(real life influence: none)

CHP 2. Valentine

 

      Once upon a time, in a land far away, a warrior once sat in a vast field. Before the nightmare, before the conquest, she squinted through the sunlight. Cold steel burned in this sunlight, so she scanned for his armor. I scanned for his armor. Before the world changed, she used to sit in the center. She watched until, finally, the sunlight washed away the sky and field and replaced her vision with burning lids. When I woke up, Gramond and Sarina were there, but usually not. If they were not there, I would usually go back to waiting. This was the place I had given.

      It is a parking lot now -- at least I think it is. No cars are here and the buildings nearby have been long abandoned. Next to my running shoe, a small piece of the field is cracking through the concrete. It is a bold, prickly weed of some kind. He is angry and twisted looking, growing away from the sun and crawling on the concrete. It is like he is trying to get back under.

      I am glad my field is gone. I remember how all kinds of annoying insects would bother me while I sat-- the mosquitoes especially. Standing here, I probably would not have noticed that the mosquitoes were missing had I not made a conscious decision to actually think about them. There is nothing alive here—that is why they are missing. Nothing evil lurks here, nothing alive here. Let that boy keep that memory. Let him sit and wait. It must make a lovely fantasy for him. He probably sits there all day, languid and dreaming, thinking of me. I think I would like that.  I wonder -- I wonder if he thinks about me, still, as I do about him.

      I know reality, though. Reality is a vast parking lot cemetery with buildings dilapidated and crawling, the iron gates. Let him never know. Let him rest at his home, with all his cushions and his blankets. Let him watch his television. May he never venture to the ugliest place on his earth, may he never be stranded in a world of concrete. I will guard this place. I will make sure he never finds it. My quest is now clear to me, it is where I began and where I once had ended, and, I suppose, I will end here again.

      “You really are insane now, are you not, my Zona?”

      As usual, I notice his long, red hair immediately. Red eyes in a cloud of red eye shadow rest on me. He, like the others, has always worn a vibrant monochromatic color scheme to fool themselves into thinking they were alive. He always looks so colorful standing next to me.

      “Gramond, greetings,” I acknowledge. “That is not my name anymore, though.”

      “I know it is not.  Hundreds tell me that you are nameless. Since you do not have a name, I have decided just to call you Zona. You seem to have lost your identity somewhere. What is wrong, my love.”

      Why does he still say that to me. “No, Nameless is my name.”

      “I would think you would get a lot of trouble in this world with a name like that.”

      “I spell it differently. I spell it en – ay – eye – em – el – eye – es.”

      “Of course, my strange little one. I also have a new name, though. I thought of you when I made it.”

      Right. Something stupid.

      “Valentine,” he says. “I would say it fits me well.”

      I don’t respond, I should though. Can you imagine your soul mate with a name like that? I don’t know if I meant that with a negative connotation or a positive one.

      “Well, aren’t you even a little happy to see me?” he asks more in a prosaic statement than a question.

      “I should be, I think.” We are soul mates. He had raised the gods themselves to ask them.  Every slain god told him the same thing – that I and him were destined to be together and all that good crap. He had raised the gods from their celestial graves for me – no other necromancer has ever been able to do that. I have heard how many spend their whole lives searching for their “soul mate”; mine stands before me in a long red coat and long red hair in a parking lot.

      “What is the matter, Naimlis?” he states, in the same listless tone of the undead.

      What is the matter? I do not think such a simple question deserves my complex response, yet, I suppose, he could not have asked me any other way. I do not even have the age-old quest for true love. My kingdom is gone, my powers the apex of vanity, my heart given away to a fool. Other than that, I suppose my life has been satisfying.

      “Let me protect this place, at least.”

      Did I actually say that out loud? Did I mean to?

      “I wish I could know what you mean by that. There is only one body that holds the answer.  Unfortunately, you have not killed him yet. If I did not know you were my eternal queen, I suppose I would be jealous.”

      I won’t kill him. He I will protect.

      “If I was your eternal queen, Gramond? Undead as you are, now, powerful as you are, now – do not forget that you were once a lowly knight under my regime. Do not forget that I, on my own, have defeated entire kingdoms with one spell and littered fields with bodies with just my axe. Do not forget that while you and the rest of the world were trembling after my demise, that it was I who had saved you.  How your world wept and withered in fear when the gods raised their armies millions strong.” I am angry.

      Valentine bows his head.

      “Do you remember? Do you remember how it was I that rode out, alone, and saved the world that had once banished me?” Had my story been written in one of those books at the library, the ones with the Amazon women in steel bikinis on the covers, it would have left the reader very disappointed.

      “Naimlis, please. Lock away the pearl. Hang up your axe.”

      I rode out onto the field and met the gods’ army. I was the last of my kind and long forgotten. These were strange, new gods, horrible and merciless. Their power controlled them as it had once controlled me.

      “This world is no place for sword and sorcery. I am tired of scouting the lost souls of the innocent you send into oblivion.”

      The new gods had not known my power. My kind had come first. We had created this world and its magic. A single spell had killed every god, every twisted soldier of theirs. The spell was so powerful it had even killed its own caster. The caster being me. My kind can cast our own resurrection spell from beyond the grave, thus saving us from becoming undead. The most unsatisfying fantasy story, I know. In every story, either side must have a chance of winning. I never remember it ever being that way.

       “Come with me, my love. Do not let your memories lead you to insanity. You are too powerful to lose your sanity. The last thing this world needs is more uncontrolled power. You have not talked to the bodies as I have, you do not know.”

      I have read many fantasy books in this lifetime. I suppose I was searching for a past I had once known, a collective consciousness of some sort. Perhaps one of those authors had been given a memory just as I have given him one.

      “My Naimlis, I can see in your eyes that you are somewhere else. Please listen to me. Do not be lost to me now.”

      I look at him.

      “Come with me. We can live together and finally be happy. Happy, Naimlis, do you know what that is?”

      This is beginning to sound stupid. “No,” I say.

      “I am being serious. We can finally be happy, don’t you want that?”

      “When I said ‘no’ I meant no to coming with you.” I then added, “When I am done with my travels, I will come to you. Be patient, Valentine.” I must protect this place.

      “I am of the old age, my love. Do not forget that I know the way to kill you so that you cannot resurrect yourself.  Keep your sanity, I beg you. I know all you kill; be careful, Zona. I am watching you.”

      And that is my soul mate. The gods that had told him were the ones that I had killed. Supposedly the spirits summoned for divination cannot lie, but I do not think I believe that. I try not to think about it.

      “I will hide my pearl and my axe. Keep me safe; you know I am vulnerable without them.”

      Valentine’s red hair bids farewell to me as he walks and disappears behind a building. As much as I would hate to admit it, his words linger with me. The wind here is weak. What am I going to protect here? One weed growing back into the concrete? A cracked, lifeless slab of concrete? Without my powers, what can I do? I would not even be able to protect myself from a mugger.  This is no quest. This is shame, this is fear, this is nostalgia. Let him, the boy, find this place. Let him look at the parking lot and think nothing. Let him never see another vision of me. I want to hide the pearl and the axe and fight the world, alone. Let the odds be against me, let me run blind through a crowded hall. I want to fight this world alone and powerless and lose.