Saving Souls

“You know you don’t have to do this.”
　
Vie frowned at the older woman. “Don’t make this more difficult than it already is. Sahrinad is the only home I’ve ever had; do you think I’d leave if I had a choice?”
　
“You’d be safer here than anywhere else,” said Rikimi. “You know how well Sahrinad’s fortified, and nowhere else in the world can you find so many magicians.”
　
“These things are powerful, Rikimi. They’ll break through every defense we have in five minutes, and every being on the island will be dead, magic stolen and souls ripped to shreds. They’re going to get me, there’s no real hope of avoiding it, and I can’t bring them down on everyone else.”
　
“I know. I wanted to be sure you know you’re not being kicked out. This is your choice.” She hesitated. “I’ll miss you, Vie.”
　
Vie forced a grin. “I’d have thought you’d be glad to see me leave.”
　
“Oh, you’ve always been trouble, but never the bad kind, really.”
　
“Until now.”
　
Rikimi gave Vie a stern look, the same look she‘d given Vie so many times over the years. “You know it’s not your fault.”
　
Vie shrugged. “It would be, if I stayed and let Sahrinad be destroyed.”
　
“Knowing what we do, it would be, yes; I’m glad you’re able to take responsibility for that. I just find it difficult to believe that your fate is inevitable.”
　
“Every seer and oracle in Sahrinad’s seen them suck my life force out of me, no matter what course of future they’re seeing. Everything that’s been seen, or heard, or thought of, or prophesied says its unavoidable, whatever I do,” said Vie, her voice tinged with suppressed anger at the unfairness of it. She hesitated. “If it turns out not to be, if I find a way to beat them somehow… I’ll come back.”
　
“You don’t really have any hope,” said Rikimi, mildly surprised.
　
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be able to survive if I didn’t have at least the smallest shred of a chance of ever coming back here.”
　
“Well, I’ve never put much faith in prophecies.”
　
That comforted Vie more than anything else had, and she embraced Rikimi awkwardly and stepped onto the ferry.
　
Vie had no idea where to go. She’d been barely more than a child when she came to Sahrinad, and her memories of life outside the island were foggy. It wasn’t so isolated that she didn’t know of the outside world--which countries were where, what the landscape was like, how to get from one place to another. But she didn’t know where she wanted to be, except on Sahrinad.
　
Somewhere isolated, she decided, to limit the damage as much as possible, so when the ferry landed she walked west, away from the nearest town and the roads twisting around it.
　
Vie tried, as she’d been trying, to come up with a way to stop them, but her mind would only show her the fate she knew she couldn’t avoid. They--no one knew what exactly they were, and they had no name--would swoop down on her and steal magic, leaving her weakened but alive, and then her soul, killing her, or worse. She couldn’t hide from them, couldn’t fight them, couldn’t trick them. The most she could hope for was to be their only victim.
　
She passed a stand on the side of the road. She knew she should hurry on so as to avoid risking the person working at it. But she wanted that one last bit of human contact.
　
She needn’t have worried about that. As she approached, it became quite clear that the person selling whatever was being sold was not at all human. The being--Vie couldn’t tell its gender--had aqua skin, shining white antlers, and huge feathery wings. Being from Sahrinad, Vie had of course seen nonhumans before; but this person was different. She somehow felt that it wasn’t just not a human, but wasn’t a mortal at all.
　
“Hello,” Vie said, because she could at least have one last friendly nonhuman interaction before they found her. “What are you selling?”
　
“Whatever I have, or whatever I need…. But from you, I think I will be buying.”
　
“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to sell.”
　
“I have seen you in my scrying dish, being devoured by kashiu jalt.”
　
“A lot of people have. Is that what they’re called?”
　
“It’s what I call them. It means soul rippers, in some language or other.”
　
“Do you know how to stop them?” Vie’s heart beat quickly, though she told herself she knew the answer would be negative.
　
“You cannot defend against them, or hide from them.” The being paused. “I wish to buy your soul.”
　
Vie jumped back. “What? But… how? And won’t that kill me?”
　
“No, I will take good care of it for you, and sell it back to you when you’re ready. You can consider it a kind of pawning. As for how, we simply agree on the deal and I will take it from you, very gently.”
　
“Sell it back to me… you mean, once the… soul ripper’s are gone?”
　
“Yes.”
　
It wasn’t that Vie didn’t know better than to sell her soul, but surely selling it was better than having it stolen. “All right,” she agreed. A shimmering white antler touched her forehead, and she felt… something, and then she felt nothing. She was conscious, she felt no pain, or even numbness, just nothing. She could see and hear and touch the world around her, but it could not touch her. Nothing mattered.
　
“I’m sorry, I know it’s rather terrible.” Vie didn’t know whether that was true. It just was.
　
She left, and continued walling, and eventually stopped walking and lied down and did not sleep. The sun was beginning to rise when they came.
　
Had she been able to feel, she would have felt fear, but as it was they simply were there. They picked through her mind and sucked out her magic, and as she felt it draining away she knew it was a good thing she couldn’t feel. When it was gone--when the magic that had been so much of her life was gone--they dug deeper, searching for her soul. Vie squeezed her eyelids together. When she opened them, the sun was up, and they were gone.
　
She walked back to the stand on the side of the road. The being touched his antler to her forehead again, and her soul trickled back in, and she began to cry.
　
“Thank you,” she said, and still crying, headed back to Sahrinad. By the time she stepped off the ferry, she was almost used to feeling again, almost able to deal with the loss of her magic, almost able to believe that she had escaped the inescapable.

Deal

The night was dark, so dark I could not even see the blade at my throat, but I wasn’t afraid. “Do you mean to kill me?” I inquired.

“Only if you refuse to tell me where it is,” my attacker answered in a gruff voice.

I smiled sweetly, though he couldn’t see it, and answered, “Sorry, Vak, but you’re going to need to offer more than that.”

“You don’t seem to understand me, Rakayl,” he sounded frustrated. “I’m offering you your life. If you tell me, I’ll go away and leave you be. If not, I’ll slit your throat.”

“You seem to be under the impression that you have the upper hand here. You don’t. I have something you want, but you don’t have anything I want. You’re going to have to raise the price.”

“Your life!”

“Like I said, you don’t have anything I want.”

He finally got it. He sheathed his dagger, and for a moment I thought he was about to leave, but he didn’t. We sat silently in the dark, until he finally muttered something and all the candles in the room flared up. For the first time in years, I saw his face, and he saw mine.

He hadn’t changed much, if at all. Same voice, same face, same beard, same twinkling eyes, same attitude. I knew I’d changed, been aged by years of toil and misery and hopelessness. And I’d meant it, that my life meant nothing to me. Back then, sure, I was a daredevil, took stupid risks that could get me killed, but I’d loved being alive.

I looked away to avoid seeing pity in his eyes. He knew what I’d been once, and to see me reduced to this…. I still had my pride, and one other thing as well.

“Fine,” he gave in. “What do you want?”

“Nothing you can give me.”

“Then why shouldn’t I just kill you and be done with it?”

“I won’t be able to tell you anything once I’m dead.”

“And you’re not telling me anything alive. Why shouldn’t I just kill you and save myself the bother of trying to talk it out of you?”

I shrugged. “No reason.”

He was growing irritated. “Damn it, isn’t there anything I can do to get you to tell me?”

“Like I said, there’s nothing you have that I want.”

“What do you want?”

“Freedom.”

He smiled. “So if I get you out of here, you’ll tell me?”

“No.” He started to glare at me, but I continued, “If you get me out of here, and take me with you, as a partner, then I’ll tell you.”

“I’ve no problem agreeing with that… but are you sure you’re still up to it?”

In a flash, I grabbed his knife from his side and had it at his throat. That was enough of a reply, so I said nothing.

“Fine, fine,” he said, holding up his hands. “I take back the question. We have a deal?”

I tucked the dagger into my waistband, and we shook on it. “My knife wasn’t part of the deal,” he complained.

“No, it wasn’t,” I agreed, but did not return it. “So do you have a plan? Because I assure you, I haven’t stayed here for four years because I like the scenery.”

“You know me, I play things by ear. So should we trick our way out, or fight our way out?”

I’d forgotten that. My style had been to plan everything out to the last detail beforehand, with a multitude of backup plans for everything that could possibly go wrong. Vak had tended to come up with mad ideas and, with no planning whatsoever, act on them, improvising whenever anything went wrong. But it worked for him. After all, I’d been caught, convicted, and sold into slavery, and he was free.

I thought about his question, and grinned. “Fight our way out, of course. If you think you’re up to it.”

“It would help if you gave me my dagger back.”

I smirked. “I guess you do have more need of it.” I offered it to him.

“I don’t need a bit of metal to fight with any more than you do,” he protested, so I put it away.

I had nothing to take with me and no reason to linger, so we left. He’d already picked the locks to get into the room, so we crept out into the darkness.

“Steal a pair of horses?” Vak suggested.

“Just two?” I led the way to the stables. They were guarded, but the guards, not really expecting any trouble, weren’t as alert as they should have been. I was on the first guard before he even noticed us, and by then it was too late; I left him bleeding out into the dust. He’d had time to let out part of a scream, but it didn’t matter. The only one around to hear was the corpse of the other guard, who Vak had dealt with while I was killing the first one. We saddled the two best horses, and quickly released all the others—a distraction, sure, but I mainly did it out of spite. The loss of a few horses, and even a few guards, was hardly enough revenge, but it’s better than nothing.

We dispatched the two guards at the gate as easily as their fellows, but the magic was more difficult. That was how I was caught the last time I tried to escape. I’d thought I’d neutralized it, and started to climb over, and realized it was stronger than I’d thought when I was stuck to the gate for the rest of the night, until the next round of guards came and caught me.

But Vak was with me this time, and as loath as I am to admit it, he knew more magic than I did. So after a rather tense half hour of sitting on my horse in the cold, watching Vak mutter to himself, we were through, and all we had to do was stay out of sight.

“Where to now?” Vak asked me.

“A ship would be best. You up for a spot of piracy?” He was, of course, and if the small craft we took couldn’t exactly be called a ship, it was quite capable of taking us to Port Endra, in Majardea.

“So is that where it is, then?” Vak finally asked me, on the second day of our voyage. “Majardea, or nearby?”

“Well, it was. But it’s too late now. Did you really think they wouldn’t have gotten that out of me a long time ago?”

He stared at me. I put my hand on the dagger, in case he tried anything, but after a while he just laughed. “I should have known. So what happened to it?”

“Well, that bastard wasn’t about to go off on a quest for it, so I guess he must have sold the information or something. A while back I heard some hero went after it, and she found it, but…. I’m not exactly clear on the details, but I heard them complaining about what a waste that was, because I guess she fed it to a goat. Good riddance, in my opinion, you know what I thought about it.”

Vak shook his head. “A goat. The most powerful artifact known to man, and she fed it to a goat.” He looked at me accusingly. “You owe me.”

“I know.” But I didn’t much care.

You Can Run, But You Can't Hide

I’m pretty good at reading people. You know how they say if you kind of subtly mimic a person’s body language or attitude you can sense what they’re feeling? Well, when I actually shift into someone else’s shape, that’s even stronger. I don’t even need to take their shape to have that kind of intuition anymore- just visualizing being in that skin- which I do pretty instinctively with everyone I see, in case I ever do want to be in that shape- is enough.

So when I saw the girl sitting at the bus stop, I could tell she was… more than upset. Traumatized, maybe. Like she was just barely holding onto her soul, though I didn’t know then just how true that was. It wasn’t that her expression was a mask of grief or anything obvious like that. It was just something in the way she sat, head bent slightly, carefully trying to avoid all eye contact. And, when she finally did meet my gaze for an instant, the weird, kind of haunted look in her eyes.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked her. I don’t know what I expected. I mean, she’d never seen me before in her life; she’s not going to pour out all her troubles to me. The most normal thing for her to do would have been to just say, “Yeah, I’m fine,” and continue ignoring me.

But her response wasn’t normal. She jumped up and screamed, “Get away from me, you bastard! I hate you! You evil, sick, twisted, evil… You’re worse than them! I hope they do kill you, you stupid horrible asshole!” Her eyes blazed with anger and hatred and behind that, terror.

Like I said, she didn’t know me. For an instant it crossed my mind that she knew someone who I’d based my current shape on, but that wouldn’t fly because I was wearing my own skin at the moment. So I backed away, thinking, Okay, maybe I’m not so good at reading people. That look in her eyes was insanity. So I left her be, went home, and put the whole incident out of my mind.

I really didn’t think about it much more. It’s not like I had nothing better to do than worry over crazy people who scream at me for no reason. After all, I was in the middle of a little job I’d taken up to help a friend, trying to frame a guy for murder, which sounds bad when I say it like that but trust me, he deserved it. And then I started to feel like I was being followed. You know the prickling on the back of your neck when someone’s watching you? It was like that, but twenty times over. And malevolent. And it happened when I was all alone, in my own shape, at home or out in the open, at times and in places where there was no possible way that there was someone else there.

You’d think I’d know better than to say something’s impossible, wouldn’t you, seeing as how most people would say that about what I do?

So on top of being busy taking all kinds of shapes and pretending to be dead, to be a cop, to be a witness, to be the guy I was working on putting away, in my free moments I was distracted by whoever or whatever was or wasn’t following me. So, I really didn’t think about that girl much at all, till a couple days later, when I was having a few beers with a friend of mine who happens to work in a mental institution. He started telling me stories about his patients, and I remembered, “I had an encounter with a sanity-challenged individual the other day,” and told him about it. He made some comment in reply, I can’t remember what, and I said, “I’m starting to feel like I’m going crazy.”

“What, multiple personality disorder?”

I laughed. “No, seriously, I keep getting this strong feeling I’m being watched or stalked or something… it’s pretty freaky. It’s only been happening for a couple of days, and I’m already starting to feel paranoid.”

And that’s when it clicks. I first felt whatever was watching me right after meeting her. She’d been paranoid and terrified and had said I was worse than “them.” Therefore… Um, I wasn’t sure what it meant. She’d called down a curse on me? The “them” that were after her had moved on to me? But I knew in my gut that something big was going on, and it was because of her.

I didn’t know how to find her again. I went back to the bus stop, but she wasn’t there. I sat down on the bench and waited. She didn’t show up, but after a little bit I felt the air grow heavy with evil and a presence behind me. I didn’t see anyone there, of course. But I felt them.

“I know you’re there!” I called, aware that if anyone was watching I would seem as crazy as the girl had to me. “Show yourself!” There was no response. “What do you want with me?” Still nothing. “What do you want with her?”

And then they appeared. Appeared is the wrong word. They were still invisible, but they were revealing themselves to me. I couldn’t see them, not really, but I could sense their presence with my eyes. It’s like how looking through a completely clear window with no spots or streaks isn’t the same as looking through an open window, how things that are completely clear are still visible. So I could see them. There were seven of them, whatever they were, floating a few feet above the ground. I’m not sure how to describe what they looked like. They were kind of humanoid and kind of not, like how a djinni has a human head and torso that trails off into smoke at the legs- but their whole bodies were like that, halfway between being solid and not.
They were terrifying. It wasn’t their appearance but the mood they created. I said I could feel their malevolence when they were watching me, but that was nothing compared to this. The girl was right to be terrified. These…beings were pure evil.

“We want her soul,” one of them said, in a voice that matched everything else about them.

“She owes us,” another added.

“We will make her pay.” They began to advance towards me. I shifted my legs to those of an Olympic runner, and ran.

I managed to stay ahead of them for long enough to be in the middle of a crowd of people, and then I shifted. I sensed confusion over the beings’ hatred and anger as they drifted back towards the bus stop.

Maybe the smart thing to do would have been to stay away from them, but it was too late for that. And I have to admit, my curiosity tends to overrule my common sense. So I took on a really inconspicuous form, and followed them.

A couple blocks away from the bus stop, the girl appeared out of an alley. The things surrounded her. I wanted to do something, but I kept back, watching. I do have some sense.

“I didn’t even know him!” she was saying to them. “Haven’t you realized by now? I won’t do it, no matter how many people you kill. Go find someone else to haunt!”

“She is close to despair. We will have her soon,” one of the things leered, and they were gone.

I put on my own shape and stepped forward. Her eyes widened and she asked in surprise, “They didn’t kill you?”

“No, but I think they want to.”

“I was hoping they wouldn’t. That they’d think I wanted you dead, so they’d let you live. I should’ve known they’re not so easily tricked.”

“I think it worked, at least for a while,” I told her. “They’ve been following me, and I’m still alive.”

“They’ve killed every single person I’ve interacted with in the last six months. My family, my friends, a cashier who rang up my groceries, complete strangers who happen to make a passing remark to me…”

I was horrified. “Why?”

“I… I made a deal with them. But I didn’t understand what I was agreeing to, and I just couldn’t do what they asked, so I went back on the bargain. Now they’re trying to drive me to despair so they can turn me into one of them.”

I thought about that, then told her, “You need to just end it, once and for all.”

“I can’t give in. They’re killing people now, but if I become one of them I’ll be killing people, for thousands of years.”

“I didn’t say anything about giving in,” I said, as a plan began to form in my mind. “What you need to do is make another deal with them- or not a deal, more like a bet. If you win they leave you and everyone around you alone, if they win you become one of them.”

“What kind of bet? How can I get them to agree? What if I lose?”

“Bet them that they can’t kill me within twenty four hours, by noon tomorrow. I think they’ll go for that. And I’ll make sure you don’t lose.”

“I couldn’t do that to you!”

“I’m volunteering. They’re going to try to kill me anyway, aren’t they?”

She nodded. “You’re sure about this.”

“Absolutely.” And I was. Scared, but sure. I started to leave, then turned back. “Wait, what’s your name?”

“Laurel.”

“I’m Nick.”

I shifted to another shape and backed off a bit, and she called them and made the deal. She added that if they lost they leave her and everyone else alone, and leave the earth for a hundred years. They agreed and left to start looking for me, so I was off.

I took on the shape of a woman, to make it confusing for them, and kept to crowded areas. For a while I could see them sniffing around, but not realizing I could shift skins, they were looking for the man they’d seen before. But after a couple of hours, they did figure it out. That was when things got difficult.

I was at a crowded park, sitting on a bench watching the beings out of the corner of my eye when all of a sudden they swooped towards me. I ducked into a crowd of people and shifted, becoming a little boy. People never seem to notice when I shift, even if it’s right in front of them, and while the thing must have known I’d shifted, they didn’t know what form I was in. So they were inspecting all the people around me, and being small, I managed to slip away unnoticed.
After awhile they found me again, and again I managed to shift shapes and get away. This pattern repeated itself for a while.

Then it started to get dark. People were leaving the park, so I left with them. It was a bit harder to find a crowd once it got dark, but I finally slipped into a nightclub. It took a while for them to find me that time. It was past midnight when they showed up, and I managed to evade them for another couple of hours before the place closed. I couldn’t think of anywhere else that would have enough people that time of night, so I spent a while in the emergency room, shifting from injured-seeming form to injured seeming form as they chased me.

Finally, morning came and I left. I meant to go back to the park I’d been at, but somehow they found me and managed to chase me down a deserted alley. They split up and managed to corner me, with half of them at one end of the alley and half on the other. I knew there was no way I could go, no shape I could take, that would save me.

But then, just before they approached, I had an idea. I ducked behind a dumpster and shifted into an exact copy of Laurel. There was no way it would work. They’d seen me come into the alley, they’d know it had to be me.

But it did work. They surrounded me, demanding of “Laurel” where “he” was. I cowered from them, pretending not to know. Three of them went off to search for me, while the other four circled me, demanding an answer, telling me in gruesome detail how they would kill “him”, and how they had killed each of the so many others. They tormented me for hours, and I understood why the real Laurel was so close to the brink of despair, admired her for having the strength not to give in. I almost shifted, to get away from it, but that would have meant my death, and her transformation to one of these things.

A few minutes before noon, the other three returned. “We haven’t found him,” one of them told the others.

“Should we kill her? We can at least get something out of this,” another suggested.

“We have a deal, and my death isn’t part of it!” I objected.

They looked at me suspiciously. “There’s something different about her,” one of them commented. I snuck a look at my watch. It was 11:59. If it took them another minute to figure it out or if I could stall that long, I’d be home clear.

But just then, the real Laurel began to walk down the alley towards me.

I began to run, away from her, so that they would follow me without noticing that there were two of us. They were almost on me when Laurel screamed, “Laurel!” They thought she was me, so they all turned and rushed towards her.

“No, it’s me!” I cried. The beings looked around in confusion. They would have rushed towards one of us, or more likely both of us, but at that moment the clock struck twelve.

They stood still in the air. “Don’t think this is over,” one of them said. “We’ll be back in a hundred years, and if you’re still alive, we’ll kill both of you.” Then they vanished, not just turned invisible but were gone.

“If I somehow live to be a hundred and twenty five, remind me to kill myself first,” Laurel said, and we both laughed.