The Stone Sorceress

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

"I don't understand," Aurora uttered at last, "Why haven't you acted sooner, it's been nearly 10 years?"

"Bahamut covets the most powerful of the sorceresses - Arethusa," Astraea shuddered because that was the name of the woman from her dreams. Thanatos must have made the connection when she told him about them.

"For years I've conducted researches; the devil has provided me with the means. I know all about what happened - the sorceri and the vita obscura."

Eros said, "Then you truly have become the devil's servant - you're a demon."

Thanatos didn't reply.

"I--" Eros hesitated. "I can help you, even now."

"No time," Thanatos said. He drew a dagger from his leather belt, the same blade he couldn't bring himself to use upon Astraea, and, considering it in the palm of his hand, he once more glanced at Eros, then at Astraea. Then he plunged it into his chest. Pain shot through him.

The cries of Eros's voice were a lump in his throat, Aurora couldn't look, and Astraea, Astraea cried out running to Thanatos. She wept fiercely, trying to support her master in her arms; she looked to the hilt of the dagger that protruded from his chest; one more gasp escaped her lips.

"Astraea--" Thanatos was dying, "Bury me...with the sword," still she cried. "Promise me."

She wept, "I promise."

Between two tomb's, her love in her arms, drenched by an eerie light, she cried because, for the second time, Thanatos had died.

Eros laid his friend to rest in the valley; he'd insisted on digging the grave himself - at last being able to give Thanatos the burial he never could. The 85th all stood beside the fresh grave that had a pile of rocks at the head. The waterfall oversaw the funeral from a short distance.

Aurora studied Eros intently, "Why do you mourn him?" She said finally mustering the courage, "He was a villain."

Eros said, "He wasn't always so. I knew him since we were kids. I grew up with him. He was the only family I had."

Astraea thought back to the events in her life with Thanatos; she remembered the most recent, of her kneeling over the body that lay peacefully, laying the sword in his grasp. She'd deposited a kiss on his cheek, and whispered, "As you wished my lord."

Sabriel herself thought back to the recent past, the delicate conversation with Eros about Thanatos possessing such ancient treasures, "Taking them with us into the world would be far more perilous. Thanatos is no longer our enemy, and no-one would think to search for the weapons here," Eros had said. She glanced over at he who yet remained at the grave, sometimes silent, sometimes she could make out his mouth moving although what he was saying she didn't know.

When Eros at length joined the 85th, it was already evening. Typhon had prepared food, but Eros didn't feel like eating.

Skoll said, "I think you should have this."

Silence had descended, and hadn't lifted for some time. Eros finally looked across at the Beowulf who held the twin of the sword that Thanatos had so feverishly clutched. It had a silver blade, a golden hilt, and an identical crystal pommel to the aforementioned blade - Montalais.

"Eponine," Sabriel said.

"I took it from the tomb, from the other sarcophagus. I figured you could do a lot of good with it."

Eros turned his head away; his mind was full of Thanatos, of seeking him amongst the embattled city of Hyperion, only to find him fighting valiantly against an enemy horde. That was Thanatos's creed. If only things could have been different.

"Maybe you were meant to have it," Typhon added.

Eros switched back to the faces around him. He took the sword, but he didn't care. He focused intently upon Astraea instead.

Astraea for her part was no less distressed at the death of Thanatos than Eros was. It didn't help her ruminations that he spoke what he did before he died - that he hunted sorceresses for the devil. How could he not share this with her, and if such was his task, why didn't he kill her? Furthermore he hunted Arethusa. She had been having dreams about a sorceress named Arethusa, surely the two were connected. At length she noticed Eros, who had been watching her closely for some time.

"You were his ally?" Eros began the interrogation, "You aided him against us."

Astraea was helpless; she couldn't defend herself.

"That's how he came to be at Daoine Maithe's," Eros's eyes became red, they filled with. "It's like Aurora said: I fell for a cruel and wicked sorceress only to be betrayed."

"Cruel and wicked," Astraea at last finding a modicum of resolve, "You really think me so?"

Eros said dryly, "I do."

Astraea just looked back at him; she noticed the cold expressions on the others. They looked at her with nothing but disgust on their faces. The man she loved was buried behind them.

"Go away." Like Thanatos, Eros couldn't kill her.

"La! You'll let her go?" Sabriel became animated. "She betrayed us, we might have all died at Daoine's."

"I will not murder her in cold blood."

"She killed the man at Lemuria with her sorcery, and we're certain the mage in the forest was her."

Eros buried his head in his hands.

"You wanted justice for Idris, well now you can have it - she killed him." Sabriel pointed at Astraea's pathetic figure.

Eros began to raise his voice, conflicted and still shaken in the aftermath of Thanatos's death. He and Sabriel argued, Aurora chimed in, Skoll tried to diffuse the situation, and even Typhon gave terse words of condemnation. Sabriel at last unholstered a pistol, and aimed it at Astraea's head, "Eros, she is a sorceress, we can't let something so powerful, with so black a heart roam freely across Lucretia. I'm sorry but--"

Eros snatched at the barrel of the gun, and cast it to the floor.

Sabriel furiously looked upon Eros, regathered her pistol, and stomped away. Typhon went after her. Astraea rose to her feet, and took a step towards Eros, her mouth opened to speak.

"Go," Eros whispered, his strength failing him.

Astraea walked off into the night. Eros followed her with his eyes until at last, she was lost in the darkness.

End of Part III: Thanatos