Chapter 154: Small Indulgences
Almost a month after his fall, Simon was walking around outside. Mostly, he limited himself to short walks in the garden, but in time, he found he could wander a bit around the upper city, too. He was more than aware of the eyes on him then, though that seemed to be the scars more than anything.
The first time a child pointed at him and said, “Look, mommy, a leper,” he decided there and then that he would get some new shirts made to cover the scarring as much as possible and that he would get some gloves to hide the bits of fingers he’d lost.
The Queen was happy to help him with that, and soon thereafter, tailors had arrived to make him clothes finer than he’d worn in several lifetimes. However, it was only when he noticed how the otherwise businesslike tailor shuddered when he touched Simon that he realized that he might be a little more hideous than he thought.
That night, he stared long and hard at himself in the mirror, trying to decide if he should try to ameliorate the scars, but he decided against it. They didn’t really bother him, and when he got some clothes that had been cut with this problem in mind, they wouldn’t bother anyone else, either. After all, it wasn’t like anyone was going to see him naked any time soon.
When Simon was finally healthy enough, he made the long walk up to where he’d almost died with the help of a walking stick. He shouldn’t have done it. He was still too weak for a mile walk, but he couldn’t help it. It was something I needed to see.
When he got close enough to see the giant statue, he thought for a moment that someone was carving something to commemorate the occasion. It took him far too long to realize that what he was seeing wasn’t a statue. It was the remains of the monster he’d been fighting, frozen in stone.
Several thoughts hit Simon at once after that. The first one was that the thing wasn’t dead. It was just frozen in a statue like he’d once been so long ago. The second realization dispelled any sympathy from the first one, though.
The statue was on one knee, with its hands raised in the air and its two fists balled together like it was about to deliver the final blow. In that moment Simon could see what he must have looked like. There he was, lying where the ossified lava monster had been about to strike, broken beyond any measure. He could see his battered armor and the way it failed to hide the unnatural way his legs were bent. He could even see the fog of cold rising from him while the still-molten Brogan shimmered with heat.
The monster was going to end me, but it ran out of steam before it could, he thought to himself as he returned to his senses and sat back down before he fell over.