The Final Life

  ***

  “And then,” finished Gared, who had come to serve drinks but stayed for the chance to tell Glint stories others were tired of hearing, “he turned her into a frog, the poor girl,” causing the warrior to choke on his own juice due to the abrupt ending. Arin clapped his back a few times, after which Glint looked around the table. The warrior hadn’t thought stories of this kind were possible. It was as if the people around the table were children, they didn’t know anything about what it meant to be an Ability user. Still, he kept silent.

  “You know, I heard they’re born with the disease,” said Mark.

  “What do you mean?” Glint inquired of him.

  “The disease, the one that makes them Ability users,” Gared said. When he saw Glint still staring at him, he started to explain as if the warrior was but a child. “You aren’t from around here, so it makes sense you wouldn’t know. These people, with those powers and magic, or the psions who read your mind,” he shivered and the others pressed their thumbs against their forefingers, perhaps in a sign against evil. “There are many stories about them. Some say they’re demons in disguise. Some say they’re possessed. Others still say that it is but a disease, a fault in human nature that appears in some babies. They are born with it, cursed. It gives them powerful magicks, but drives them insane with power. That’s why some of them die by their own power or go insane. The others, the ones in the guilds, are only partially corrupted.”

  Glint started to understand the man’s meaning, “And that’s why instead of them just going completely crazy or dying they just turn against us?” he asked, horror dawning on him. These people weren’t as Azrael imagined them. The necromancer had worried they would treat him and Glint like celebrities if they knew of their powers, but this was much worse. They only had hate and fear against those with abilities, he realized. He put his hands gently on the table, measuring his words carefully so as not to frighten the men he was sitting with or alert them to his nature. “I heard,” he said softly, “that there are places where Normal children are trained to become Ability users.” Gared seemed to recoil at that as if flayed by a whip, and Glint added hastily, “Or so I heard.” Was this place so far away from the larger towns that there was simply no contact with guilds like Quicksilver? Or was their own local guild terrible enough to allow this?

  Arin, who had a pipe in his mouth, took a long breath of tobacco smoke. He looked as if he was thinking of something whilst eying Glint, who avoided his gaze. He hadn’t joined in yet, and Glint thought the quiet man quite good at observing other’s behaviour. Meanwhile, Gared was saying, “- and they probably are all born that way, just tricking us, they are. Probably all that about heaven and hell and a person needing to have an Ability to be allowed into paradise is just a lie, invented by those Ability users to keep us docile.”

  The others kept their gazes on him, looking suddenly in equal parts surprised and bemused. It seemed they didn’t agree with him on this point, at least. To speak so would be blasphemous of Odin Allfather, after all. It was curious that these people would think Ability users demonic or ill and still pay homage to the Three. Religions were strange, Glint thought.

  They kept talking about other, less consequential things for another hour or so, after which Glint excused himself and went to join Azrael in their room. Opening the door, he found the curtains drawn, the room darkened, and his partner’s slow soft breathing indicated he was already asleep.

  Glint took the other bed, trying to keep all the questions on his mind at bay. He would ask another time.