EPILOGUE
“And I think we’ll call it there for the day,” Iver said with a weighty sigh of satisfaction, leaning back in his diner seat.
“Wait! What!?” Tave protested, half standing from his seat. “We can’t stop right there! You have to reveal that secret! You spent so long building up to it!”
“Chill your chops,” Iver said calmly. “I think that’s a good cliff hanger for the end. It’ll mean people want to come back for more after reading about my first colossal failure. Think of it as a strategic stop.”
Tave worried at his lower lip, concerned about his next question. “And the boys? Bit, Byte, and Gig. What happened to them?”
Iver’s face turned grim. “I skipped over that, because those boys don’t deserve to have their tragedy spoken of any more than necessary. Suffice it to say that Gig blamed me. He probably still blames me. As for Bit… That’s a story for another time.”
Lind had diligently recorded every word Iver had said and was eager for more, but he understood not discussing something so cruel. Then he looked at the table on either side of the Iver. He was still shocked at what he had witnessed over the course of the day. This strange and eccentric Darkling had continuously eaten the entire time. Sixteen hours of Iver unendingly feasting like he was a starving man about to walk the gallows. There were more than two dozen empty plates stacked on his side of the table, and that was after the waitress had carried off stacks over the course of the day. What was this man? He should’ve been the size of an armored tank with the amount he had ingested. Yet there he was, still rail thin as if he’d only had a single burger.
“Um… I’m sorry, Mr. Iver, but… How in all the planes can you eat so much?” Tave asked, part of him scared of the answer. This man was certainly insane, and Tave wouldn’t have been surprised if Iver said that he had installed a gravity well inside his stomach.
“Oh, that?” Iver scratched the side of his nose absently. “I had to have an artificial digestive system installed after I was disemboweled one time.” He said one time as if he had been gutted more than once. That scared Tave. “I take time to eat every few weeks. I stock up on the nutrients to hold me over for a while and have all the waste stored in a pocket dimension. Working is a lot easier when you don’t have to stop every few hours to eat, you know.”
Tave simply stared at Iver. Of course, the man had a pocket dimension inside him. Why wouldn’t someone as insane as Iver do something so dangerous and talk about it like he had just organized his office desk.
“So that cadaver tissue thing. You weren’t just pulling my leg?” Tave asked.
“Nope,” Iver said simply as he cleaned between his teeth with a toothpick. “You are presently speaking to someone who has a body of about eighty percent infused corpse tissue. It’s one of the reasons I’m still here and able to tell you my story.” Iver slid from his seat and waved for Tave to follow. The Darkling made a few quick motions of his fingers and flicked toward the cook. The large man looked up and thanked Iver for his business before returning to cleaning.
Together, the two stepped from the diner. They stopped at a street corner that distinctly smelled of motor grease and bananas. Iver quickly produced and lit one of his herbal cigarettes and took a very long pull from it. Tave watched as half of the stick was gone in an instant.
Iver had said something about those cancer-sticks being how he medicated. After Iver had said about the results of standard mental medication, Tave couldn’t blame him for taking just a long draw. The man had just covered what would, for most people, be the most scarring part of their life. But if the stories Tave had heard were even half true, this man had gone through worse. Much worse.
Tave snorted and shook his head in disbelief. “What is it?” Iver asked.
“It's you,” Tave said with dark humor. “To the world, your half-legendary hero, half-nightmarish villain. You have execution warrants in half the nations. One of them, this nation. You’ve saved lives by the hundreds or thousands and ruined just as many. When I realized you were talking about Evea’s Fall event, I was expecting you to say something about toppling corporate greed.” He gave another snort and smirked at his shoes. “It was just a boy, barely a man, with mental disfuction, a few screws loose and panicking.” Tave massaged his brow. “Gods, if that was an accident, no wonder when you know what you’re doing, you start toppling deities and demolishing corrupt nations.”
“Hey.” Iver started with an indignant tone. “I’ve only ever been doing what I thought I had to in the moment. I’m not some brilliant game master plotting entire brilliant campaigns of chaos. My genius extends to technology, and that's it. I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants for most of my life.” He took a second and final drag off his cigarette before quashing the dimming cherry and pocketting the butt. “Now, you need sleep. Head back to your room and play dead for a few hours. Do you want me to walk you there?”
Tave nervously eyed the way to his temporary housing. “Um… yeah. Yes please. After those mange hounds last night, I’d feel better with you.”
“Can do,” Iver said unperturbed as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his glyph-etched duster.
The two walked down the street, shoulder to shoulder in silence. That silence felt thick and heavy to him, but Iver seemed completely content, walking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Tave knew that carefree facade was a lie so deep it reached the bottom pits of the hells.
“Hey, can I tell you something?” Iver asked, as if he were asking about the weather for the next day.
“Sure?” Tave asked and answered, curious about what more he could learn about this anomaly of man.
“Don’t put this in your books unless it comes up naturally. But… my story is more an allegory.” Iver’s words sounded tired. A weariness that seeped into his soul. “A lesson of clawing up from the bottom only to fall from what I might call glory. All be it, a gruesome glory.” He gave an exhausted laugh of bitter amusement. “It's just an allegory of man losing pieces of himself inside and out to his own mistakes.”
“I…I’m sorry?” Tave asked, confused about where the Darkling was going.
Iver slapped him jovially across the back as he painted on a wide grin. “Don’t stress it too much.” With those words, they stood before the Morning Flower Motel. “Now, you need sleep, and I need to see my wife.”
“Wait. You’re married.” Tave was shocked at the realization. He would’ve sworn the Iver was the lone wolf kind of a man.
“Well, of course. She’s the greatest thing to come into my life. She’s even my reason for living right now. I’ll introduce you tomorrow, since that’s when she stepped into my life.”
“Oh… Well… good for you.” Tave said, unsure of his praise. “I can’t wait to meet her.” With those words, Iver turned and strolled down the street and turned into a dark alley. Tave headed to bed with concern and confusion tinting his thoughts.
Out of Tave’s sight, Iver walked down the dark, dank, and dirty alley. A portal tore open before the man to somewhere dark. He didn’t break pace as he passed through the gate, but his steps did get harder on the other side.
Somewhere far distant from the depressing city, Iver walked through fresh grass and rich soil. Cheshire Cherry Blossom Trees surrounded the space, forever in bloom and shedding glowing petals of pink, purple, and red, each shimmering as if they were only half real. The space was rich with the smell of the flowers. She had always loved that smell.
Centered within these trees and nestled deep in a place where none would find her was a tomb. Looking to the sky was a cold stone box, etched with a wondrous art of ferrets playing with skulls, of all things. That always brought a small smile to Iver’s lips.
The lid was carved in the likeness of a Human woman. Her features were gentle and warm. She looked like she had smiled and laughed plenty in her life. Her hair fanned out around her head like a halo of waves, and Iver remembered the flowing scarlet that had first hypnotised him. She was dressed in a simple kimono, her hands gently resting on a creature that slept on her lap. It was a loveable creature with the features of a ferret, a tiger, a wolf, and a hawk. It's adorable, stone shape curled, sleeping under her unmoving touch.
Iver flicked the beast’s nose gently. “You always caused me trouble, Critter.”
He moved that hand to her cold cheek for a long moment before sliding down the tomb’s side to rest his head beside her shoulder. “I’ve said it more times than the gods could count, but as always, I’ll say it again. I love you. Now and forever. I miss you so deeply, my soul aches.” Iver pulled a bottle of something reddish-orange from his coat. He sheared off the head of the bottle with a flick of his thumb. He took a swig and grimaced in distaste. “I always hated this stuff. I still swear you had terrible taste. In drinks. And in men.” He poured out the rest of the bottle into the grass beside the stone box that brought him so much pain. “What I wouldn’t give for you to kick me in the balls, just one more time, Ches.”
To be continued…
