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The blinding light of the staff still consumed all he could see, but now it seemed diluted: there was a wispy wash of something else over it. Translucent, yet impenetrable.
There'd been a clear dividing line. One moment, the heat and light had been ramping up, culminating in a blast almost too quick to perceive; the next, everything had shifted to an imperceptible distance.
Cyrisus lightly, tentatively, brushed the skin of his neck. He swore he could still feel the mahjarrat's sharp fingertips digging themselves in.
In the sudden silence after the storm, he'd found himself with a lot to process. A thousand things were on his mind, so many of them painted in the rich colours of her. But they were tainted with a deep sickness, a whirlwind of his darkest fears. He'd seen the staff's glare shine brilliant on her hair, a horrifying parody of those nights under moonlight...
And himself? Never mind himself. He'd yet to think a complete thought about what had happened to him. And yet it remained at the back of his mind, present but half-unacknowledged, too big and yet somehow unimportant to really be worth grasping.
Not until the skeletal figure with the scythe emerged seamlessly from the light, drifting forward to greet him. There was an hourglass in his hand, its glowing green grains all drained through to the lower bulb — and at that point, the truth was unavoidable.
The sudden force of that knowledge almost toppled him where he stood. Of all the things he suddenly had to consider, he found himself looking down at his hands: hands that would never grip another sword, pluck another herb, never brush their gentle way through Teiran's hair again...
He felt the unparallelled pull of yearning, knowing he'd do anything to feel her warmth one last time.
(The ring of life she'd made him was on neither of those hands, of course. He laughed mirthlessly in the futility of that beautiful gesture.)
"Cyrisus," Death repeated. Cyrisus hadn't even noticed the first time.
He looked up at the skeletal face, suddenly wondering if he should say or do something. Death was not a foe you could slay or a problem you could solve, and yet he felt like he should do something anyway. But no: instead he was lost, staring blankly at the Reaper in aching futility.
Instinct had him wanting to call Teiran for help. The pain of her absence took a few fearful moments to set in.
"Where is she?" he found himself asking.
"She has not yet passed into my domain," Death assured him. Whatever space he now inhabited, the Reaper's voice filled all of it, emanating from the air. "Her time is yet to come."
His words aside, there was something oddly comforting to the sound of Death's voice. The way it surrounded him was soothing in this unfamiliar realm: at the very least, this was one known quantity.
Strange that one of the most mysterious beings on this plane should put him at such ease.
"I'm glad she's alive," he said, now able to keep track of at least that one fact. Alive: a strong, simple word that he could cling to in confusion.
But it left so much unsaid. "How is she, apart from that? Will she be okay? Can I —"
He felt sudden embarrassment at pestering Death with questions like a five-year-old, and cut himself off before he dug himself any deeper — and in front of someone as significant as this.
"I am sorry, Cyrisus. I cannot answer your questions. Once Teiran joins you in death, you may ask her all you wish."
That set a conflict upon him: the prospect of reunion made his heart leap, and yet the guilt of wishing her dead weighed it down. What was he meant to feel here? How could he respond to that?
"You have no obligation to respond, Cyrisus," Death said. Could he read his mind, or was he simply that predictable? "You are freed from any obligations you had in life, no matter how large or how small. You may find your new state liberating, or you may long to return to what you had before. Many people feel both of these, contradictory as they may be. Either way, mortals — especially humans — rarely know how to deal with their own deaths. This is no character flaw, but a mere consequence of mortal existence."
Each sentence washed over him as if not quite real, but the sentiment came through regardless. Cyrisus felt his breathing slow — wondered why he was breathing in the first place — felt silly for even considering such a tiny thing, in the vastness of his own death.
His own death.
There was less strangeness to the concept now, but that barely left him anywhere closer to acceptance. The questions still flooded in unwarranted, and he dug his fingernails into his palm: no. No. Only one.
And so, from the untameable torrent running through his mind, he picked the most aching, complex question of them all:
"When will she die?"
Death's eyeless gaze and unmoving skull were impossible to interpret; nonetheless, the question had given him pause. After some unquantifiable time, he made his measured response: "I cannot say."
Of course, that only raised further questions —
"We must proceed."
Questions that might never find answers.
With one skeletal hand, Death raised his scythe and then sliced it sideways through the air — their blank surroundings fell away. In their place was a colourless paved area at the banks of a deep, dark river, leading into a bridge that stretched across it.
Another level of remove from the mortal world. Now that he'd left the site of his death, Cyrisus regretted never getting to see the conclusion of the fight. "I wish I could've stayed longer," he told Death.
Death nodded, matter-of-fact. "Many do. None can, unless by unnatural means. Better to respect one's intended time, to abide by the course of fate."
Fate. He mulled on the word. Had it been fate for him to rot away in that cave, dying to the gloating sounds of suqahs up above? Teiran would never respect a fate like that — the very fact that he survived it was testament to that. No, it had been fate for her to find him, to save him…
… and for him to die a scant few months later, saving her life in turn.
A life for a life. He could accept that.
Death stretched out a hand to gesture him forward, and he proceeded. At the entrance to the bridge, figures were shimmering into view like mirages: humans, goblins, dwarves, gnomes, a giant, a werewolf, a vyre. He'd expect fighting among such a group anywhere else, but most seemed too dazed to even try — one potentially scrappy-looking goblin was being intimidated into submission by the harsh stare of the apparent leader of the pack, a tall dog-like man in ornate Menaphite garb whose staff shone a guiding light through the darkness.
Icthlarin, the god of the Underworld. He'd never seen him before, but he knew him from the legends, the statues, the murals. Their first encounter would also likely be their last.
As Cyrisus joined the gathering, Death disappeared with no warning. He reappeared again and again, each time shepherding another individual into the group. Icthlarin's watchful eyes flitted between each new appearance of the Reaper, before some arbitrary point that the two reached a silent agreement on being enough.
"A safe journey to you all," Death wished the departing souls.
"I will guard them well," Icthlarin affirmed. The words seemed to have echoed in this place for thousands of years.
The Reaper bowed his head, and drifted backwards into invisibility. Cyrisus felt a tug of sadness at seeing him go.
Icthlarin turned his snout to the bridge ahead. He swung his staff in front of him, warding off whatever terrors might await, and stepped his first paw forward...
… and Cyrisus followed him into the afterlife.