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Authors: Greg Keyes
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Fringe version was a little different—simpler. Still, it drew him, pulling him out of language and thought, and for a long, long time he knelt there with Fhena’s hand on his, feeling newborn, empty, at one.
FIVE
Most traps are simple, Colin thought. It’s why they work.
Delia Huerc’s apartment had seemed simple. It had been reoccupied since her death, so he’d had to wait until the current owner—a Khajiit rug-seller named Lwef-Dim—was gone. It was an old place, full of shadows, once-weres, and might-have-beens, and so opening his spectral eyes was easy enough. And there she was, a slip of a ghost, still waiting. Ghosts usually moved on, except in locations with the power to hold them and feed them, but this place had given him hope—and it hadn’t disappointed.
But then he saw that it wasn’t Delia. It wasn’t even a ghost. It was
something
left to deal with the likes of him. It contorted in his overvision, a chimera that refused to settle on a shape, then bloomed fully into Mundus, the world, and brought harm to him. He failed to dodge its blow, but whatever hit him still wasn’t actually matter; it was worse, traveling though his arm, through every layer of muscle, every vessel of blood, the bone and spongy marrow, leaving detailed and unbelievable agony behind. At firsthe thought the arm was actually off, but then he saw it was still there, a mass of spasming muscle.
He tumbled away without thinking and drew the blade from his belt as reflexively, his training working well below the level of thought. The thing came for him and he cut at it with the translucent weapon. The apparition shivered and made a sound he hardly heard, so high-pitched was it, but the windows of the apartment shattered.
So it didn’t like the blade, which was good. He’d brought it in case he had to fend off a ghost, and luckily whatever this was, it was at least offended by the consecrations bound into its crystalline metal.
But he wasn’t sure if he’d actually hurt it, so he backed away, trying to focus on it, to forget the feeling of death eating at his arm and understand what he was facing.
It came again, and this time he noticed a sort of center and stabbed at that. He felt resistance, and it made the sound again, but this time shudders of pain that weren’t his own racked through him, so he thrust again, and then again. A yellowish mist whipped at his head, he felt something like a razor pass through his brain, and colors exploded, seemed to spill out of him. He couldn’t feel his limbs, and realized he was in a jumble on the floor.
The presence loomed over him.
Feeling oddly detached, Colin closed his eyes against the thing and reached into the middle of himself, where his little star was, the tiny piece of him that had come from beyond the world and even Oblivion, from Aetherius, the realm of pure light and magic.
As pain and then cold gripped him, he made the star a sun.
The force and light of it blew his eyelids and mouth open, and radiance shredded through the specter like a high wind throughsmoke. This time it didn’t manage to make a sound, but was instantly and utterly gone.
Colin lay there then, watching the slight rise and fall of his chest, unable to remember what he was supposed to be doing. He didn’t recognize where he was either. And he couldn’t move.
He ought to have panicked, but he was too tired.
Across the room, a woman he did not know was watching him, silent, unmoving.
He remembered being a boy in the city of Anvil, tarring boats and staring out to sea, dreaming of distant lands. He remembered his mother, her back permanently bent from her work scrubbing clothes.
He remembered killing a man. He hadn’t known his name. It was on a bridge, and the man was looking out across water at a light. The man had seen his knife and tried to fend off the sharp blade with his hands. He tried to beg, but Colin had stabbed him until all of his life spilled out.
He remembered that was his final
FIVE
Most traps are simple, Colin thought. It’s why they work.
Delia Huerc’s apartment had seemed simple. It had been reoccupied since her death, so he’d had to wait until the current owner—a Khajiit rug-seller named Lwef-Dim—was gone. It was an old place, full of shadows, once-weres, and might-have-beens, and so opening his spectral eyes was easy enough. And there she was, a slip of a ghost, still waiting. Ghosts usually moved on, except in locations with the power to hold them and feed them, but this place had given him hope—and it hadn’t disappointed.
But then he saw that it wasn’t Delia. It wasn’t even a ghost. It was
something
left to deal with the likes of him. It contorted in his overvision, a chimera that refused to settle on a shape, then bloomed fully into Mundus, the world, and brought harm to him. He failed to dodge its blow, but whatever hit him still wasn’t actually matter; it was worse, traveling though his arm, through every layer of muscle, every vessel of blood, the bone and spongy marrow, leaving detailed and unbelievable agony behind. At firsthe thought the arm was actually off, but then he saw it was still there, a mass of spasming muscle.
He tumbled away without thinking and drew the blade from his belt as reflexively, his training working well below the level of thought. The thing came for him and he cut at it with the translucent weapon. The apparition shivered and made a sound he hardly heard, so high-pitched was it, but the windows of the apartment shattered.
So it didn’t like the blade, which was good. He’d brought it in case he had to fend off a ghost, and luckily whatever this was, it was at least offended by the consecrations bound into its crystalline metal.
But he wasn’t sure if he’d actually hurt it, so he backed away, trying to focus on it, to forget the feeling of death eating at his arm and understand what he was facing.
It came again, and this time he noticed a sort of center and stabbed at that. He felt resistance, and it made the sound again, but this time shudders of pain that weren’t his own racked through him, so he thrust again, and then again. A yellowish mist whipped at his head, he felt something like a razor pass through his brain, and colors exploded, seemed to spill out of him. He couldn’t feel his limbs, and realized he was in a jumble on the floor.
The presence loomed over him.
Feeling oddly detached, Colin closed his eyes against the thing and reached into the middle of himself, where his little star was, the tiny piece of him that had come from beyond the world and even Oblivion, from Aetherius, the realm of pure light and magic.
As pain and then cold gripped him, he made the star a sun.
The force and light of it blew his eyelids and mouth open, and radiance shredded through the specter like a high wind throughsmoke. This time it didn’t manage to make a sound, but was instantly and utterly gone.
Colin lay there then, watching the slight rise and fall of his chest, unable to remember what he was supposed to be doing. He didn’t recognize where he was either. And he couldn’t move.
He ought to have panicked, but he was too tired.
Across the room, a woman he did not know was watching him, silent, unmoving.
He remembered being a boy in the city of Anvil, tarring boats and staring out to sea, dreaming of distant lands. He remembered his mother, her back permanently bent from her work scrubbing clothes.
He remembered killing a man. He hadn’t known his name. It was on a bridge, and the man was looking out across water at a light. The man had seen his knife and tried to fend off the sharp blade with his hands. He tried to beg, but Colin had stabbed him until all of his life spilled out.
He remembered that was his final
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