“Little one little one,” the bull's voice reverberated in my head. A low rumble like gravel scraping against gravel. I stumbled dizzy and retched.
“You must come to me,” the bull man roared in my mind and the world was spinning beneath me.
“Run,” I hissed, desperate, off balance and retching, my thoughts squeezed and the worlds colliding in my eyes. “Run,“ I screamed now, “leave me, run!”
“We're not leaving you Kara.” Argyl. Stern, stoic, determined.
“Murder me and run,” I hissed.
“Come to me”
I fell forwards, fighting against his pull but it was too much, my blood pulled me towards him. Then Jade was on top of me, pulling me to the ground and screaming something I did not understand. Too far away, I was in a thick fog.
“Come to me”
“I will obey,” I whimpered, pathetic and small.
“Kara, come on. Just leave! We'll jump in the river, swim. Just come, fuck just come.
“I will obey,” I whimpered, pathetic and small.
“Get her legs!” she screamed, and Argyl was there grabbing me and pulling me towards the wreckage of the boat.
“Come to me.” Archmagio was there as well, watching, his face flickering between a thousand faces, a gray wreckage of humanity. I was kicking at Argyl and I knocked him down. Jade tried to hold on but I was twisting and falling as spasms racked me, and she could not. I broke away and fell into the rock. My head stung and must have bled.
She was on me again and pulling me back and I was shouting at her between sobs.
“I am abomination! They broke me they all broke me, motherfuckers they broke me.”
She yanked me back and I realized I had been on my feet again, but now sprawled down on top of her. She wrapped her arms and legs about me to hold me fast.
“I am a million slivers of mirror, an infinite reflection of mirrors, a broken soulless tool, a knife for evil to cut you, a hideous monstrosity.”
“Shut up Kara shut up. Come on, come on, just come, just run with us.” She was screaming, frantic and nearly crying. I was a sputtering sobbing mess.
“A being made of filth. The best of me my suicide.”
“Fuck shut up!”
“Come to me.”
“No Kara,” she was weeping now and I realized her grip had broken and I was falling away away away. It was all so far away. My weeping body, her weeping body. I found her hand and held it, looked into her eyes and smiled at her.
“I love you Jade.”
“I, I, I please stop, please come back, fuck!” I was walking away again and she was clutching at me. Her pretty face was scraped now, somehow it was bleeding, but only skinned.
“I am,” I said, but did not know how to finish. My pulse pounded inside me. OBEY OBEY OBEY a terrible and loud necessity burning through my blood, go to him. “I must go. It is, it is what I am.”
“Kara, please.” she grabbed my shoulders and forced my eyes to look into hers. “I, I was a princess, you know? But that's all rubbish now. Collapsed. Fleeing with my prince, my betrayed prince, to what? We run with no purpose anymore. We have no conspiracy to return to power. We have nothing. We have nothing to hold but each other. I need you. We need you. Your love is all we have. Please please just come with me. I have no other center.”
“Run,” I said back, “I must obey”
“No! Why? Come!”
“It is what I am!” I was screaming now, “It is what I am. Not a trait but my nature. I must go.”
Then there was something over my head and my arms were pulled tight to my body.
“Her legs,” Argyl shouted “Grab her legs!” and I was borne aloft.
“Come to me” in my mind.
Obey obey. I writhed in their arms, but my feet now were bound and they were struggling with my squirming weight. And I was screaming.
“Motherfuckers let me go! Motherfuckers made me week, blunted this tool, motherfuckers.” It was as if a different woman was screaming. “I'm a fucking monster let me go you motherfuckers!”
Somehow though I was floating away, or beneath, the turbulent surface just beyond my reach, flowers blooming down my throat and weighing me. “I love you,” my voice was gentle and far away, they were bearing me away, struggling towards the remains of the boat. Kicking and squirming I was yelling through heavy tears, “Jade, I love you!” She was screaming but I could not make out the words. She was weeping and I could not hear, and then the blanket was falling off of me and I was kissing her and her me.
“Come to me” and I realized she was unconscious and Argyl was vomiting and rolling on the rock clutching his gut. The bull man stood over us, blade hands cut into the rock around us.
“GO TO HIM” my master's command now, and I was up and stepping towards Archmagio as if in a dream. I thought of Jade as I walked, slow step after slow step. The rock and horror seemed far away, I felt it was her and I alone again, as we made love in the bottom of the boat, her hand guiding Argyl into me, her clutching at me as we made love, her joy at seeing my joy, her desperation to pull me away and save me, as if her love would be enough to break me free of masters and slaves, make me whole. I had cracked her, a tool I had cracked her open, touched her heart. We had but the seed of love. The grasp of body to body, the intention to love all the dark unknowns, untainted by the consequences of those mysteries. The idea of it, the pure idea, not the troubled muddled thing itself. An infant love, made desperate and intense by the severity of the circumstances. I all she had now but her troubled husband. Saving me her only purpose left to cling to. Her my, what? My only window out of servitude? Out of serving evil?
In my mouth the blooming of flowers and Archmagio was pressing into my lips the black tar. The taste mixed with blood and I held to life by a thin thread, a tethered bit of silk in a great dark sea.
“Little one,” he said gently, his face an impossible transition between a hundred faces, a monstrosity of all the hate and sorrow of the world.
“Little one, he made you love to hurt you. He made you love her, and now he will make you kill her. To cut you. To enjoy your blood and tears.” He pressed into my hands a silver knife, half a foot of blade and it fit my hand, it was made for my hand. I looked down at it and a wonderful calm wrapped around me. I floated there and knew that all would be okay, I would float and float away and would be okay.
“MURDER HER” my master's voice reverberated through my head, and I turned towards Jade. She was sleeping still. Argyl, stomach empty, still heaving, fought his way through waves of nausea and pain to Jade. I walked forwards a step and looked at them.
Peace, I thought, was suicide. The knife was very simple, a sharp simple tool. Made of silver, made of silver. I sliced myself, a cut in my wrist, on the back of my hand, not a suicide cut, and I bled. Blood blood dripping from my hand, a sharp simple knife. I bled and I knew my suicide was the answer.
“MURDER HER” another step, a terrible step. Jade slept, Argyl clutched and her and pulled her desperately, ineffectually. The bull man, his great cock blade rising at their suffering, stood close and watched.
“MURDER HER” and another step. Argyl retched but did not surrender, pulled on her and made an inch, pulled again and failed. I loved him too. A kind man. A man who would feel a woman's hands on his cock, know desire in his heart, and turn away, turn away in love, not in disgust. A man who would share himself but not take, a man fiercely gentle. The greater mystery than Jade. She was open to me, he not. Not truly. But we had made love. He had planted his seed in me.
Another step. My heart pounded in me, obey obey obey, kill kill kill, and another step, I was halfway to them and I cut myself again, cut deep into my wrist and the blood flowed. No pain, a little pressure, no pain. The blood poured from me and I stumbled, grew week, the darkness fighting up my spine into my eyes and mind.
Another step. “MURDER HER” I was closer. Argyl stared at me. No expression but disgust, and he retched again. Controlled. Tight muscles held. Eyes flickering at me, a the bull man, at Jade, at the boat. He tried again, another inch. Another step. He would not out pace me. Only my suicide would save him. Wonderful, soft suicide. I cut into my other wrist, deep. A tendon snapped and my wrist went limp, blood spraying for a moment then flowing. Flowing down my lover's dress. The dress she made for me.
“MURDER HER” another step. Closer now, closer now, another step. I bled but not fast enough. I thrust the blade at my chest but the dress deflected it, and another step. Too close too close. I cut at my neck and blood gushed from me and I fell, dizzy and weak, I fell, and I dragged myself towards her, I could not stop, the taste of blood and iron in my mouth. Another foot, another, and I was on her. Argyl grabbed me and shoved me away. He was yelling but I could not hear.
“Kill me,” I said, and he hit at me with his boot. But it was weak, the bull man pierced his shoulder with a bladed hand and lifted him into the air. Effortlessly. Argyl writhed and blood leaked from the blade, his arm hung limp, he was screaming and flailing but useless, he was flung bleeding away. The bull man turned to me, scraping blades against his erection
“Murder her,” he said, eager, an excitement I had not seen in him. Or had I? Raping and dismembering a woman, a river of sewage.
“MURDER HER” my master's command and I held the knife to Jade. Her eyes opened and I lost sight for a moment, then it returned. Jade was looking into my eyes. My blood spilled over her and soaked her. I was dying, but not fast enough. Panic.
“I love you” I said. “I love you.”
“I love you” she said, dreamy and distant. “Lady, Kara, I love you. I love you, it's okay, I love you, it's okay.”
And I cut at myself, I cut my throat again and more blood poured from me, but not deep enough. Why not deep enough?
“MURDER HER” and I knew, he held my hand back. He held me on that edge. I bled but not fast enough. Death was not fast enough.
“I love you” I said, and she smiled at me, and I plunged the knife into her breast.
“I love you” she said, smiling, dreaming, lovely. My heart broke inside me. I knew it. It was far away and I was floating but I knew.
Argyl fell into me and I fell off Jade. The knife, I realized, had not penetrated. Deflected off a rib and she was still alive, still alive, I could still die before her, I could still die to save her. The knife in my hand I slashed at my face, and blood flowed from my cheek, and still I could not die. A blade slashed through Argyl again, pinning him to the ground. Again through a shoulder, it would not kill him, only hold him.
“MURDER HER,” I was on her again, holding the blade to her breast. She looked at me, eyes wide with fear now, but she did not move, could not move. I loved her. I loved her.
And I plunged the dagger into her breast and murdered her.
I fell to the earth to die, hating myself, hating my weakness. A million chances to die and I had not. Blood pouring from me, and then Argyl was above me, one lame arm dangling helplessly, the other holding my silver blade to my throat. His expression fiercely nothing, his eyes blazing hate.
“Kill me” I said, meeting those terrible eyes, eyes that burned my guilt into me, my own hate. My own hate.
He threw me back instead. Threw me to the earth. I bled and should have died. I wished to die. He turned and the bull man was there, glowering over him, watching his pain and stroking himself. Argyl, small weak man, turned to him, turned to him and thrust my puny blade at him. A brave pathetic attack. Argyl was swept aside without care, the great bull eyes fixed on me, Argyl was cut in half, the great bull eyes fixed on me.
He hissed. I felt my master lick at me, lick through my mind. He was there on the rock, dancing ludicrously and shitting and pissing, laughing and clapping his hands, an obscene display. The bull man turned towards him and bowed.
“BOW TO ME” and I was lurching to my knees. I had no strength, I was bleeding and dying and should have been too weak to move. But I fell up to my knees and kneeled before my obscene master. Erect cock, masturbating to the carnage about him, fowling the air with the stench of carrion.
“FOLLOW THE LITTLE WIZARD AGAIN” my mind thundered, and my blood was oozing not flowing, and I stumbled to my feet and Archmagio was next to me, a hand on my shoulder, his face a gray mass.
“Come with me,” and I knew I could not. The dagger was before me and I lurched towards it, caught it up in my hand, and the bull man slashed his blades towards me and would have killed me. Would have, save my lover's dress. His blades struck with the force but not the edge. I had the blade and I was close, inside his blades, and I slammed it into his guts. He roared an impossible roar, neither human nor bull, and I twisted the blade and cut it across, spilling his insides out and he fell and his blades were slashing at me again, the force of it throwing me to the ground and twisting my leg beneath me, a sharp pressure that I knew should be pain.
Should be, but the flowers were still inside me. Archmagio stood above me then.
“You must obey.” I fell, fell down before him as if I were groveling. He stepped away, careful, watching me close. I lunged at him with the blade but he jumped back and I fell. I fell and lunged and fell, and he was backing away, then I saw he was a frail old man, gaunt and wretched, splotched diseased flesh, his face more skull than alive. I saw him and I lurched again and he fell, his own bones betraying him. And I put my hands about his throat to choke him, and squeezed his windpipe shut and choked and choked and he should have died. The motherfucker should have died.
But his knife slashed my face and still I choked, and his knife slashed again and dug into my wrist, and my hand went limp and useless, and he was away. He scooped up his robes and ran, a frightened old man, he ran and leaped into the wreckage of our boat and pushed desperately at the shore. Then he was gone, half in the river, drifting down the current and away.
Would I die? My wounds should have killed me, but the blood only oozed. I held my sliced wrists before my eyes and saw them clogged with sand, sand that poured from me and slowed my blood. How many times must my suicide be foiled?
I had no strength. Could I lay and die? How long? It was not cold. The numbness of the drug was wearing off, pain began to fill my nerves. Better a quicker death. Would the goat men come to save me? Motherfuckers. I pulled myself towards the river. One small pull. Then another. I woke and realized I had blacked out from pain, which seemed odd as I hardly felt it.
Jade, but no, my death was all. I pulled myself another foot, and my hand was wet with water. I pulled again, hard, and pain was all I knew, and then I knew that I was wet and drowning and drowning and that was all, and my heart was full of joy.