The Power and the Glory

Book 2 Chapter XIX: Journey to the Past

Warning: contains violence, murder (including patricide and people being burnt alive), and references to attempted rape.

People always say
Life is full of choices
No one ever mentions fear
Or how the world can seem so vast
On a journey to the past
-- Anastasia (musical), Journey to the Past

Back in the Land of the Living Irímé was getting anxious. They hadn't heard a sound from the bedroom for over an hour. Shizuki was beginning to notice something was wrong. Siarvin and Koyuki's attempts to distract him with board games wouldn't work forever.

In an undertone he asked, "Why is Abi still in there? What's she doing?"

Siarvin shrugged helplessly. "She said she'll bring him back."

Irímé had a sudden image of Ilaran turned into one of Abi's mindless corpses. He shuddered. It was such a profoundly wrong image he wouldn't be surprised if Ilaran came back from the dead just to prevent it happening.

~~~~

What Abi and her friends had forgotten was that many people had witnessed her attack Haliran. Raivíth publicly announced she had been punished for it, yes. But a simple announcement wasn't enough to stop all the rumours her actions had caused.

The police received more than garbled twenty reports within an hour that Abi was a necromancer who'd attempted to murder someone. After the twentieth report they decided they had to do something. So a group of policemen set off to arrest her.

~~~~

The first thing Abi noticed about this new scene was how cold it was. Now even the blazing fire in the middle of the room could keep out the chill. All it did was cast most of the room into darkness broken by flickers of light.

Ilaran was there, older again than he'd been last time but still not quite an adult. If she had to guess she'd say he was about the same age as she was now. Another man stood opposite him, a blond man several decades older than him and in mud-stained travelling clothes. Abi was amused to note how the two men couldn't have looked more like opposites if they'd tried. The blond man was quite short, had a square jaw and wavy hair, and wasn't overweight but certainly wasn't underfed either. Ilaran was tall, had a very angular face and straight hair, and looked even thinner now than he did as an adult. The two of them put side-by-side could serve as personifications of substance and shadow. Yet there was a vague resemblance between them, just enough for her to remember the blond boy from the first time she'd arrived in Ilaran's memories.

Another half-sibling? How many does he have?

"What do you want?" Ilaran asked in a bored voice. He didn't even look at the other man. Instead he flipped through an atlas.

Instead of answering the question the man said, "I know where the cult are meeting. My mother's one of them. They've deluded her into believing they have the truth."

"I'm not surprised," Ilaran said coldly. "What has that to do with me?"

The man looked taken aback at this reaction. "You swore to stamp them out. They're killing people from the city."

"Stamp them out with what army?" Ilaran asked. "In case you've forgotten I'm still just a student. My mother is ill. I have no friends or supporters to turn to in this city."

The man was silent for several minutes. "I know you killed that teacher. In his own house, no less."

Ilaran looked up sharply. "What of it? Are you going to call me a murderer for killing a man who tried to rape me?"