requiem
is his first novel. Contact Brent at
[email protected].