I fled naked into the underground city, leaving Jade and Argyl sleeping in each others arms. My intention was to find a building from which to hurl myself, or else find a blade or other object sharp enough to open a vain or artery. Better to lose myself first, that Jade and Argyl never see my corpse.
Every lane of that dim city looked the same, and losing myself proved easier than I had supposed. Every structure seemed to be the same crumbling white stone, the ruins of a people once great.
At every decision point I chose whichever road seemed to slant upwards most, thinking that the stair which we had descended would be high enough for my death. The passage of time was impossible to measure. I felt that I spent hours turning circles in those streets. The air grew chill as I climbed, and I regretted not stopping to dress. I felt comical. The hapless would be suicide. So miserable and helpless she cannot find a means to do what must be so simple for those who do not wish it.
My mind grew so numb from the constant dim light and white stone, so addled from cold and lack of sleep, that I was some yards up a narrow path that burrowed straight into the mountain rock before I realized I had left the city. The climb took only a few minutes but exhausted what strength I had left.
I stumbled at last onto a narrow ledge that jutted out over a great empty space. Far below, and far ahead of me, the city seemed a tiny labyrinth for mice. It looked impossibly far, but I supposed it could have been another city, the one I had lately left obscured by the rocks about me.
Just below me was another ledge, to which I lowered myself. The edges were sharp, as if chiseled rather than worn by time. At the very center ran a trickle of water, which had worn a thin deep channel through the stone. I followed the gentle downward slope. It was cold but I did not mind it now. The severity of it fit my mood somehow. The stone ended abruptly, the finished stone giving way to crumbling ruins. The water poured off the edge and fell into darkness below. I heard no sound, which I supposed meant it had a long fall. Ideal, I thought. There was a strong warm wind coming up from the blackness, which seemed impossible to me inside the mountain, but I did not dwell on it.
What of my lover? We shared an intense bonding, a connection as deep as it was short. I did not doubt her love. If she had lied to me, her body had not. She had given herself completely. She had held me in her warmth and branches, for a moment I had been safe, content. But it could not be. My nature destroyed it. I am a slave of evil, and I would draw it to me. Her love would destroy her and so she sent me from her. Sent me from her. My love would be her doom.
Jade and Argyl too. Jade had held me, truly held me. The play of dominance was just that. Beneath it a step of faith, of trust in me, and in each other. They had touched each other with thin threads I had strung between them. A stray he had picked up and taken in. Had refused to give up on. And what of Jade? She had not liked me, seen me as a liability and then as a threat. Why had she come to like me? To take me into her bed? Pity? Regret? Discomfort with her anger? That was a mystery still.
And their love for me would be their doom. My love their doom. My love. Did I love? They loved what they thought I could be. I was not that person. I was their doom come to claim them.
Nothing simple. Nobody who simply cared for me as me. Accepted what I truly was, everything I was. I was, by my very nature, alone. And save for the illusions of a few chemicals, endorphin and dopamine, whatever else, save for the few moments these chemicals create a delusion in my mind, I would always be alone. It was in my nature. Willless, a vehicle of evil. I was the doom of all who loved me. I was not who all who loved me loved. Alone against the infinite complexity and misery of the moments of life. And against that I would fling the shallow but infinitely long blackness of my suicide.
My suicide. I stared down into the black void, into the impossibly warm air, and knew that it was in me to jump.
“COME TO ME,” the voice reverberated in my mind. Not my master, but filthy and foreign, sharp against my own thoughts.
“COME TO ME,”
I looked behind me and saw, not along the path I had taken, but above on a massive staircase leading up into the stone, the Bull Man. He looked down at me. Too far to see details, I felt the scrape of blade on blade, felt the massive bull eyes peering through the dim light at me.
“TURN BACK AND COME TO ME.”
“I will obey my master,” I said, and stepped away from the precipice without thinking.
“COME TO ME AND SERVE YOUR MASTER”
“I will obey, I come to serve. Obedience is my food, obedience is my drink.”
I took another step without wanting to. I thought of Jade and Argyl, probably still sleeping, and how this bull man would butcher them. I thought of my lover, far away, and wondered if she lived still, or if his bladded cock had found and wrecked her.
“I will obey.” I said, and turned and threw myself into the great abyss.