4-11
Content Warning: Suicide
And it befell that night that rain came in torrents, and danced such a carol upon the rooftop of the hermitage that Gilead, though a doughty man of stalwart build, couldst hardly seek rest. And in the darkness which hoved before his eyes he didst see many great visions and memories maugre any attempt at their banishment; and the visions were of blood, for that day before he hadst slain a great many men in defense of his brothers of the court, Sir Ector de Maris and Sir Gawaine the Knight of the Ladies.
Anon, as Gilead lay open-eyed upon that mat of straw and saw the visions of bloodshed, there came a sharp rapping at the door of the hermitage. Gilead did not wish to answer the call, being as he was passing sore of heart and body, and it was just that the hermit Ulfin didst make answer for it in his stead. He was a good host. The door opened, and through it emanated the voice of a woman who Gilead could not see through the thickness of the dark.
“There is a knight with you,” said she. “Good Ulfin, I should wish to speak with that knight. Bring him forth.”
And lo Gilead did indeed hear this, and levered himself upright with an arm, covering his modesty with the much worn woolen blanket that provided him his warmth, for there was a sliver of light through the door that him revealed; and there was no moon that stormy night.
And there in the door was indeed a gentlewoman, and her visage was all liquid, for she had no protection from the rain. But her dress was red, and it was heavy and dark with the water which it had taken upon itself, and her hair was of such a brilliant tint that it seemed to Gilead that she had poured molten gold over herself and let it turn solid. And Gilead had lust to do on his shirt and trousers, but the gentlewoman saw him, and pushed past Ulfin into the center of his hermitage.
Her fingers lay about his chin and jaw in the manner that a wizard’s iron claw holds up his crystal ball, and turned him hither and thither, and the gentlewoman’s eyes were their own brightness, alight with a fire of faith and passion that made Gilead more afraid than any sword or spear.
“Who are you?” said Gilead.
“I will that you arm you,” whispered the gentlewoman, “and mount upon your horse, and follow me, and for I shall show you within these three days the highest adventure that any knight ever knew.”
And though her voice ne’er raised any higher than a whisper, there was such an intensity in it as to make Gilead shiver, and inflame his passions mightily. Night it was, and no right had he or his horse to be going to any place; and yet it was as though there was a full moon out and shining bright even despite the clouds.
“Who are you?” Gilead repeated.
And the gentlewoman had already for the door, but she stopped, and turned such that only the corner of her gaze could be seen, and said, “Call me Dindrane. Now hurry, Gilead du Carbennic; prophecy awaits.”
…
Gilead crawled. With his body covered in its own blood and recovering from the beating at Priya’s hands besides, he lacked the strength to walk. But Dindrane was there, and the Grail was in her hands, and she had invited him onwards: so he crawled.
“Iaōa! Iaōa! Vermillion Leviathan Thousand-Crowned, bless thy newest disciple! Let thy sacred blood flow into this grievous wound and scab it over one heart at a time! Iaōa! Iaōa!”
Gilead was deaf to Dindrane’s exultations, every fiber of mind and body focused purely on the task of approaching her magnificence, piercing into the heart of the blinding vermillion light that spilled from her in infinite bounty. Centimeter by dreadful centimeter he clawed at the grass, hauling his over-large frame closer and closer. The light should have rendered him blind, but by love was he protected. He needed Dindrane the way Sara’s slit-open flesh needed bandaging.
Priya and Tanyth screeched and howled at the edge of outflow, fighting to stand and avenge themselves on the one who had slain their comrade, but the wind around them was twice the force of a hurricane, and even their incredible vampiric strength could be restrained. Beyond them, the Conductor of Justice calmly set to work on Sara’s various wounds. As a Pretender, he knew what was happening, and found little marvel in it.
The same could not be said for Vilena. She was paralyzed, limp on her knees as she watched with the kind of awe that was felt in the guts. This was a miracle—not the petty magic omnipresent around Ruthven but a real miracle—and she hungered for it.
To crawl against the wind force up to Dindrane’s feet was a journey that felt a million years in length, but inevitably Gilead found himself there, the hem of her crimson dress almost within the span of his fingers’ reach. That he might then turn his eyes airward was another tremendous exertion, not to mention a sacrilege. But he did so regardless.
The Grail both glowed and did not glow, for although its light was as brilliant as the noonday sun it did not blind him, and he could see past it with perfect clarity. Dindrane’s expression was blank as she stared back at him, a faint sadness replacing what had moments before been the apex of jubilation. But why she was so sad, Gilead did not know, nor did he much care. Slowly she brought the Grail before her, and slowly she lowered it towards his lips.
Gilead reached for the Grail, but even as he did his strength faltered, for he knew it was not for his fallible hands to touch. His eyes rolled back in a desperate need to meet Dindrane’s gaze. Then the cool metal touched his lips, and he drank.
The taste was much the same, salty, thick, with a hint of the charnel house. Except the charnel flavor had grown stronger with years. Gilead swallowed a mouthful, and was rejuvenated. The previous time he had drank from the Grail, almost a decade ago, that had been the end of it: one mouthful and he pulled away. A brief touch of the transcendent. But this time, as he tried to retreat from the Grail, Dindrane only tipped it further, pushing it more against his lips.
And lo, the Grail was bottomless. Sacred blood poured forth in an unceasing flood. It overflowed the corner of Gilead’s mouth and dripped down his chin, droplets falling hot onto his outstretched fingertips. He swallowed as much as he could until he could swallow no more, and his throat was an open gate, admitting the sacred blood into him.
Gilead’s lungs grew sore. His own blood was being driven out of his body and replaced, that was the only explanation for how deeply he had been able to drink of the Grail, for no mortal body could contain such a tremendous amount of divine beneficence; his vision wobbled and began to fade. Gilead was full of poison, he was suffocating, he was dying, there was something wrong. But he could still see Dindrane’s neutral expression as she held the Grail in place, and knew that if she was guiding him along this path, then there could be no mistake.
Still, even as Gilead’s mind stayed the course, his body revolted. Spasms rocked him, his hands grabbed hold of Dindrane’s hands but could find no purchase. He was suddenly aware in a way beyond even the six senses that there was something enormous watching him, and that thing was not God, but an awful thing, glaring and envious and vast not in the imagination but in the flesh, vast beyond imagining.
He gazed into a bottomless hole, leaning so far over the edge that the darkness below had overtaken the entirety of his vision. There was a void down there. The void was black but the black was red. And the red hated him personally. As Gilead’s muscles shuddered, as his brain was starved of oxygen and the toxin overwhelmed his mortal frame, he finally lost the strength holding him up. Gilead fell into the pit.
…
(The evil that I had spent almost the entirety of my life combatting had subsumed another soul. Damn the fools and the cowards. Damn them all.)
…
When Gilead startled into consciousness, he was surprised to find that only a second had passed. His head pounded, skull burning white-hot from the words that had been impressed into his very soul, but his physical body was strong again, strong enough to fight.
The words, though. The words were just as awful as could have been expected. They were a part of him now, a part of his very nature, and until the day he died there would be no escaping them. Gilead du Carbennic had two sides to him now: one the knight and the other the Pretender. Dindrane, however, had not vanished, even though the Grail’s glow had dimmed and the wind was fading. She took hold of his chin, forcing Gilead out of his fugue.
“Movest thou quickly, my love,” she said. “Those vampires will not take what you have done lying down. I shall see thee soon.”
Dindrane vanished. Gilead rose up onto one knee, indeed hearing Priya and Tanyth rushing towards him from behind. He shut his eyes, and with an uncharacteristic weariness, spoke the words.
“First Pretense: I Am Subhuman.”
Gilead burst open. His change was no brief shimmer, like when Wesley or Juniper shifted into their own Pretensions, nor was it a quick, liquid shift like Sara’s. It was an explosion, flesh rising and bursting like billowing clouds of smoke the color of a deep bruise. For a moment, he lost track of every one of his constituent parts, hands and feet and trunk lost amidst the painless blooming torque.
The moment ended with a shrinking, but not much of one. Gilead’s First Pretense was enormous, six hundred kilograms in mass and nine meters from snout to tail, low to the ground, sinuous, clad in pebbly scales the color of lavender. Gilead’s forked tongue lapped against cone-shaped teeth in a long, pointed maw. Instead of merely turning around, instinct drove him to coil over himself, elongated spine allowing for casual acts of impossible contortion like a serpent… or a ferret. A dragon.
There was no time to further examine his new form, though, for Tanyth had already arrived, leaping onto his back and attempting to rip Gilead’s spine free from his flesh. He twisted, leaping into the air as he clawed at his own back and lashed at her with his flexible tail, landing perfectly on his four claws while the vampire was tossed onto the ground.
Priya arrived a moment later, attempting to grapple onto his neck. Gilead reared up, ready to overpower her with his newfound bulk, but discovered that all his transformation had done was put them on even footing in terms of strength. He batted at her with his claws and succeeded only in making new holes in her dress.
It was a clumsy, awkward brawl which ensued. Gilead was an expert in unarmed fighting, far beyond Tanyth’s journeyman skill, but so little of what he knew applied to the serpentine body he now inhabited. Though Gilead’s flexible form allowed him to turn and twist far more than any humanoid, it was still the case that he was outnumbered two to one: every time he turned to overwhelm Tanyth or Priya, the other one could worry at his flanks.
The scales saved him: without them, Gilead would have been killed a hundred times over, torn to shreds by sharpened claws and drained further of his blood by heart-seeking fangs. But they could not: each scale was tougher than the armor he had been wearing before, sending off showers of sparks whenever vampiric claws struck.
Gilead struck a few times in turn, biting down to the bone and shredding with claws such that flaps of skin were left to sway in the cold air, but the vampires had their own resilience, and his clumsy movements could not bring him into a position of advantage. He wasn’t winning, and exhaustion was setting in, whereas vampires do not tire. Worse, he could feel something pushing in the back of his mind: Gilead’s Pretense was not much more enduring than Sara’s was. Time was running low.
Gilead retreated. The vampires let him do it. Why? Frustration, perhaps; their lips were pulled in rictus glares, seething and trembling with violent need for vengeance. Neither side knew how to defeat the other, both needed a moment to plan.
Gilead’s neck bent until his jaw was nearly resting on the ground. He looked past the vampires, to his allies over by the side of the fallen Shati. Sara was on the ground, covered in blood from head to toe, Wesley looming over her. Vilena was un-wounded, but her will had been broken: with watery eyes she watched Gilead fight, hoping not to have to see him die.
Gilead was panting, his chest ached from exertion. Drinking from the Grail had been rejuvenating, but that burst of energy was running dry. He had so little time left. The bitter taste of impending failure was thick on his tongue.
Except that the bitter taste was no metaphor at all. He tasted bitterness. With every exhale, something foul coated the inside of Gilead’s mouth. If he had become a dragon, even for such a short period of time, then there was one feature of a dragon in which he had not indulged.
Gilead circled, and the vampires circled as well, falling into the patterns of predatory instinct. He placed himself with his back to his friends, nothing before him but the vampires and an open pasture.
“Wesley, Vilena, move. That which is to come may prove perilous, and it will not tell friend from foe.”
Gilead had known that he could still speak—after all, Sara’s First Pretense had no mouth, and it could still speak—but he had not expected how the voice that emitted forth would sound. It was not his own voice, nor was it that of anyone else. It was a beautiful voice, though: his Brittonic accent was rendered lilting and musical, like the sounding of a wheel fiddle. It was a voice that was pure, cleansed of the rumbling that Gilead had always despised about his own voice.
He did not let himself become distracted by this. Behind him, Vilena moved, and Wesley moved as well, but how well Sara could be transported was uncertain. Gilead shut them out of his mind. He would have to trust them: his own duty was before him.
He raised his head and bunched his back, and with an exertion of will he took hold of the roiling in his belly and dragged it up to the surface. Gilead’s throat began to constrict, muscles all along the length of his neck pulsating in spasmodic rhythm.
“I give you one final chance, curse-bred fiends,” he said, his voice strained as his throat switched from one purpose to another. “Turn back, or be destroyed.”
The vampires shied back, ready for anything and afraid of legends of a dragon’s fire. Not quite. But the crucial thing was that they did not retreat, nor make any sign of surrender. And so Gilead reared, and let forth the first burst, a billowing gout of black poison fume. Wherever it struck the ground, grass turned to dust, the earth dried and cracked, flies and beetles scattered before it and were unmade.
The vampires cackled. “Poison? Really?” Priya tittered. “You try to poison one of the living dead? I hadn’t realized we’d been fighting an idiot!”
Tanyth giggled, but there was a tension about her that Priya lacked. When Priya charged Gilead, Tanyth moved in fits and starts. She was, as always, the canny fighter.
Something tangible shifted inside Gilead’s throat, his organs locking into place for maximum power. He reared again, stretching out his tail for balance, and as colors swam before his eyes from lack of oxygen, he let forth a plume of venom so forceful that it threatened to knock him off of his feet. The venomous fume struck the ground like a solid force, then spread out in a great wind, destroying all before it.
Wesley, thinking quickly and knowing he could not move Sara, set his steam pistol to maximum power, and met the oncoming gas with a lengthy blast of steam, deflecting the air flow and neutralizing the venom within in a single move. Priya, her blurred form rushing into the cloud, was not so clever. The roaring of rushing air was soon accompanied by a hoarse, ear-piercing scream. Tanyth stopped in her tracks, momentarily paralyzed in horror before she started to run, but she was too late, and the cloud caught her as well.
Gilead let forth the venom inside of him for as long as he could, emptying out his innards onto the floor until he had nothing left to give. Only then could he breathe again, and only then did he fall back onto all fours. The venom cloud dispersed gradually, the lethal particulates sinking into the dry earth or being dispersed by the wind to kill no more.
Wherever it had touched, nothing living remained. The soil had turned black and dry, denuded of all grass and shrubbery, baked down to nothing. A wedge of green remained, with The Conductor of Justice at its center, trembling at fear of how close he had come to destruction.
Two figures writhed amidst the desolation. Priya had by far the worst of it, for no flesh at all remained. She was a skeleton encased in a thin membrane of fused flesh and cloth, unable to scream with no remaining vocal cords. Gilead stalked over to her, still remembering how ruthlessly she had tried to slay him in Ruthven’s palace. With one stomp of his claws he turned her skull into shards, then set to work making sure that no two bones in her body remained attached, scattering the pieces of her across the entire field and beyond.
More of Tanyth remained, but she wasn’t suffering any less. She looked like the corpse she was, like a shriveled mummy that had spent two centuries in a salt flat, her clothes all melted into the dried, stringy tissue. She crawled like a worm, claws digging into the dry earth in a desperate need to flee. Gilead put two fingers through the center of her back, tearing her spine and pulping her heart.
He staggered back to the center of the desolation, unable even to return to Vilena’s side before endurance ran out. The flicker, the return to the Zeroth, was as instant as it was awful. In between heartbeats, Gilead was instantly dumped back to how she had been before activating her armor. Her dress was dirty but intact, her hair and her breasts were in place. She was not Elaine, but neither was she anything else either. A failure.
She scanned the desolation she had wrought until she found a single glimmer amidst the black. Her sword had survived, against all odds. On hands and knees she crawled towards it, yearning for the sharpness: Gilead was a monster. Monsters needed to die.
…
Some people just have all the fucking luck.
Sara had never been displeased with her First Pretension; it was useful, made her a good fighter, even helped to regulate her emotions when she absolutely needed it. But it wasn’t spectacular. Ugly, really. A big man-shaped blob that looked to be woven out of yellowish clay. No face, no eyes, no mouth. A distinctly non-living entity, immediately marked out as something horrible and unreal.
And then Gilead du Carbennic got to be an actual dragon. He had eyes that worked, a mouth full of teeth and tongue, claws, blood, flesh! And the way that dragon could move; it was a distinct kind of beauty to it, the constant arching and twirling of the serpentine spine, the way Gilead’s talons only touched the ground for the instant required to create the illusion that his vestigial wings allowed him to defy gravity. If it was just a contest of aesthetics instead of skill or strength, Gilead would have crushed the two vampire women in a matter of seconds.
And then he vomited forth the apocalypse, and any sense that Gilead’s draconic form wasn’t death incarnate was blown away with the venomous wind. Seeing a wall of black death screaming toward her reminded Sara more than anything of the fall of Damascus. Death flew towards her at supersonic speed, but she did not die; and once it had passed, all that remained was stillness. This time she didn’t even have Zahra to stagger through the dust cloud with her.
But she was alive. Once the venom had settled, Wesley went back to bandaging without a word. Sara had no idea where he’d learned. But then, he’d been fighting a war, too, and everyone in a war learns how to put someone back together sooner or later. The scent of the white antibiotic slime had grown to overpower the scent of spilt blood, and discarded rolls of bandage sat scattered across the ground. How none of Priya’s blows had gotten much past the skin, Sara had no idea, but she wasn’t complaining. God must’ve been feeling charitable.
Considering the power Gilead slung around, it was somewhat impressive that his Pretension form lasted as long as it did. It flickered out while Sara wasn’t looking. One glimpse, the dragon was still staggering around in the aftermath, the next Gilead was back in the dress and wig, crawling on his hands and knees through the desolation.
Crawling with a great deal of purpose, actually, especially for someone who had got to be exhausted by that point. Sara followed the line of scuff marks in the dust, tracing out the path to its end point: Gilead’s sword.
“Gilead, there’s nobody else,” Sara said, immediately making her cuts complain. “You won! No need to keep fighting.”
He didn’t stop. Sara adjusted her position against Shati to sit more upright, squinting as she tried to get a better look at Gilead. He was crying. His eyes were locked on the blade.
Sara remembered back to her own ascension. The way that that phrase, Watch the World Burn, was pressed into her mind, how deeply the essence of her Pretension had been made a part of her, how strange that felt. And she had nothing against bombs, not in the abstract. But Gilead had told stories about all of the times he had gone off and slain dragons.
Sara’s pulse, which had just settled from the fight, kicked into high gear. She shoved at Wesley’s chest, pushing him away from her, following it up with a punch to the stomach when he tried to force her back down. Wesley could re-bandage her wounds later, but he couldn’t rebandage what was about to happen if Sara didn’t stop it. She hurled herself forward, starting the run from her hands and knees before getting up on her own two feet and sprinting ahead fast enough for the wind to roar in her ears.
“No you don’t! Not like this!”
Gilead’s fingers wrapped around the hilt of the sword, the achievement of his final objective such a relief that he promptly flopped over onto his back, staring up at the runes. He hesitated for just a second; or maybe it wasn’t hesitation at all, but merely the need to catch his breath. Either way, it bought Sara time before Gilead raised both arms above his chest and pointed the tip of the sword downward.
His muscles flexed, and the tip of the blade dropped a handful of centimeters before Sara got on top of him. She planted one foot in his stomach—Gilead let out a grunt, but said no words—and grabbed onto whatever part of the sword she could, one hand over top of Gilead’s on the hilt, the other one trapping the blade between her fingers and the meat of her palm.
“Don’t do this.”
Gilead’s arms tensed fully, and in an instant his full strength was focused on pulling the sword downwards into his chest. Sara screamed, nearly crumpling over as her joints were suddenly subjected to an incredible force, but although the blade continued to close the distance she did not allow it to fall. Her hand on the hilt couldn’t take it, the wrist felt about to snap, so with little other choice she let her full grip fall on the blade.
It was agony: blood poured as the blade bit deeply into Sara’s palm, forcing her to grip even more tightly if she wished to hold on. And she would hold on. Every second that passed meant she only needed to hold on another second, another second, Gilead was still alive for just one second longer!
“Gilead, please!”
Where was Wesley? Where was Vilena? Why did it have to be her? Sara was crying, probably, or maybe it was blood dripping into her eyes, but no matter what Gilead did she was never going to let go. What were you supposed to say when this happened, how were you supposed to sway a person who had become what they hated?
Something true, of course.
“Gilead, stop, please.” Sara lost her ability to speak for a moment, pain and despair turning her words into a shrill groan. “Do you know how long I’ve spent not believing in anything? And here you are, believing in everything!”
If what Sara was saying was breaking through at all, Gilead’s fixed grimace didn’t show it. She jerked to the side, attempting to force the sword to point at the ground, but succeeded only in tossing herself to the side, nearly falling off of Gilead’s chest entirely. The sword dipped, its tip piercing the skin over Gilead’s lung.
“There won’t be any more knights left once you’re gone, Gilead! There won’t be anyone else who believes in anything! I’ll follow you to the end of the sea of blood if it means I’m more than just someone who keeps avoiding death!”
Gilead’s fingers released from around the hilt, sending the sword’s pommel flying upwards into the bridge of Sara’s nose. With a yelp of relief and pain, she too collapsed, lying in the black dust next to him.
Sara could have fallen asleep there and then if her hand wasn’t in complete agony: as it was, runegazing was a nice way to pass a few minutes while her pulse slowed. She would regret that Gilead knew so much about her heart later, once she had stopped smiling. The night was quiet, but the animals were returning, birds and squirrels scampering in the ash plain.
“Was that… was that sooth?” Gilead said.
Sara turned over, pivoting her entire body so as to maximize the velocity with which she could smack him in the face. “You son of a whore! Do you really think I was in any state to come up with a convincing lie just now? No, that was real.”
“I thank thee most kindly,” said Gilead, and though Sara was still staring up at the sky, she could hear the smile in his tone. Her chest burned with embarrassment; the gall of Gilead to be happy about this! But of course he would be. Even immediately post-suicide attempt, he was still the golden boy.
Vilena shuffled past. Thankfully, Sara and Gilead had been speaking in Arabic; if anyone else had had to overhear Sara being sincere then, well, she and Gilead would have had to trade off. That did raise a question, though.
“And where have you been? He nearly just offed himself,” she gestured at Gilead, “and the world’s strongest woman was nowhere to… be… oh.”
Vilena had started crying. She’d already had streaks down her face, but Sara’s berating had severely worsened it.
“They were my friends, you know,” she said to nobody in particular. “I’d known them for years…”
There was something quite rich about a vampire moaning about the death of other vampires. As though Sara hadn’t known people who’d lost relatives to Ruthven’s empire of death. She very nearly said so out loud, but a twinge of sympathy convinced her to hold her tongue for the time being. Gilead sat up, lip quivering as he took Vilena’s concerns onto himself.
“Vilena, I—”
“Don’t worry about it. They… it had to happen. We need to go.”
Sara had to ask for help to stand up—she’d started losing a lot of blood again—and made the mistake of holding out her wounded hand. The agony of having Vilena grip onto it made her vision go white and her whole body seize.
“Sara, your hand! It’s a wreck!”
She hadn’t bothered looking at it, but a quick glance confirmed the assessment. The blade had bitten down to the bone, and she couldn’t flex her fingers.
“I think we need to find Zahra.”