Crying For Lost Souls

The moon rose, and Zara’s eyes pierced the soft tsunami, the silent upsurge and the rush as everything was washed with a pearlescent glow. Darkness vanished, but darkness deepened under the cold glare. The eye of the moon was fully open and Zara withered beneath it. He wondered how the night could bring such harshness, whilst other far-off nations were still ablaze with the beauty of the sun.1

He watched the plume of white smoke spiral lazily up in front of him, and his body was overrun by uncontrollable shivers, mutant-like convulsions as a breath of frail wind gathered itself upon the mountainside. Zara felt his worn cloak, stitches splitting at the seams, and frayed at the bottom from all those times his spurs had just nicked the very edge of the material; shiver with him and rise up in a soft flick, riding air, twisting and writhing like a ghoul from beyond the Gates. His quaking hand, almost blue, he thought, although it could easily have been a trick of the light, or lack of it, reached towards the clasp, stroking the engraved design while his thumb slid underneath and pressed against the sharp needle.2

But just as he thought to let it go, as if sliding that needle would somehow halt the turmoil within him, the gale dropped, the roaring and groaning in his ears stopped, the whistle as the wind fingered through jagged mountain peaks, craggy teeth of an unnamed beast that stretched across the horizon, leagues off; the wailing that echoed across the empty landscape between, it all disappeared in the second of a thought, as though it had never been. His cloak fell in an inanimate flurry around his feet, and he sighed, caressed the clasp one last time, tracing the smooth fine lines, symbols of whose meaning he had no idea.3

He started to slide his hand down to rest upon the pommel of his sword, but pulled back sharply as he remembered that it wasn’t there. His sheath hung empty at his waist. The leather strap around his right shin drooped pitifully without the support of his hunting knife. And his bow…4

Too many times he had run his fingers through the small ruffle of the feathers, a bright green, garish they would be in the half-light. On countless occasions he had stroked the smooth yew of his bow, slid his hand into the worn grip, a perfect fit for his fingers. He had rubbed it, felt it from all angles; every arrow he had ever shot was like a friend; and all those friends he had left behind on those empty plains that were soaked with the blood of his enemies. It made his heart ache terribly just thinking about it. And tomorrow he would lose more friends. Perhaps they would lose him as well.5

Death did not frighten Zara, as it did other men; he saw it as a rest, a long sleep where his dreams were not haunted by the sorrowful images of Yaren, of Daneo, even of Teiler. Other friends he had left behind on battlefields, bathed in blood. Their faces danced across his vision, almost mocking him, but clear, untarnished by the dust of time, not as he had last seen them. They were forever fresh in his memory. He did not feel the hot tears cleaving their way through layers of dirt and dried blood, nor hear the quiet drip as the watery crimson pearls exploded on the ground at his feet. His ears failed to pick up the sorrowful lamenting of an unfelt wind as the earth cried with him. The heavens opened silently above him, pouring a tribute to his scarred soul.6

The cool liquid, soothing upon his fevered mind, seemed to wash away the stains on his soul, all the crimes he had ever committed, whether for good or for bad; harsh faces glared at him, the most insignificant of victims. That man in Helvyne, only security, he hadn’t even known the depth of his actions. And the child. I may not be an honourable man, Zara thought, but that boy’s death scars my soul more deeply than any needless massacre could.7

The rain tinkled against his armour, pounding like the beat of a war drum, rolling down the image of a panther that leapt across his chest. The drops slid underneath the metal, through a thin gap at his neck, seeped through his clothing and ran in dribbles down his chest, warmed by his bodily heat until it itched and burned as though it was blood that cleansed his spirit.8

And as suddenly as it had started, the clouds danced in towards each other, and the downpour ended. Grey swirled against white briefly, but the sky ceased its thrashing and soon became still. An incredible weariness rapidly overcame him; his limbs felt leaden, and an invisible weight forced him onto his knees. His dark hair swayed, and thin beads of water dropped into the dry soil beneath him as he collapsed under the pressure; dust exploded into a thin haze, stinging his eyes. He clawed at the ground beneath him with warped hands, clutching the arid dirt. But it rained! he thought, am I so mad as to imagine water when it is not here?9

And he began to cry, not for himself, and his madness, but for the grief and pain he had brought into the world, the suffering he had caused to people he had loved, and even to those he had not. A tear fell, burning as it drew a line across his face. It stained the ground crimson. Even in his horror, Zara could not stop crying, not when he knew that he wept every drop of blood spilt in his name. Rivulets of blood streamed from his eyes, running away from him into the sweet earth of the mountain, their souls free of the tumult within him.10

“Will I ever be?” he whispered in desperation, as the last of their souls were wrenched from his body. “I forgive myself. But can anyone ever forgive me?” For being a monster, he added silently, as his vision misted over with the clammy fog of death. He felt himself become detached from the prison that was his body, still crying the pain of those who could not ever cry; and he began to fly away from that lonely mountainside, becoming everything and nothing, travelling everywhere and nowhere.11

His sacrifice was worthy.12

He was forgiven.