Death After Death

For the next month, that’s all life was. Every day, Simon taught the sisters he’d brought how to live in their strange new situation, and every night he rekindled a passion with Zoa that had long been dormant. No, not a passion with Zoa, a passion period. He fed on her affection and slowly returned it.

It was blissful, not least of which was because he didn’t have to hide anything from her. While he didn’t explain every last detail or anything, if he mentioned auras or mirrors or even Whitecloaks in the afterglow as they lay together, she didn’t judge him or pull away. After wearing a mask for so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to just be. It was like a kink in his neck he’d lived with for so long that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to live pain-free.

Many of the Whisperers learned quickly, and after a few weeks spoke a couple of dozen common phrases. That was the easy part. Introducing them to their new morning ritual after that was harder, both because it seemed crazy and because nudity was a lot more taboo in Brin than it ever was in Ionia. The coastal people reveled in their bronze tan, and while artisans and city dwellers usually wore fine togas, fishermen and laborers often lived their lives half-nude in loincloths or less.

While Simon had once experienced similar reservations, he’d grown used to them long ago. While Simon spent a day or two with each group of sisters that was allowed to mingle with the wider community, he always came back to his classroom. That was a full-time job, since it was increasingly the oldest and slowest learners that he was stuck with. Still, Simon thought that in another two or three months, everyone who was well enough to work would be released from his care, and he’d be free to live a normal life in that community.

Until then, though, his tasking kept him busy enough that he never had the time to spend with Zoa when the sun was up. That one little detail made all their meetings feel like secret trysts, even though they were anything but. Everyone knew, including Kristos, and all of the other acolytes he’d once called friends.

Even the sisters who were slowly integrating knew, though they sometimes had questions about how he could have found such a devoted partner in such a short time. Fortunately, the language barrier made it easy to tell two different audiences two different stories; Simon had no idea what he’d do in six months or a year when the sisters knew enough Ionian to find out that he’d had a whole life here, and the timelines didn’t quite match up.

He certainly didn’t tell them about the mural he made, even when he was asked about it directly. “Is that really what it’s like when you can truly see?” a Whisperer named Drusilla asked him one day when everyone was on their way back from the day’s labors.

“So I’m told,” Simon agreed, enjoying the way that she and other women praised his old work. He’d positioned it such that it was impossible not to look at it on the way back to the city every day for those who worked, but it was still nice to see that it inspired all these years later.

None of that mattered, though; no one was trying to stop the two of them from being together, and even if they were, Zoa wouldn’t have let that happen. From that first night, she was greedy with his time to the point of obsession, not that he was complaining.

Since his maiming, Simon had been a shadow that only came to life whenever Varten, of all people, was around. Even before that, he’d been a rank-and-file member of an order large and dispersed enough that he’d just sort of blended in, but there was no blending in here, no matter what color robes he wore.

Day by day, and week by week, the two of them started building a life together once more, and it was comfortable. He slipped into it like an old pair of shoes, and by the time he was graduating the last of the Whisperers from his now well-worn language class, they were as much a couple as they’d ever been.

Throughout all of that, Simon wondered if there would be some form of retribution for spiriting so many Whisperers away and bringing them here. Would the Whitecloaks find out and pressure Brin to send an army? Would Queen Elthena find out and demand their expulsion? Perhaps the Oracle would do something to those who’d used magic in her home, he worried.

None of that happened, though. It seemed as though Simon had gotten away with it entirely, which surprised him, on some level. He wasn’t used to things working out so well for himself, let alone those that he tried to help.

Whenever he thought of that, he reflected on the words of the Oracle that he might not have as long as he thought, and reminded himself. This time, just prove her wrong. Whatever the emergency is out there, you can just stay here, with Zoa, and let one of your future lives handle it.

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It was good advice. Basically, no news came to Hepollyon from the outside world, but even if it did, Simon planned to tune it out. His plan was a simple one. All he wanted was to enjoy his current life, be as productive as a one-handed man could be, and die at a ripe old age with his sight fully recovered and a plan to delve deeper into the Pit.

Zoa, though, had other plans. Somewhere along the way, Simon figured out that she was trying to have his child. That’s something he should have realized right away, but it was only after the third monthly debauch, just before the full moon, that he put two and two together. That surprised him, but he supposed he didn’t really have a problem with it.

As nostalgic as Simon was for his previous lives in Ionar, he quite liked the idea. A new child would never replace Seyom, of course. He knew that. The boy was gone forever, but perhaps a new son or daughter would light up his life in the same way.

If he was going to stay here for a lifetime, why not? He told himself this on more than one occasion. Twenty or thirty years with a little bundle of joy would give him meaning, and when he finally died, he’d have confidence that they’d be safe here, even without him.

He dropped hints that he knew, but Zoa remained elusive. She never told him that’s what she was up to, but Simon was loath to refuse her anything, at least at first. Once his sight started to return in earnest toward the end of that first year, though, he grew slightly more concerned, if anything.

For starters, the longer they were together again, the more certain he was that children weren’t in their future. That didn’t have anything to do with seeing the future on his part, just that he could see there was something wrong with her health. It might have been cancer. He wasn’t entirely sure. The only physical sign that he’d noticed, before he began to see a growing, sickly darkness in her, was weight loss.

He confronted her about that immediately, one day when they were working together to trim grape vines on the southern slope. He’d tried to talk to her about her health when they were alone at night, but she always found a way to distract him. Here, under the blazing sun, though, she could not escape him, no matter how much cleavage she let her gray robes reveal.

“It’s fine,” she insisted, “And even if it isn’t, there’s nothing to be done about it.”

“Nothing to be done?” he almost choked on the words. “There’s always something to be done. Always, always, somebody can do something.”

“Sometimes only the gods can intervene,” she said with a sigh. “My mother died of a wasting disease when she wasn’t much older than me, but within this mountain, I’ve lived a much healthier life than she ever did.”

Simon shook his head. Trace volcanic fumes were probably much worse for everyone than sea air, and that wasting disease might very well have been a version of the cancer that he was seeing even now. In a couple of months, he’d be able to see whatever it was a lot better, though whether that was because of increased sight or a worsening condition was anyone’s guess.

He protested, and she stormed off, but Simon wouldn’t let it go. “I could fix it with a word, Zoa, you know that!” he all but shouted. “Two, maybe, if it was really bad.”

“Yeah, and then you’d lose your sight all over again,” she sighed. “You’ve told me that before.”

He thought about arguing that, but instead side-stepped it and ranted about talismans for a minute, while she continued to cut away pieces of the vines wrapped around the trellises. “By the end of the week, I could have a wand that would fix everything without hurting my sight even to the smallest degree.”

That last part wasn’t strictly true, but a single word of healing would only cost him days or weeks. It was barely a paper cut. She insisted that she wouldn’t allow it, though, and held herself away from him the rest of the day. It wasn’t until nightfall, when he returned to his own cell for the first time in weeks to sleep alone, that she came to him.

They kissed and made up then. “Let’s just enjoy the time we have, however long that may be, and spend all the rest of our days together,” she told him as he stroked her hair. He agreed with that and promised not to bring it up again. He’d keep that promise, of course, but he said nothing about making the wand and using it on her while she slept.

She’ll never know, he told himself as he selected a likely piece of wood for carving a few days later. A few hours of work, a few seconds of magic, and we can both live to be ninety.

Of course, finding time to be alone and work on his wand was harder than the actual carving, and he sometimes went days without finding a minute of peace. During the day, he was working like everyone else, and at night, he was with Zoa. Eventually, he took to sneaking out of her bed and finding a quiet spot on the cliffs to whittle on the nights when she’d had a little too much to drink. He could only work for an hour or two at a time like that, but he felt pretty sure that after four or five nights, he could put this problem behind them. So, he wasn’t in that big of a hurry.

What he wasn’t expecting was for the Oracle to be there waiting for him on the third night. That took Simon completely by surprise, even though it shouldn’t have. He’d been in her valley for almost a year, and she hadn’t so much as summoned him or sent a servant with a missive, and now there she was, sitting on the rock he’d spent the last two nights carving on.