“It remembered me,” George said. “It remembered how the man it used to be died. It remembered the pain of his passing and it mourned the love he had lost.”
The ground broke around George’s feet, as if the dry crust of Nexus’ desert turned liquid. Bodies rose, some rotting, some skeletal, but all reaching to him, hundreds and hundreds of corpses, their limbs held out, as if pleading, and then I heard it, a muted, desperate wail, coming from hundreds of creatures at once, so terrible, I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears and run.
“They say the dead have no memories and know no pain.” George’s voice was barely above whisper, but somehow it was louder than the pleas of the corpses. “It’s not that way for me.”
The dead cried out, louder and louder, grabbing at George’s clothes, begging. George stood in the center of this maelstrom, his eyes brimming with pain. Tears wet his face. He wept and the dead cried with him. White lightning tore out of him. The corpses fell as one. He stood alone.
The real George, the one next to me, touched his cane and the projection vanished.
“The war on Nexus has to stop,” he said. “It won’t be ended by noble means, because if good intentions, compassion, and meaningful dialogue could’ve solved this, peace would’ve been reached already. Sometimes to stop something this terrible, you have to do something equally terrible in return at a great personal cost, and that terrible thing can’t be done by one of the principals in this conflict. They must be able to walk away clean, united and guiltless or the peace won’t last. Someone must bear the blame and the rage. I am that someone. I take the full responsibility for tomorrow. I am the one responsible. I forced it to happen. I’m sorry that you must also be involved. It is unfair that I used you. Nobody will ever know what you have done or what it cost you. Your name and mine will be forgotten quickly, but we will both know and remember what we have done and why it had to be done. The psy-booster runs on magic. I will fuel it for you tomorrow.”
He turned and walked away, leaving me alone on the mosaic floor.
A while ago I told Sophie that George was merciless. She told me that he was compassionate and merciless at once, a contradiction. I understood now. There was no contradiction. George was merciless to himself. At the end of this, everyone, including me, would look for someone to blame for the pain and the suffering that lay ahead. He made sure that he was that someone. He took it all on himself, because the dead wept on Nexus when he returned their memories. He would take all of the guilt and carry it away with him, absolving me, because he had forced my hand. He had even done it a moment ago, when he told me he had used me.
I would have to watch him very carefully tomorrow. He would give as much of himself to the psy-booster as he could. I didn’t want George to die.
Chapter 16
I stood just beyond the door, watching the grand ballroom through a one way window the inn had made for me. The hall shone tonight, the constellations on its ceiling bright, the floor all but glowing. The Holy Anocracy stood on the right, in full armor, shoulder to shoulder, like a phalanx of ancient warriors using their bodies as shields. Across from them the Horde stood grim-faced, arranged in a wedge formation with the Khanum in front, a huge basher on her left, and Dagorkun on her right. Clan Nuan crowded on the left as well, some distance from the otrokari, shielding their matriarch with their bodies. Turan Adin in full armor stood between them and the Horde.
The wagons were circled, the weapons were primed, and the faces were grim. They eyed each other, ready for the violence to erupt, and they glanced at the four foot high bud growing from the center of the floor. The bud’s thick green sepals remained firmly shut.
My parents would be ashamed of me. Here were the guests of my inn. They had stayed at Gertrude Hunt for almost two weeks, a place where they were supposed to be protected and safe, yet they expected to be attacked at any moment. If the Innkeeper assembly ever saw this, Gertrude Hunt would lose all of her stars. There was no helping it now.
George stood by the bud, his handsome face solemn. The gold embroidery on his soft brown vest, the color of whiskey, glinted weakly in the light. His people had taken positions behind each of the factions: Jack stood behind the vampires, Sophie behind the Horde, and Gaston behind the merchants. He had discussed it with me prior to the meeting, and when I asked for his reasoning, he told me that Gaston had natural resistance to poisons, Sophie had a strong psychological impact on the Horde and Jack apparently had a lot of practice fighting soldiers in armor.