He twists in his chains, trying to escape. No more escapes. She reaches him, and rakes across his flesh, claws ripping through skin and meat. Tearing into him, as he tore into her.
He tastes moist and slippery, no different from any other animal. She buries her face inside him, beak reaching for morsels deeper in, his muscles straining around her, till she chews through them. When his breath heaves, she feels it from the inside, his ribcage sc.r.a.ping along her neck.
She leaves him, alive, once she"s eaten her fill. Her feathers brush across his bare chest as she turns, and he gasps, as if this touch, is more cruel.
When she returns to the mountain peak, he"s as new, not even a scar, and this spurs her, to even greater fury. How dare he be unmarked by what he"s been through? How dare he look like a perfect symbol of what she knows is a lie, a lie?
This time, she takes extra care once she"s finished feeding covering the rest of his body with bites and claw-marks, trying to drive her lesson home with every bit of flesh she breaks. Wounding him for every one of the uncounted dead, for every one he struck down himself, for all the ones he"s tried to excuse. By the end of it, he"s a foul, b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s, and now at last he looks like she feels.
Again she soars towards him. Again his skin is untouched. But there"s a ghost-image of his blood across his chest, and more of a haggard look in his eyes, and she hopes he may yet learn.
He reacts less and less each time, she comes to him, until it"s like attacking the mountain top itself. She tries getting more extreme, drinking more of the salt blood, but gets nothing more than a flinch, or a cringe, or the occasional moan. She lands on his chest afterwards and peers into his eyes beak almost touching the jelly but there"s nothing in them to show that he"s engaged with her, in the slightest.-Come on, she screeches. -Fight me!
It means nothing to break someone so uncaring, who will never learn.
But he just hangs there, giving no sign that he"ll make this easy for her.
She has no memory of where she goes when she"s not attacking him. She leaves, and she"s soaring right back, hungry again.
One time, she tries explaining draping her, wingtips across his shoulders, her beak working its way down his chest, leaving a precise trail of gouges and bites as she speaks. -As long as you were, just a collaborator, you could live. You hands were, still just clean enough, you had a chance to change your ways. But then what did your hands do?
Now, she tears into his belly, right where the knife had gone. -They took a life, she says after she swallows. -You killed me. The G.o.ds spared me, but that doesn"t spare you. Once the fire burns you, you stay burned. There is no hope.
She feels his head shake at that, or just loll. She wonders if he"s even hearing her, words, or just the endless cries, of a hungry bird.
He doesn"t break down, he doesn"t accept, he must be fighting it, but he still doesn"t give her a word. She has nothing to go on. She comes to him again, and again, his flesh ever more tasteless in her mouth, crowing to him about his d.a.m.nation, demanding he resist it so she can have something to break. Sliding from righteous control to unalloyed frenzy.
-Answer me, she shouts. -Fight me. Tell me I"m wrong.
Her wings flail as she holds herself in front of his heavy-lidded face.
-Challenge me. Tear into me. Fight me. Kill me! me!
Her wings stumble in the air.
Then she tears into his belly even harder, trying to get the taste of her words out of her mouth.
You stay burned. She can feel the scars where Britomartis was torn from her grasp, the sudden emptiness between her hands where Rhadamanthys had been. Surely giving up her hands should have stopped her feeling them?
When she withdraws from him, he"s trying to speak.-You wanted me to take responsibility, he whispers. His throat is dusty from disuse. -Take responsibility for you. Take responsibility from from you. Well, I did. you. Well, I did.
She peers at him, silently, from where she"s holding on. Her wing brushes against the ragged edge she"s left in his belly, and his muscles tighten in a useless spasm.
-Even if that meant giving up, on what I believed in, my bloodless solution. And even then, I was half aiming to miss, just by enough ...
A couple of bitter mouthfuls, and she turns to fly away, her appet.i.te shrivelled. She feels his body sag beneath her, exhausted, his final words calling weakly after her.-Which I did.
The next time, she"s not hungry. She rests on his chains, of that strange grey metal, at the point where they fuse with the rock. Looks down at his head, where it leans on the mountain.
-Just say you did wrong, she whispers.
-Which wrong, did I do?
-Say you were wrong. To make me answer questions I wasn"t ready to ask. To excuse the inexcusable. Not to give me an excuse.-I gave you what I could ...She can barely lift her head. Her scream"s diminished to a whisper. - Just say it. Lie if you have to. But say you were wrong, and we can both end this.
Slowly he raises his head his face inverted beneath her, his eyes showing her a hollowness she had yet to imagine.
-You still don"t get it, do you? You think it ends?
-It must ...
A shake of his head, a murmur. -You think the G.o.ds just sent you here to break me, and then you"ll take your place by their side? You"re sentenced here, same as I am. They made this environment from your mind and mine.
-No ...
-If you can"t free them, you mean nothing to them. Like me, you"re better off out of the way.
She throws herself down to tear this truth out of him. But halfway down she stops her own wings and lets herself plummet, down along the rock face, closing her eyes and willing the ground to erase her. Falling and falling and never hitting bottom. Never stopping.
And she looks down and sees herself descending towards him, again, and lets out a scream that would tear through anyone for miles. If there were, anyone else, in the world at all.
-We"re caught in a fold of time, he says, as she wheels and thrashes over him. -Stuck in a moment bent back on itself. No change, no end. No matter how many times you kill me.
-It can"t, she caws, the meaning of her own words almost lost under the noise. But his words wrap around her, low and raw and overwhelming.
-That"s what this is all about, isn"t it? The ending. The clean break you"re looking for, where all the guilty are punished and the innocent live happily ever after. Well, let me tell you what"s going to happen after you die.
When the eruption comes, in centuries time, it won"t be the end. Akrotiri will be erased, but the empire will not lie down so cleanly.
There will be no summer. The explosion will poison the sky for a decade, tsunamis across the Aegean sowing fertile ground with salt. Many will live, escaping a clean, righteous execution, only to starve over years. Gaunt brutes sc.r.a.ping out an existence in half-buried homes, the debris too thick to bother to clear away. Authority will crumble, justice forgotten, kings abandoned now that it"s clear that they cannot protect the people.
They"ll sacrifice children, in an attempt to appease the G.o.ds, who have long since fled them.It does not end.
Eventually even the G.o.ds, will fall. Rhea and her snakes will be driven underground. Apollo with his lyre and his clear eyes will slay the Python, and claim the Pythia"s wisdom for his own rational domain. Then even his kind will be laid low. The children will fall before new races of G.o.ds, and eventually divinity itself will wither in a world that sees no place for it.
But even then, it does not end. does not end.
His face, soft, hard, speaking truth. Mourning and accusing. Bloodied and weary and relentless.
She can hear no more. She raises her talons to her eyes, trying to drown out the pain. Her claws slicing in, the jab of her nails against the bone at the back And again, she sees him beneath her as she descends.
She didn"t know it was still possible to sob in this body. She ends up collapsing on the rocky peak, clinging to his chains for support body heaving, wings wrapped around herself for comfort.
-Alcestis.
It"s jarring to hear that name directed at this creature.
He cranes his neck to look at her, his human face looking outsized next to hers. -We all fall down. You, me, kings, G.o.ds. It"s not all we do.
The chains under her are quivering. He"s twisting a wrist back and forth in its manacle, contorting to scratch an itch. From the quiet, tight spike of frustration on his face, this now is the most agonising thing in the world for him.
She shuffles her body down toward him, and with her beak she gently scratches against his wrist. His whole body sags with release. She says: -But you"ve told me where it ends ...
-Even that"s not the be-all and end-all. There"s so much more that can happen, things that haven"t even been thought of. You haven"t discovered C-sharp minor yet, or Darjeeling with lemon. Or representative democracy. Or that way you can taper the rim of your cups so you can pour with them more easily. None of that ends either.
His words are, so gentle, even honeyed. -How can you say this? she asks, her head resting on his hand.-Because it"s true.
-But how can you say it to me? How can you speak to me like you forgive me?A half-curled smile.
-Oh, Alcestis. You know how good a liar I am. how good a liar I am.
Her heart doesn"t stop. It just sort of trickles away.
And his hand closes round her throat.
She can gasp, but barely. One eye pushed flat against the rock face, heart rattling her, body with panic.
His face is cold, flat, a flake of stone. -You just tortured me. In my mind, I"ve wrung your neck and flung you down a thousand times. mind, I"ve wrung your neck and flung you down a thousand times.
She thrashes, but her claws can"t reach him, her neck can"t turn without snapping.
-But I"m still here, he continues. -No matter how often I do it. And there"s always another eagle where you came from.
His clutching hand a million miles away from that raw hollow face. Almost a completely separate creature.
Slowly, hesitantly now, eyes fixed as his fingers tighten. -There"ll always be another eagle ...
And she crumples, trying to sob through a blocked throat. -I deserve it, she manages. -Anything - He cuts her, off, his voice shaking. -No, not anything. You deserve a lot, but you don"t deserve to die.But his hand refuses to let her, go.He"s talking fast, talking to her, arguing against himself. -Not for them using you in their crimes, not for executing them. Not even for me. No justice in killing someone who wants to die.
A final shake of her head. She"s stopped fighting him now, but still struggling for every whisper of precious air. How can he say she"s worth sparing? A life sentence is no mercy.
-You already tried ... to kill me ...
There"s a manic tightness round his eyes. -And I"d do it again, if there was no other way. There isn"t always. But if there is, it"s a crime to miss it. Don"t you see? Not just hit back. Not just the obvious and the ugly.
His guts are torn open and he"s bleeding words. They come faster and faster, disconnected, washing over her. Even now he"s healed, his seams are ripped wide open - eyes pleading, crumpled voice trying to outrun tears, struggling to reach something beyond the grasp of his hands.-Lose myself in an ocean of possibilities. Always looking for something else, even if you don"t know what when you start looking. That"s what I"m supposed to do, isn"t it? You"ve got to find another way ... If you deserve to die, how can I deserve to live? With all I"ve done?
But he still can"t let up. Her eyes are blurring, wash of red closing in. And his words rush on, carrying him, helpless in their wake.
Time and again, I have fallen into fire and the fire did not take me. I"ve seen blazes claim whole worlds. I"ve watched them burn around me. There"s blame enough to go around and around - trace the path of the fire back through decades and centuries of cruelty and inattention - but I can point to one moment when I failed to find another way. When I took the best way open to me. The great and the good, the cruel and the cowardly, all turned to silhouettes of ash.
I still stand. I stand where so many have turned to dust. If the fire spared me, it was not because I was worthy. What can I do but try to be worthy? If I am less than the best of those who were, lost, that would shrink the world. Even as the fire burns on, even if it does not end, I must not let it rob me of my own ability to stop!
And the air rushes back into her.
He sags against the mountain, breathing as hard as she is. Over each sweet breath she hears his murmurs, stray fragments, noises of sorrow and remorse. From her own mouth she hears the same sounds. Then there is silence, together, apart.
When the mountain top begins to melt, he closes his eyes and lets out a sigh, draining the last of his breath from his lungs. Beneath her hands hands? she can feel the rock losing its rock-ness, the chains in flux.
-At last, he murmurs.
-What"s happening? she cries.-Either the G.o.ds, are, weakening, or we"re both going mad.
Whichever you prefer.
Everything is wavering, losing its edges, like a landscape through the shimmer of noonday heat. Even her own body, now translucent as finest linen. In this world, the Doctor is the only solid thing left.
-It"s the crystals that bind the Fallen to our world, says the Doctor, - allow them to manipulate it. Like all this. With Deucalion and his men scattering them, burying them, their power fades. The bulls, all this, gone. When we came down here I gambled they wouldn"t be able to sustain eternity forever, I was hoping it would give us enough time, together ...
-You came in here for me?
A ghost of a smile. -Like I said, I was responsible.
Humbled, beyond thought, her, head, bows before him.
He brings his hands down, the chains stretching like toffee. She expects him, to fall, but there"s nothing to fall to. -When the time, comes, we"ll need to ride the currents out of here. You"ll need to fly blind, just dive in. One jump. If you don"t ... (His eyes find hers.) -Well, it"s only a little way down into the magma, you won"t have time to feel a thing.
The form the G.o.ds had convinced her was hers is falling away. In a few moments, she knows there will be nothing left. It can be over.
His eyes are those of a man in need of mercy. But now, even the form around them is coming apart now old, now young, both vast and tiny, a thousand embroideries on a basic truth. Something bigger inside than the shape that contains it.
She grabs onto him with all that remains of her. There"s a fire in her hands and she lets it burn through her, refusing to let go, holding on to a single truth out of the body of contradictions. The man who, caught up in this violent world, claws and drags his way toward peace.-Now, up up And they"re falling, clinging to each other, the wind tearing through them and the only warmth their skin pressed together. Sunlight, so cold, the sky rolling wild around them and the tiny islands so far beneath. She"s gasping for air, sobbing and laughing and filling her lungs with as much as she can hold.
-Here, she tells him, and holds him even tighter. -Let me do this.
And she reaches for the currents to carry them, but they aren"t there.She pulls back from his shoulder, catches his eye, sees his grave expression before she can speak.
-The G.o.ds were the source of the currents, he murmurs. -And now they"re cut off.
And all she can do is shake with laughter, the tears blasted from her face by the wind.
-There are still some left, he tells her. -No waves, just ripples. Aftershocks. Going on for years. Possibly enough to support you.-I can"t feel anything ...He taps the tangle of wires, the fire-crystal still strapped to his back, just above her arms. She cranes her neck over his shoulder; it"s still glowing, faintly.
-This thing"s interfering with you, so close. You can still fly but alone.
For a long moment, she just realises.
-No, she says, and begins to rip the crystal from him.
He stops her with a gasp, his whole body tensing. -The currents are too weak now. You couldn"t carry me.-I"ve got to!So he lets go of her. Instantly, she grabs on with arms and legs, holding him to her pinning them both, the crystal beyond her reach.
-Alone. It"s our only chance. (His eyes close wearily.) -Your only chance.She hangs on fiercely. -I can"t ...-Well, it was easy enough for you a little while ago, he mutters peevishly. -Sorry, sorry.-Not after all this ...-Exactly. You throw your life away after all this, then it was pointless. You still don"t get off that easily. You helped make this world, you"ve got to live in it.
She looks him in those hot-sky eyes. There"s no answer in them; he doesn"t know which way the wind will blow her. But there is certainty.He"s said everything he needs to.She says: -I can"t do the things you"ve done.
He shakes his head. -You never know. You might do better.
And he waits, for her to be ready.She holds on, trying to feel every piece of him at once, trying to stay caught in the moment.It takes every bit of herself to open her arms.