Epilogue: Days to Come
January 15, 2200
Dawn rose above the distant black plain, illuminating the bedewed mountain pines with a piercingly bright light. Snow atop the peaks glistened in the rising sun, the radiance reflected a thousand times in its crystal skin. Animals walked here and there, ghostly and silent among the trees, keeping their distance from the gathering.
In a clearing at the edge of a wooded cliff, a multitude stood waiting, standing in rank and file facing a casket of whitest wood. Hundreds of them stood there, silent as a graveyard, shivering in the cold of morning as they waited for the memorial to begin. Some were scarred, hardened veterans of a hundred battles, their armor scored and their weapons notched. Some were young, there on the sufferance of their masters or their teachers, uncomfortable and unsure. Some were friends and some were dearest enemies, some exchanged quick, shifty glances and some held long, angry stares.
But no conflict would be allowed that day; only unity would be proper for the funeral of the woman named Aaliyah Soldari.
Soon after the light of dawn filled the clearing, a man stepped out from among the throng, striding through the lines to the side of the casket. A runner, tall and wiry and forbidding, the brother of the fallen. He spoke to the crowd, recounting his life with her to the multitude, but his voice was weak and words were lost to the grief of the many.
As the man faded back into line, another stood forward. An old soldier, white-haired and shrunken with age, a survivor of the Battle of Black Sky. He held his head high and his voice was strong, ringing through the space with a veteran’s authority, telling the crowd of the woman who saved his life as he fell through the heavens.
And so it went, one after another, rising from the ranks to recount a story, a moment, a war shared with an exemplar. One by one they told each other of the fallen heroine, each from their own side of her life, friend or foe, ally or enemy. They told stories through the day and into the evening, when the crickets began to chirp and the cold began to settle back on the mountain. They wept with each other, laughed with each other, comforted each other as the stories touched their souls.
Only one stood alone.
Dante watched silently, crouched over the edge of a cliff high above the gathering, watching through the whole funeral and all the riotous wake. Some thought he was a guardian, sent by the runners or some other power to protect the congregation. Others speculated that he was an old adversary, come to revel in the death of such a powerful enemy.
Dante’s thoughts were far away from the funeral and the antlike people below him. They roiled and seethed in his own head, the grief, the despair and the cold, cold fury threatening to split his head open with their power. The world around him hurt with every glance, the trees and the rocks and the crowd reminding him of his loss. Every look that strayed towards his GIACA, gone from grey to black in the space of a night, sent a shiver of anger and pain through him.
Everywhere I look, I see death.
Day faded into evening and evening into night, signaling the beginning of the wake. The crowd grew unruly, rowdy, switching from joyful to miserable and back again at the drop of a hat, revelry and regret mixing together, but Dante sat there motionless, fighting back the sorrow threatening to overtake him as his mind raced with half-formed notions and plans for his next course of action.
He pondered suicide, here on the rocks where the cloned body of his mother had been interred. Hermitage, living out the centuries here by her side, alone with his grief.
And most of all, he contemplated war.
We shall go forth and wreak our vengeance upon Elric Jahansson, the woman’s voice said over and over and over, We shall find the other of our kind, the one who sleeps in darkness, and bring the tyrant’s world crashing down around him.
“Fuck you,” he murmured to the night around him, “I’m not your puppet. I’ll do what I want.”
“Dante?”
Dante’s jaw clenched and he closed his eyes, not turning around to face the speaker.
“What do you want, Jac?” he asked softly, gazing into the crowd below.
Jac walked over to Dante and stooped down beside him, laying a hand on Dante’s shoulder.
“Listen, Dante, I know this is probably not the best thing to be asking you right now-” Jac began gently.
“You’re right,” Dante interrupted, “Leave me the fuck alone.”
“-But you should join the wake,” Jac continued, “A little fun would do you good. I know you’re upset, but sitting up here on a cliff isn’t going to change anything.”
“I know,” Dante said impatiently, “Now leave me alone.”
Jac’s jaw clenched in exasperation. “Dante, what are you gonna do?” he asked, irritation creeping into his voice, “Stay here and grieve for the rest of your life? You have to move on. Believe it or not, you’re a big deal now.”
Jac’s voice hushed a little.
“They’re saying you came back from the dead, Dante. What happened that night? Please, tell me the truth.”
“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do, Jac,” Dante replied tersely, “If I could hear myself think I might be able to.”
“Dante, son, answer the question-”
“No,” Dante growled, “I’m not going down, and you don’t have the clout to drag me down anymore. I won’t tell you what happened, so you can have the luxury of believing what you want to.”
“And Jac… I’m not your fucking son.”
There was a short silence as Jac crouched motionless at Dante’s side. Then the elder runner straightened and walked off silently. Dante didn’t turn his head, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the wake below him.
“I know you’re here,” he whispered, “Talk to me. Answer my questions if you want me to do what you’re asking.”
An indescribable chill settled over him, creeping over his body until it covered every last inch of his skin.
Do not make demands of me, child, the cold breeze seemed to whisper.
“I have every right to have a mission briefing, lady,” Dante replied brusquely.
You know what to do, Soldari, the wind hissed crossly, Acquire allies. Build an army. Find the other one of your kind.
“Where am I supposed to start?” Dante shot back, “The Demokratos won’t help me, they’ve got too much on their plate already. The runners will never agree to something like what you want me to do. Mercenaries are untrustworthy, criminals stab you in the back, people are too scared to form new resistances, so all in all I’m in a pretty shitty position! And if you think that you’re going to just send me off into the world and let me die again, then you can go stick a scythe blade down your infernal craw and wriggle it around just for me!”
The breeze became a frigid gale in a heartbeat, rushing over Dante with enough force to bend the pines around him.
I will not be insulted by a child, scant weeks old! the wind railed at Dante, Who do you think you are, fledgling? Are you laboring under the delusion that your powers make you invincible? Maybe you think you can disrespect your creator and get away with it-
“Tell me where to start or act pompous somewhere else,” Dante sighed exasperatedly, not budging an inch in the sudden typhoon wind.
“I really don’t have the patience to deal with your kind right now.”
Arrogant child!
“You’re damn right I’m arrogant. And I’m also not listening to your fucking blustering, so take it to someone who cares.”
The wind stilled slowly around Dante, the being’s discontented mutterings fading into nothingness as the runner turned his gaze back to the crowd below. His brethren runners were leading a dance, the music wild and thumping through the ground at Dante’s feet, the mourners screaming and jumping and swaying like they had so long ago.
Dante stood up slowly and stretched his stiff limbs, cracking his knuckles and neck. He clenched his jaw, giving the crowd one last look, and turned around to walk away.
His way was bloc
ked by an old man, white-haired and bent over with age, emerald-green eyes peering out of his wrinkled face with a knifelike intensity and intelligence. His black leather jacket, scarred and pocked in a dozen places, hung loosely around his skeletal frame over a white t-shirt, his rawhide pants baggy around thin legs.
Dante stood motionless, eyes wide and staring at the man.
“How did you-” he began to ask, but the old man put a finger to his lips and stepped towards Dante, consummately silent in the shin-deep grass.
"Are you the runner they call Dante?” the man asked in a scratchy, grim voice, “You were her protégé?"
Dante nodded, looking perplexed.
“I noticed you sitting up here, watching the funeral,” the man said, “Jogged my memory. I have something for you.”
“Look, I appreciate it, but now isn’t the best time-”
“Something of hers, boy.”
Dante fell silent again, his stomach seeming to fall out of its proper place. The old man smiled humorlessly and began to root around his jacket pockets, inside and outside the coat. As he searched, Dante could hear him muttering near-silently, his voice sad and a little bitter.
“Dante, eh? I can’t say it’s a bad choice. ‘Resolute’. Hopefully you’ll live up to it…”
His hand stopped near his chest, buried in a pocket in the interior of the jacket. The old man’s smile brightened a little, and he looked back up at Dante.
“So, you’re her son, eh?” he asked. Dante nodded wordlessly.
“I can see a bit of her in everything about you, boy,” the old man sighed, “Your eyes, your hair, your armor… Her son. No doubt.”
He drew his hand out of the pocket and handed Dante an electronic tablet, sleek and white in the early morning dark.
"She told me to give this to you if she never had the chance to do it herself,” the man told Dante, “She told me it's an audio and visual log and a bunch of data that only you’d be able to use. I have no idea what any of them are about, but if Aaliyah wanted you to have it the data must be important somehow."
The man turned his back to Dante and began to walk off, padding away on bare feet. But after a few steps, the man slowed and turned around, staring Dante straight in the eye.
"I loved her with all my heart, Dante Soldari, like so many others,” the old man said softly, his words easily carrying to Dante’s ears.
“Aaliyah would’ve have outlived me by a century with that armor you runners wear, but I knew her for most of my life. I'm sorry for your loss, but don't you dare dishonor her.”
The old man turned back to the forest and continued to walk, his words floating over his shoulder to Dante.
“Because if you do, you’re better off dead than alive.”
Dante watched the old man vanish into the dark pine trees, holding the tablet loosely in his hand as he stood there. When the man had faded into the forest, Dante looked back at the tablet, sat down, and tapped the screen.
An aqua-blue color slowly blossomed into being across the display, becoming a pool of purest water in Dante’s hand. Dante flexed his knuckles and began to tap at the watery color, sending slow ripples through the surface as the water began to splash from side to side.
He began to tap faster all around the screen, the water swirling and coalescing slowly in the cage of Dante’s fingers. Faster and faster, tapping madly, until the water had become a blue ball between his fingers. He opened his fist and let the blue marble rest where it was, glassy and immobile, the space around it pitch-black.
Dante sighed and placed it between two of his fingers, cocking his arm behind his head and pitching forward with all his strength. The tablet hurtled forward into a tree, burying corner-first in the bark with a resonating thunk. Dante got up and pulled it out with a hard tug, wiping pulp off the screen and leaning up against the tree.
The marble had fractured into twelve piles of glittering dust sitting on a white plain, labeled with several different names; 2000-2020, 2021-2040 and so on until 2180-2199. The last two piles drew Dante’s eye; one said Friends, the other For Dante.
He hesitated a moment, foreboding rising in his throat as he stared between the two. His finger moved back and forth between each for a few long seconds, then he sighed defeatedly and tapped For Dante.
The glass floated up to the screen and pressed flat to the surface, forming a spiderweb of glittering cracks across a dark void. The cracks slowly sealed and an image faded onto the screen.
It slowly resolved into Aaliyah’s face, eyes downcast and expression somber. A plain grey room stretched behind her, her quarters in the Omega HQ Spartan by runner standards. She was sitting down in a metal frame chair, her face caught by a computer camera, low-resolution and quick.
She raised her eyes to the screen and cracked a halfhearted grin. It faded from her face as quickly as it had come and she sighed tiredly, leaning her head on her hand and shaking it resignedly.
“Oh, Dante…”
The sound of her voice sent a shiver up Dante’s spine in a trickle of frost and he shook a little, fighting off the urge to choke, to sob.
“Dante, Dante, Dante,” she murmured, “Look at you. Just look at you. My boy, all grown up.”
She leaned up and settled back in her chair, chewing on her lip and looking from side to side for a few moments. Then she leaned forward, that same wan smile turning up the corners of her face.
“Twenty years,” she breathed, “Twenty years I’ve watched you grow, watched you learn. Twenty years of my life I’ve spent with you at my side. My little wolf. Look at you now.”
She grinned a little wider. “Twenty years seems like a long time, doesn’t it?” she whistled softly, “When you’re putting up with me every day of your life, I know it’s gotta be a slow deal. But twenty years went by fast for me. I guess that’s the problem with being as old as I am… Time just slips away…”
She shook her head and chuckled. “Listen to me. I sound like an old woman with nothing left. Only half-true. I’ve still got you, Dante.”
The smile faded from her face and she shook her head again.
“But you won’t still have me,” she said with an awful finality.
“By the time Chairos gives you this tablet, I’ll be dead and buried. I hope they’re having fun down there. They deserve it. But you, Dante… I have one last thing to say to you.”
She leaned in a little closer. So did Dante.
“I know what you’re thinking right now. Oh, I know. I’ve felt the pain you’re feeling a hundred times. I’ve felt the pain and I was crippled by the pain, but you know what?”
“I kept going. No matter what, I kept going.”
“I want you to keep going, Dante. I never want you to be like I was then, broken and useless and stagnant. I want you to live your life the way you want to, whatever you want to do. I want you to be better than me, and I’m asking you with all my heart not to let yourself fade.”
She reached out past the camera and put her hand on the top of the monitor. Dante could almost feel it on his shoulder, the same slender fingers that had taught him a hundred things, squeezing just a little to comfort him in times of trouble.
“You’re special, Dante,” she whispered fiercely, “Marked by fate, destined for greatness, I don’t care what you call it. But the moment I first saw you, twenty years ago, I knew you were meant to do great things. I knew you had the strength in you to fight through the pain and the doubt and the temptation, to do the things that most people call impossible and to beat me at everything I do.”
“I can’t stop you from doing what you choose. I can’t guide you anymore. This is your life, so you can do what you want with it. But I’m begging you; don’t fade away. Do things I could never have done, see things I could never have seen, learn from everything around you and learn from my mistakes.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, her hand tightening around the computer monitor’s screen. Dante’s eyes burned with hers,
his own sob wracking his body with a wave of pain.
A pause. Then Aaliyah opened her eyes, a pair of fresh tears running down her cheeks. She smiled and drew a deep breath, releasing it slowly and looking back into his eyes.
“Damn it, kid,” she laughed gently, “It’s been a while since I cried. It feels good.”
“Dante… I love you. I love you so much, so damn much that it’s tearing me the fuck apart to see you go off into the world. It’s ripping me apart inside, and you know what?”
“I’m proud of you. I’m proud of everything about you. Whatever you do, remember that. I am so proud of you.”
Another tear streaked down her cheek, slow, sparkling a little in the light of the monitor. Aaliyah took another deep breath and smiled just a little wider. Her last word was a whisper.
“Goodbye.”
After a long, long time, Dante stood, gripping the tablet very tightly in his hand as he turned his eyes to the east. The sun was nearly up in the valley below, coloring the clouds a blazing orange, like a titanic fire being lit in the east, like that day so many years ago.
“I love you too, Mom.”
Dante walked down the steep path to the gathering of mourners, treading delicately among the crowd, fast asleep after long hours of celebration. The air around Dante flowed over him like warm water, the promise of a beautiful day whispering gaily in his ear.
I’ll do it. For her, I’ll do it. You’ll get your wish, but I’m doing it for her. Never forget that.
“Is that clear?” he asked the forest around him, feeling the warm breeze play through his hair and dance across his face.
‘Crystal.’
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