She held the cane in her hands. An ordinary movement, a strike against the floor — and all the illusory space crumbled. Thousands of tiny shards, like mirrors that once held memories.
My memories.
No, not mine at all, theirs. What I wanted to steal, like someone else's breath. What I wanted to call my own, having neither right nor grounds for it.
She stood, holding the cane like a victor's banner. And in her gaze, not a desire to fight. No, not at all, she came not to fight, but to win. Crushingly, without remainder. Grind to powder, scatter the ashes over her abode, like the remains of a tiresome test subject. As if I'm a pig, and she squeamishly can't stand filth.
Seems she wasn't planning to linger. Though, I understand her, who would want to look long at something so disgusting?
"Tell me in more detail, what was that memory and what did it mean to you?"
There it is, a request that sounded like an order. Can't say I was glad to tell her everything I'd once experienced. From the outside, this whole ceremony looked as if I were her slave, forced to dig through my own memory to entertain the mistress. But, strangely enough, I didn't fixate on this. Because it's a game, and a game doesn't tolerate violations.
"What exactly do you want to hear from my lips?" I asked, as if I hadn't heard, as if I didn't understand.
"Don't play dumb (though, perhaps, it's not pretense), I'm curious. This memory is yours and not yours at the same time," the witch said with a slight bitter aftertaste in her voice. "It belonged to Yahweh, after all. The path we witnessed."
That mountain. That path. That mission. Not my memory.
"Why then were we observing his life, and not yours?"
"Stop," I interrupted her. "You speak as if you have nothing to do with this. Aren't you the one choosing what the memory will be?"
"You're right," she said. "However, I can't know which moments of your life were the deepest wounds in your heart. Pity, I so want to touch them and make them even deeper."
And however it sounded, in her voice wasn't a lie, but sincere thirst. Thirst for pain, but not her own, mine.
We continued talking. Where's the rush, if time doesn't exist here? There was neither beginning nor end here, nor clock hands to remind you that you're still alive. And, perhaps, this is what irritated most of all.
"Remarkable, how inconstant you are," she said. "You don't want to see me, but you continue dragging out the game, as if I'm your own desire. Ehe-he-hi."
Again that laughter. Irritating, ringing, venomous. Laughter that stretches for eternity, like a snake coiling around the throat.
"This is a relic of the past, in which Yahweh together with his comrades headed to the mountain," Enua began.
Understanding that the real game had begun, the witch dropped her ceremonial words.
"And who was the person living on that mountain?" she asked. Calmly, like a teacher checking homework.
"The Elder," I answered shortly.
Confession of ages. Throughout human history, people were born to whom fate prepared a special path. A thorny path, a sorrowful path. A path before which others fell, but you had no right to stop.
They were called heroes.
A mission was granted to them, not by gods, but by people. They were humanity's hope. Legends said that heroes appeared only when the world stood on the brink of destruction, when epochs collapsed. When people died out. When hope became a luxury.
And each hero sought the one who knew most of all — the Elder. Not an old man, no, but one who carried knowledge, who saw the future. They prophesied, and their words always came true.
The hero's main mission — find the Elder. The one who will tell of the coming threat.
"What happened next?" the witch asked with a light, almost theatrical smile. "Did they find him?"
"When they arrived..."
Pause.
And suddenly a scene flashed before my eyes. A shard of memory came to life.
He was dead.
"The Elder was killed for unknown reasons," I said.
"Unknown to them," the witch corrected. "But not to you, you were observing, after all. You saw everything. Name the killer."
The name of one I'd already met more than once. A name that always returned, like a splinter. Someone else's, but close. Close, but distant.
"The killer's name..."
Avaley Le Fay.
"Bingo-o!" the witch drew out, rejoicing.
And in that same moment I felt heat engulf my body. I lowered my gaze and saw a blade that had pierced my right shoulder.
"AAAAA!!!"
The scream tore free, like a flash, ripping through space. But it wasn't space that trembled, it was everything. From her laughter, from that terrible, insane laughter, as if she'd just pulled fate's jackpot.