InsaneJournal

“Silver-eyed monster…”

“I can’t believe you paid him!”

“At least he’s leaving…”

“What about the thief? What are we going to do with him?”

“I kind of expected him to kill the guy for us…”

“Be quiet! What if he comes back?”

Not as far out of earshot as the villagers presumed, the man called Varas paused and shook his head. Unkempt black hair barely moved, held in place by ancient snarls and grime. He’d heard it all before, in every town, from every “grateful” client. “Everyone wants me to solve their problems,” murmured the ragged bounty hunter to himself as his legs swung into an easy stride, “and then go the hell away.”

He noted with some small sorrow that the pang of offense continued to lessen: today’s whispers had barely stung, when once they would have caused him to turn and challenge the cowards who could only speak of him behind his back. He supposed this was due to time.

Time he wore on his clothes and in his manner, though his face showed none of it. The strong lines of a warrior showed in limb and countenance: muscles accustomed to smooth power, expression calm and grim. For all the dirt and sweat, his hair showed not a hint of gray.

Not bad for a man of more than fifty winters.

If one were to seek his true age, Varas supposed they would have to look him in the eyes, and there were damn few bold enough to try it. His name had become synonymous with a legend, a cursed man with silver eyes wandering the realm in search of something forever beyond his reach. The world thought him damned and feared him for it.

Ironic, since in his view, it was the world that was damned and lost beyond its dreams.

Varas had walked untrodden paths through forest and glen, fearless of the wild things and shadowforms that lived in those unmarked places. He had ventured underground and deeper, and forged alliances with people long thought to have moved on. He had explored familiar roads with new perspective and sought out new roads with a familiar heart.

All of these places were as they should be; it was the people in the towns and villages of this realm who were out of place, out of step, and they couldn’t see it.

Varas stopped suddenly, his road-brown cloak billowing around his legs. “They wouldn’t even remember my real name. I wonder if it’s been struck from the records yet?”

A crow flapped angrily at his outburst before launching into the twilit sky. Varas watched it go. “If birds governed men…” He shook his head as if to shake off melancholy, then cast about for a likely resting spot for the night.

Finding none better than the crow’s abandoned tree, Varas stripped off his travel cloak and laid it out as a makeshift blanket. He unslung his leather rucksack and dropped it to the ground, then followed it gracelessly, flopping down in a tangle of long legs. He untied the bag and took out a canteen and a small packet of dried meat.

“To friends long absent,” he whispered before taking a drink. The fact that it was water and not whiskey didn’t blunt the sentiment in the slightest: the day he forgot to salute them would be the day he forfeited his humanity, and Varas wasn’t about to surrender that.

“To justice.” The voice seemed to fall from the wind itself.

The water chilled on Varas’ lips. He glanced around, half expecting a clever raven or the like treating him to a bit of mockery, though a deeper sense moved him to unholster his pistol and ready it. “Who’s there?”

Like ghosts wrought in ice mist, three pale shapes materialized from the newborn night. “Will you not acknowledge our toast, Captain?” murmured the most slender of the three as he – she? – paced delicately toward him on a cushion of air.

“We have surprised him,” the largest one stated blandly, striding around the tree and leaning against it to look down at Varas. This one was more clearly male, at least if the features and muscles didn’t lie. Still, there was something unearthly about him, something that defied such human concepts as solidity and gender.

The smallest knelt in front of Varas; this one could have been male or female, or both – or neither. She – he? –  smiled wickedly and said, “I see chains in your eyes.”

The slender one placed a graceful hand on the small one’s shoulder. “Chains are iron,” he stated in a low tenor. “These eyes reflect steel. Surely you have not forgotten, Captain? Or should I call you Varas the Oathbound, though you have made good attempt to flee from it?”

“I have never fled,” Varas stated sharply, raising his gun and aiming it at the speaker’s forehead. “What are you?”

That one shook his head, letting hair fine as spidersilk fly wild in a silvery halo. “Not relevant, but I may humor you. First, though…” Faster than thought, one slim hand snaked out and struck the gun from Varas’ grip.

The Dwarven-made sidearm skittered through a layer of leaves and came to rest between root and stone, well out of the bounty hunter’s reach. Varas glared, debated fighting barehanded, then relaxed back against the tree. “All right, you have my attention. What do you want?”

The largest of the three grinned, then drew the slender one close as the small one backed away. “What I want…” whispered the slender man or woman.

“…is to remind you…” whispered the large man.

“…of your Oath,” the small one concluded. The effect was as though one mind had spoken through three throats.

“I shall never forget it,” Varas growled. “I don’t know why you think I need a reminder.”

“Why? I am Memory, dear Captain,” the slender one murmured as his larger counterpart began kissing along his arched neck.

The small one nodded. “Memory, Loss, and Retribution. To you, anyway.”

Varas forced his attention away from the pair and addressed the third. “Which one are you?”

“Retribution.” A savage grin punctuated the reply.

A large hand fell to Varas’ head, guiding him to look up again. “You know all of us,” stated Loss. “You’ve been traveling with us for two cycles, though you’ve often lost sight of the fact.”

Varas scowled. Night’s dark lent an odd shimmer to the three, emphasizing their lack of solid flesh while sketching their forms in sharp relief: definitely male, the three of them, then.

Memory smiled down as he gracefully turned away from the larger wraith. As he moved, the seeming of clothes melted away to reveal lean muscles and a flat chest – and a rapidly stiffening member.

The hand on Varas’ head gripped him firmly as Memory stepped closer. Loss positioned Varas so that his lips touched the very end of the nude wraith’s prick.

It tasted like fog.

Varas tried to pull back, but the hand clenched in his hair and held him steady. Before he could gather himself to fight, his sight blurred to show him a glimpse of time long past: a woman draped in gossamer, and a sword standing bare beside her bed. The shock of the vision startled him; the moment his lips parted, Memory slid gently between them with a sigh.

Intoxicating and deceitful, the heady scent of sex filled his nostrils. His mind shouted at him that something was not as it seemed, but it took him several moments to figure out what: the smell was woman.

Memory laughed softly and leaned forward to catch at Varas’ sleeve. The wraith pulled the man’s arm upward, teasingly playing with his fingers, before settling Varas’ hand up between his legs.

Varas grunted in surprise as his fingers slipped behind the wraith’s testicles and found wet heat. Caught up in the strangeness of the situation, he let his fingers explore. His own cock twitched and stiffened as he pressed his hand up into the impossibly real flesh, parting the folds with the determination of a newlywed.

His mind showed him once more the woman and the sword, her face alight with passion and its diamond edge aglow.

Memory leaned forward to receive a deep kiss from Loss; his cock throbbed in Varas’ mouth even as his cunt grew molten around the human’s hand. After several breathless moments, the wraith pulled away, taking a graceful step backward. A thick strand of saliva hung between his cock and Varas’ lower lip, mirrored by the glistening line of slick now sliding down his thighs and coating Varas’ hand.

With a triumphant smile, Memory sank to his knees and set to unfastening Varas’ trousers.

Varas tried to clear his head, but the flickers of memory seemed drawn to the one bearing that name. As cool fingers caressed his heated flesh, Varas let his eyes slip shut in the hope that this would quiet the visions.

He could still see the sword.

Strong hands gripped his shoulders, bore him backwards and down. Varas gasped and opened his eyes to see Loss gazing down at him. Though the wraith put no weight on his captive, his grasp was uncompromising.

Slowly, deliberately, Memory repositioned himself across Varas’ hips and sank down. Varas groaned as the hermaphroditic wraith took him in and squeezed.

Slender hands braced against Varas’ chest as Memory began to ride, grinding down hard, filling himself with the human’s flesh.

“Gods!” Varas hissed. His mind reeled: he hadn’t allowed himself the company of a woman in two cycles. For so long he had kept one woman above all others in his heart, and now…and now…

“You will give me what you gave her,” whispered Memory.

Varas’ brain struggled to interpret the statement, and failed. Given? He had given her nothing: there had been no time.

The wraith smiled coldly and set one perfect fingertip to the center of Varas’ forehead.

Varas screamed as a lifetime of memories rushed through him. They whirled and collided in sparks like worlds born and dying, spinning until they blurred. One moment stood out above them all: the king’s daughter, the one true love of his life drawing pleasure from him in a gossamer haze. His heart thundered as sensations past and present merged into one blinding crescendo.

Memory howled, cunt spasming as his cock pulsed in release. He seemed to hang suspended in a frozen moment, head thrown back, eyes shut, long neck exposed as though offered to the blade.

Varas lay unmoving, unable to move, pinned by the two wraiths and the powerful lethargy of his own limbs. He struggled to catch his breath. Wraiths shouldn’t be so heavy…

Memory chuckled low and carefully disengaged. Stepping aside, he drew Retribution close for a soft and lingering kiss. As they separated, the smallest wraith smiled and bowed his head. Turning back toward Varas, Memory said gently, “I never said we were wraiths, Captain. You said that, and as usual, you are incorrect.”

Released to move at last, Varas shifted slowly into a sitting position. “So, you know what I’m thinking,” he growled, trying to set his clothes to right. “Will you tell me now what you are?”

“We are…”

“…Memory, Loss…”

“…and Retribution. What more do you want to know?”

Varas considered this a moment, then addressed Retribution as the last speaker. “What should I be asking, then?”

“Finally!” Retribution smiled; the effect was chilling. “Ask us why we are with you tonight, Captain. Ask me what I mean to do…with this.” He held up a small orb of light, smaller even than a hen’s egg, lit from within like a star.

“What…what is that?” Varas asked as a numb sort of premonition thumped against his heart.

“All right, I’ll answer that too,” Retribution purred, deftly rolling the orb across his fingers. “It is…your child, Captain. Just as you gave to her so many years ago.”

“You lie!” Varas snarled, lunging awkwardly for his pistol.

A large, booted foot blocked the weapon from his reach. Loss looked down and shook his head. “No. One thing we cannot do is lie.”

“Listen to me, Captain,” Memory called softly. “What we intend to do with that…is absolutely nothing, unless you fail to your task. Consider it a perfect hostage. Without our care, it is only semen. Should we see fit, though, we can create a child in the image of your son, and he shall become your executioner.”

Varas glared up from under his tangled mass of hair. “Damn you! I have no son!”

“But you do,” Retribution stated. “If it were not so, you would not bear the mark of the Oathbound, for there would be no true king to defend.”

“Or,” whispered Memory coldly, “had you forgotten?”

“Oh, my gods…”

“Not gods,” Loss said gently. “We are but echoes of a promise.”

Memory knelt and studied Varas’ face. “Your eyes are the mark of your bond, Captain. You knew this long ago – what has changed?”

“But I thought –” Varas’ protest died on his tongue. No pretender could call upon Oathkeeper’s geas: there had been a child.

That child…

“That child, Captain.” A cool and slender hand caressed his fevered face, cupped his cheek with astounding tenderness. “You were wrong so many times. You told yourself so many stories. There is no king upon the throne of this nation, Captain. There has not been since your son’s grandfather breathed his last.”

“Your son,” echoed Loss. “The son of the Queen.” The night wind caught his words as it gently tore through his form, parting him like mist at sunrise.

Memory breathed a kiss across his lips. “The pretender must die, Captain, before he destroys your son. You now know. The Queen has always known.”

Varas started, shock and grief and shame warring in his heart.

Without another word, Memory consigned himself to the winds.

“Wait!” cried Varas. “What must I do?”

“Tread cautiously, Captain,” warned the last wraith, “but do not hesitate: if your son dies, the pretender will destroy this world. And I have it on good authority that the world will not die easily. You are all of you balanced on the edge of a blade. Magic is not man’s plaything; if this war continues, you are doomed.” He raised the small glowing orb. “A small distraction, or humanity’s destroyer. We will not allow you to stand by and watch, Captain. The pretender must fall.”

Retribution shuddered and seemed to collapse inward, stretching ever taller until he resembled nothing so much as a ghostly sword, diamond-edged and lit from within by the starlike proof of one man’s folly.

Varas crumpled to kneel before this vision, one hand reaching out in supplication.

Black wings flashed overhead as the crow returned; its murmured complaints sounded like the cries of a newborn.

Varas ignored the bird, though the sound sent chills down his neck. A son – his son, the rightful king. “I never knew,” he whispered as hot tears traced his cheeks in an unaccustomed rain.

“Hold fast, Oathbound,” came a voice that was neither Memory nor Loss nor Retribution, but a ghostly blend of all three. “Hold fast. The path before you is now lit. You have much work to do…”