Chapter 95
Chapter 95
And Líran watched.
Half of Tuen had vaporized, in its place was a black hole. Streets stretched out of the hole and houses leaned away from it, giving the impression that they wanted to run. The smell of burnt rock, unlike that of burnt flesh, didn’t turn the stomach, but the brain.
Vivianne stood beside Gregoire at the edge of darkness, uncapable of thinking, uncapable of acting. Pierre was in a coma in Chambert, under the care of the mage Fregósbor. Tuen culd no longer be defended, so Germon and Bojet helped Neville and Luc to transfer all the survivors to Chambert, where Menior, Coalim, Thaila and the Eslarian helped Master Healer Marie any way they could. Bodies filled with screams carpeted the halls of Chambert.
If Vivianne looked forward, she only saw blackness: the Plume had been erased from the world. Joanna died cleaning her counter. If Vivianne looked to the sides, there were corpses, distorted, half burnt, some of them melted. So many corpses.
‘Let’s bury them,’ she said.
Gregoire protested because of the time it would take them to bury all those corpses, but Neville called for help and all the survivors of Tuen, plus everyone in Chambert who was not dying or looking after the injured came to help.
‘Where?’ asked Neville.
Vivianne poited at the middle of the black hole.
‘They will bring life back to the burnt soil. I know they will,’ she said.
Tuen and Chambert together braved the black smell with shovels. Bojet, Germon, Coalim, Vivianne, Neville, Luc, Gregoire, messenger Menior. And Líran watched.
Darkness and death filled Vivianne’s nostrils, invaded her bloodstream, weighed down her arms. She kept on digging. When the bodies began to descend, she thought she was going to cry, but her eyes were dry and distant. Had she become indiferent to death?
Neville, Thaila and the Eslarian lowered the last body. Pieces of people in a hole of pure carbon. Should they have dug a grave for each corpse? There were so many.
Luc was the first to pick up his shovel and through dead earth over dead people. Beside him, Coalim said discreetly:
‘I am sorry. For Tuen, for your brother.’
‘For Tuen I am sorry too,’ answered the one-eyed man. ‘For my brother I feel proud. Maurice died a hero.’
The word hung on everybody’s heads. Hero. Every bit of earth on the ditch seemed to draw the word as it fell. And all of them thought togheter: Pierre. The Eslarian put na arm (now healed) on Thaila’s shoulders. Without Pierre, what would have happened to them?
Gregoire fought against his own feelings. Why did he think of Pierre when the one-eyed man mentioned heros? Pierre was his half-brother, nothing else. Everything unpleasant that had happened in Gregoire’s life were because of Pierre. But so were the good things. And the amazing things.
Menior was taciturn. He had lost Frederico again.
Bojet and Germon thought about cards in the Plume. Don’t you see? Franária is here, playing cards at the Plume.
Neville was planning things in his head. For as long as Pierre was unconscious, Chambert depended on him. He tried not to think of Fregósbor’s words:
‘Magic and darkness clashed against him, like hammer and anvil. He might never wake up again.’
Vivianne was the last one to turn her back to the burial site. She was thinking of how Joanna’s belly shook when she laughed, in Maurice’s shiny eyes when he spoke of Pierre. Vivianne tore her eyes from the dead and searched for the living. Heavy shoulders, hanging heads, tired legs marching from the black hole to the ruins of Tuen.
‘Hero,’ she said. Powerful word, stronger thatn King. Everybody turned to see who had shaped it.
Luc, Bojet, Germon, scarred, strong, warriors; Neville, tall, black, noble; Gregoire, curious, incisive, doubtful; Thaila and the Eslariano, anxious, hopeful; Menior, unreadable; Líran, purple.
‘Pierre is in good hands with the mage of Chambert,’ said Vivianne. ‘While he recovers, it is up to us to not let this story end in darkness. If I recall, we had a plan.’