14. Though All That's Now Is All the Greater
You don't know how to lose his interest. Maybe you can't. You don't know what he wants from you, or why he brought you here. If you aren't just another soldier to him, another body... Maybe he wants to study you to better understand how to do his foul sorcery. Maybe eventually he'll tear you apart. Maybe he sees something in you, the potential to one day work some greater evil in his cause. Maybe he really does care about having some pretense of morale in his twisted mockery of an army. Maybe he just wants to see you squirm for a little while. That's the best you can hope for, isn't it?
You don't know what to say. But you need to say something. And if you have to gamble... At least you'll gamble for something in exchange. He has to make his own meals somehow, or keep supplies for another to prepare them. Some sort of larder. If he has fresh fat or oil—or more salt—to say nothing of more exotic seasonings! It may even be something he'll part with. And... If you give him the idea of improving rations in another way, maybe he won't feel as much pressure to make good on his promise of cannibalism.
You take a deep breath. You don't have time to think any longer. You nod your head. "It's good. It's so much better than still being alone out in the bog. I don't have complaints." You swallow and shift, feeling the cushion under you, the curtains in your lap. You have to hope he can't see the lie in your face. You can't see any glimmer of realization in his eyes, but you can't help but feel like he can see through you entirely. You want to leave it at that, to not speak anything more, to abandon your plan and idea of good sense and just let this be over. But you're nervous, so clearly nervous, he has to know, you need to cover. "But—" At that word, he smiles wide. It's not unkind, but dripping with condescension. He knew you would be too weak, that you would have a complaint.
"If I could ask for something more, sir?" His smile doesn't flicker. That's as much invitation to go on as you're likely to get. "I think there's something that could help improve my meals without drastically changing the rations. If you had any fat, or oil, or salt, that you could spare me along with the meat... I could do a lot to improve the food with it."
You think the ghost of surprise flits across his face. Then he's smiling again, and you can feel his eyes on you more intently. This was a mistake. He's looking at you like he's trying to solve a puzzle. "A peculiar request, that. You know, Ythona, it wouldn't offer you any more sustenance."
You nod. Of course. Well, maybe animal fat would, but... "I know. It's just about the flavor. Even if it doesn't give any more power, I like to eat for taste. And it helps with feeling more satisfied after, even if the hunger will come back just as soon."
Realization dawns on his face. "Oh, I understand. You think, with just some more fat and salt, you can fashion something that tastes more like a human? Trick your stomach into thinking it's the food of choice?"
You can't help the way you flinch at the suggestion. You can't keep the shock from your face. You can barely manage to bite down on your tongue long enough for the urge to blurt out a denial to fade away. It's an awful thought, and it sends a lance of need through your stomach again. Some part of you is demanding to do this, now, to make such a facsimile. Not that you've ever tasted a human. But it certainly wouldn't just be saltier venison, slathered in fat, and... You cringe, your awful body demanding this crime from you. You need your mind off this. Maybe you shouldn't say it, but you can't handle this. "Oh." Your voice falters, and you need to take a moment before you can manage more. "No, not that. I want to cook the meat with it."
Now he looks confused. For a moment, only a moment, you feel like a spell has broken. He's only a man. He can't see straight through you. He doesn't understand you at all. He knows almost nothing about you.
But now he knows you cook.
You take a deep breath, hoping it's inconspicuous enough, and try to continue like you hadn't noticed his reaction. "If you have things to share, I could do a lot more than I can right now. Especially if you have spices. I understand if not, of course. But that would be my request."
The master looks at you for a few long moments, and then nods his head. "That would be simple enough. Though I must say, Ythona, you're surprising me today. Reading, cooking... Just how did you hold onto those even after all that time in the bog, I wonder?" He doesn't pause for you to answer. "And I have to question what else may have clung on with it. Lingering memories and attachments can be like burrs, for some of your kind. I hope the weight of it all isn't crushing."
All the meager relief that welled up in you dies. You don't know what to say. So you don't say anything.
He smiles softly. "Ah. Well, it only makes sense. It's no shame to admit such things are troubling you. Especially since you were learned... You must have been taught to hold so much hatred for what you are now. A little walking wound in the world, helping to usher everything towards its inevitable end." He shakes his head, and then smiles wider. "But don't worry." His voice sounds genuinely kind. But you know it isn't, it can't be. "You know, Ythona... Perhaps I could help you more than just a token gift of ingredients. These troublesome relics of the human whose body you've taken, I could make them go away."
Your eyes snap wide open, and you can't help but recoil in your seat. Your heart is racing. You need to run away. He's going to kill you, and leave himself a puppet in your place. All you've done to keep yourself alight, and now he's going to snuff it out in a moment, thinking it's a kindness. It's such an awful, pointless end. But he thinks it's a kindness. It's not to make you more useful to him. You can reject it. You just need the right explanation. Woodenly, you shake your head. "I wouldn't want to trouble you with that, sir. I can handle it. It's not too heavy a burden. And it could give me useful information." You aren't lying. You aren't lying, and that's the only thing that let you choke it out.
Slowly, he nods. "That's a good answer. You're certainly a driven one, aren't you? Oh, what I could have made with you, had I only been given the chance... But it's more interesting to see how you manage just as you are." After a moment of silence, he purses his lips. Furrows his brow. You try not to react, but you can't even tell if you did. Your heart's still beating too fast. "More than that. I value you, Ythona. You're a good soldier. I want you to be comfortable here. I want you to trust me. If I can help you, I want you to ask." He sighs. "If one of the other wights tries to kill you, Ythona, I want you to tell me. You've been holding up remarkably well considering you apparently collapsed while fetching those curtains. Do you think..." He sighs again, and shakes his head. "Of course you think this is a nest of snakes ruled by petty force. What else could you know?"
You croak. He knows that Fleshrender nearly killed you? That you kept quiet about it? What do you do? What do you say? It's couched in concern, but you can't trust it. Oh, no wonder he was asking about wound dressings.
He is just looking at you, for a long moment, and then he shakes his head. "Ythona. You don't need to be afraid. I am not going to punish you for this. Your fear of Fleshrender's reprisal is understandable, and frankly your resolve to suffer all of this in silence is impressive, in its way. Your base nature is not your fault. But you must remember you are more than it. You are not just one more wight in a squabbling mass united by fear of your current strongest, a petty warlord. You are a soldier in my army. Take advantage of that. Take heart in that. And remember who here you've given your loyalty. Yes?"
Slowly, you nod your head. You're too nervous to say anything. For all he's saying you need not worry, you feel you're on a knife's edge.
Your master frowns again. You tense, and annoyance flashes over his face. He takes a deep breath, and you see his face relax as he composes himself. "Yes?"
"Yes sir!" The words came out a pitch too high, but at least they came out.
He doesn't look satisfied. Your stomach drops as he closes his eyes and massages his forehead. And then he brightens considerably and fixes you with a new gaze. "Oh, I'm going about this all wrong. You must think this is a test, or a threat. Ythona, I earned your loyalty not by threats, but through promise of mutual benefit. And you say I've lived up to that. I do not doubt your loyalty, you've given me no reason to. Don't fret. You'll adjust. I'm making something more of you all, and you are already diligently doing your part in that. I'm here if you need me."
You nod again. Despite everything, it does help ease your nerves a bit. You don't believe what he's saying, but you have a feeling perhaps he does. If he doesn't suspect you... Your mind starts to wander to what he would do if he just knew how you've already gone against his rules.
He doesn't seem to be paying much attention to your reactions, now. "Ah, this may help. A reason to follow me that engages more than your base needs. Because Ythona, you need me, beyond just the help I can give. All of you do. Without me, each of you would be nothing but purposeless hunger. One more little wound in the world." You swallow. That phrase again. What does he mean by it? And... He's made most of you, hasn't he? "But in my hands, you are a surgeon's tools. I will not sit by, helpless, while this world grinds ever closer to its end. Life is a trap; it can only die. A world of life will end." He pauses, somberly.
You shift uncomfortably. The world's end... He has to be talking about the last day. But then why take that tone? Why speak of preventing it? Does he not want that rebirth? Does he somehow think he can stop it?
His eyes bore into yours as he starts to speak again, and it takes your attention back onto him fully. "Even your undeath is too tainted by life. By that need of hunger, and the simple frailty of flesh. A world of wights..." It takes effort not to wince at that, as a half-image from your nightmare bubbles back to the surface of the mind. The bog stretching on forever, and everyone a mockery of life, like you. "It would end all the same. Pity as that is, it's closer to perfection. Can you imagine it? A thinking mind whose existence has all the irreversible finality of death. Who would continue on forever, could fashion a perfect world that could never be spent." He grins wide, his eyes shining with... passion? Delight, just at the thought?
You don't know what to say to it, but you must say something. "That is a profound image, sir." You can't quite imagine what he means. If he meant a world without death, without end... that was the last day. Not whatever abomination he would want to prevent it. But... What else could result in that, but the spectre of death passing and everything coming back to how it always should have been? Is his view of perfection wights cured of the hunger and endlessly regenerating, making... fortresses like this in the middle of the bog? That... You don't hate that thought. But it's a pale imitation of the last day. And is it even what he means? And, wait, hold on—
"Oh?" You snap to attention, and your master's eyes are on you, curiously. "You look as if you have a question. Please feel free to ask it. I can happily enlighten you on this."
Your eyes widen, and you force your last thought out of your mouth before it fully formed in your head. "Is death so irreversible? After all... I've—" Your voice suddenly falters. You take a deep breath. "I've died, and yet here I am. And you, certainly you reverse death with your powers."
His eyebrows raise slightly. "Oh, no, not at all. Hmm. How to... Ythona, have you ever wondered why you don't rot?"
You blink. You hadn't really thought about it. Why would you? You had returned. You weren't a corpse, even if you sometimes felt like one. But if his point is that you aren't alive, that's probably not what he means. Is it... A nasty thought crosses your mind, and you spit it out. "Is it because I am the rot?"
"Mn." He shakes his head. "Ythona, you aren't rot. Quite the opposite, in fact." He smiles a little as you brighten somewhat. You had fully expected him to agree, or voice something... like it. "You're death. Not simply dead. Death itself suffuses your flesh." You can't help but deflate. So he is saying it. "Living things can find no purchase in you. And that's all rot is, you see. Life that blossoms from a corpse to eat it away. Dead wood brings forth fungus, dead flesh brings forth maggots, but not yours. I don't reverse the deaths of my creations. I simply breathe a spark of death into them. That this spark is tainted by renewed life, however slightly, is the final hurdle. But trust when I say I've made great strides. When you look at what happens naturally..." He pauses, and then laughs to himself a bit. "Well, look at you, Ythona. There's so much life left in you that it's sprouted."
Your hand goes to touch your horn, your index finger tracing a groove. Is it really life, in some sense? Does that even make sense? You surely can't be death. You're aren't some unmoving thing. You aren't empty, a void where life was. You're a person. The points of your fingernails bite into your palms. Something in you is burning to tell him he's wrong, but you know you can't.
"So you see?" He's hardly paying attention to you, now. "I've done quite the opposite of reversing death. I'm helping you wights to embrace it. Eventually we'll perfect the matter and have an ideal gift to reward you all with. Until then, I have the temporal promises to afford you all. Nothing is going to stop me." His eyes flit back to you. "Stop us. You are an important part of all this. You all are. I hope you don't think of yourself as expendable. Your work to ensure our safety and secrecy is paramount, and there will be yet more for you in time. Hold onto that purpose, the better world we are going to build. One with a place for you, beyond the wretched bog. Our home carved out here is only the beginning." He sets his hand on his cheek, as if thinking, for a moment. "Ah, yes. I will have some ingredients taken back to your room. Do try to sleep there tonight, Ythona." He gives a dry laugh.
Slowly, you nod. He's noting that again on purpose, you think, to reinforce that he knows these things. How does he know? The wight who found you didn't go up with you, how could she have told him? Was it just a guess, since you weren't in your room when someone went there to get you? And... What Bell must have said about Fleshrender. Wound dressings. Would another wight need those after being strangled? Does he just know you were attacked and took a guess? Does any of that matter?
You take a deep breath. "Thank you, sir. I will." You've gotten your replacement curtain, plus spares for a blanket and an approximation of a pillow. You'll get ingredients. The master's attention is on you, but... Maybe it's just a show. Trying to make you feel important, valued, more than just a tool to him. As if that excuses your superior trying to murder you.
"I've ensured Fleshrender will remember his place, so don't worry about that." You start. For a moment you worry he somehow read your thoughts, but sense dismisses that thought. Of course he would address it. "If you need me, only ask. It will get to me. Thank you for your attention, Ythona. And for your service. You're free to go and get some well-deserved rest. Unless..." He cants his head, ever-so-slightly. "You've been lost in thought, I bet. Is there anything else you have for me? Any lingering questions? Or perhaps an extra request?" He smiles, smugly. He's expecting you to break, again.
But... Is there any harm in that? Does he actually have any real interest in you, or is this just an act to shore up your loyalty after what Fleshrender did? Can you push for more? There's things only he can get you. He could look past the oddity of a wight cooking. He would likely not begrudge you more creature comforts. Or... If you asked he would likely tell you more of what he's actually planning, and why. You don't want to know, but maybe it would be better to. If you hope to do anything about it... But do you?
What do you ask?
[] Nothing. You want out of here with as little more of his attention as you can. You need air, a chance to breathe, to relax and think about this. You can't just blunder into giving him more insight into you. You're already getting more from him than you would have imagined. You don't need to press your luck.
[] A pillow. Why should you settle for laying your head on a spare curtain, bundled up? You are sitting on a cushion. He may even have a real blanket he could offer. If you didn't have to sleep on a stone floor every night, that would help so much. But if Fleshrender took issue with it... No, you can't deny yourself every comfort for fear of him tearing it away.
[] His plan. If what he wants to make is some perfect world... Why does he need an army? Who does he think could be coming to stop you all? Is that only an empty justification for the war he says he wants to wage, to reward you all with the spoils, or is there a threat? Could it be just a lie to trick you all into service as he pursues his real goal of foul arcane study? Is that only wishful thinking?
[] His study. How is he aiming to create perfection? Is it just practice in creating wights, hoping to reduce the flaws each time? Does it have anything to do with those heads, frozen still on the wall? Is that his idea of a 'perfect' existence? You need to know what he thinks, how he means to accomplish it. You don't want to, but you can't help yourself. The thought is going to eat away at you otherwise. Better to get what answers you can now than to come back.
