Alexin
by
Yaeko de Nirohmy

“Why do you not go back to them?”
He didn’t know why he answered... Perhaps it was the sickening, cloying incense, or maybe the dim, warm room... He didn’t know, but he answered the wizened old woman. “I cannot go back to them. To them, I am dead - no longer a being with a soul. They would not know me if I came back.” His voice slid through the air sounding, even to his own ears, very sad.
“Do they know about your quest? The Seals?”
“... No.” He sighed. “As I said, they cannot understand now. This is something, ultimately, between my soul and his.”
When the fortune-teller opened her puckered mouth to dispense more sage advice, he cut her off. “It is between me and him. Meaning, old woman, that it does not concern you.” With that, he stood. Dropping a heavy gold coin on the tattered straw mat, he left the dusky tent.
It was nearly sunrise. Soon he would need to find shelter. He sighed, wondering why he wasted so much money.
“Looking for a friend for a little while, handsome?”
He turned slowly, studying the made-up features and gaudy, shabby clothing of the woman who had addressed him. “No. Looking for shelter.”
The woman, who had thick makeup and bleached-out hair, studied him for a long moment. Then she shrugged, looking as old and weary are the fortune-teller. “Sure, okay, so long as you pay. I’m done fore the night, anyway.”
“Yes.” He shifted his light shoulder pack and let the streetwalker lead him through the dirty, shadow-infested alleyways.

She showed him to a run-down, dirt-floored hut. It had only two rooms, no windows, and the barest, most rickety furniture.
“This is where you live?” he asked softly.
The woman shrugged. “It’s about all any of us can afford here. This is a fairly good place. So, hungry?”
“No.”
“Eh, makes sense. You’re pretty damn skinny. You look like you’ve been on the road a while. Thirsty?”
“No.”
“Man of few words. Okay, then.” The woman shrugged, amusement glittering in her black eyes. “Do you wanna fuck me?”
“No.”
She laughed. He didn’t know why, but she laughed. “Is there anything you do want to do?”
“Sleep.”
“Sure, can do. I have an extra bedroll somewhere. It’s probably thin as a sheet, but you don’t seem like the type to care.”
“I’m not.”
“Look, if you don’t mind, I’m really hungry. I’m gonna keep a light on for a little while so I can cook and eat. That okay? Can you sleep like that?”
“It’s fine.”
She stood up and walked to the corner of the first, main room. “Other room’s my bedroom. You can sleep in there, with me, if you want.”
“Here’s fine.”
“Suit yourself, then.” She shrugged again and unrolled the thin mat. Then she wandered into the other room and returned a few moments later, holding a moth-eaten blanket. “Here ya go. Sleep tight.”
“Thank you.” He placed a large coin on the table and then knelt next to the bedroll. He lowered the small pack from his back, to the head of the roll. Then he settled down on the roll, using his bag as a pillow, and pulled the blanket over himself.
As the woman heated the fire for her meal, she was surprised to hear the stranger’s breathing even out and turn peaceful. What a strange man... All that money for a run-down bed, no food, no drink, and no sex. Very strange... She sighed and stirred some noodles into the thin broth cooking over the fire.

When she awoke, around noon, the stranger was sitting at her table, his back to her bedroom door, staring at the thin line of light that was shining from under the door.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
The man did not seem to be aware of her presence in the least. If one looked at him, he might have been asleep sitting up, but she didn’t quite believe that.
“You look like the type who’s seen a lot of sorrow in your days, stranger.” She sat down across from him, blocking his view of the door. Still he didn’t look at her. He’s staring... through me... “Takes one to know one, right?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She shrugged and yawned. “So, what’s your sad story.”
Still staring as though he could not see her, he spoke. “My brother is dead. I have taken on the Spell of the Seventeen Seals.”
“The what?”
“It is an ancient covenant... It was created by a widow, for the bereaved...”

. “Listen to me boy, listen.”
Another, different ancient fortune-teller, years ago, in a dark, nighttime forest. He’d been so frightened, but not for himself...
“I am, I’m listening! Please, help me...”
“There is a way to bring your brother back,good as new.”
“Alive?”
“Yes, alive. Not a zombie, but as whole as he ever was.”
He let out a deep breath. “Ohhh... Please tell me...”
“The Spell of the Seventeen Seals. After binding yourself to the Seals, you will have seven years to fulfill your promise to the Gods of the Seals.”
“A promise?” He watched her warily, in the shifting moonlight.
“In those seven years, you must kill one person for each of the Seal Gods. Seventeen lives in seven years. The last life will be your own, on the very last day of the seventh year. Only then will your brother come back.”
“How do I begin?” He was ready to go...
“It will kill you slowly and painfully,” cautioned the witch, ignoring him. “Your life force will slowly be drained by whichever Seal God chooses you. By the time you finally die, you will hardly be any more than a husk of bone and skin.”
He felt tears filing his eyes, not for himself, but for is brother, who would never see him again. “I don’t care. I don’t care anymore. Just help me bring him back!”
She pulled bag from inside her cloak, and inched it towards his extended hand. Then she blinked at his pale face and pulled back her hand.
“What!?” His breath stopped in his throat and his heart skipped a beat.
“You have a god within you... a great one...”
He drew in breath once more, shakily, and closed his eyes, tears sliding down his cheeks. “Yes... Does it matter?”
“No, not really,” the witch said nonchalantly. “But the Seal God who eventually devours your soul will have a particularly sweet meal ahead of him.”
He shuddered slightly. “Fine.” He shook his extended hand. “Please, the Seals!”
“A drop of your blood for each of the seals.”
In the blink of an eye, the seals were in his hand and the white-haired woman was gone in a fluttering of black cloth.
He crouched down and removed the Seals from the bag. They were all written on small rolls of ancient paper. He could only understand portions of the text in each of the spells, for it was written in a language older than even the magic words he knew. However, he managed to make out the names of the each of the seals, and said them aloud as he slashed a drop of blood from a nicked finger on each piece of stained parchment.
Drip - “Earth,” drip - “Wind,” drip - “Fire,” drip - “Water,” drip - “Love,” drip - “Hatred,” drip - “Fear,” drip - “Hope,” drip - “Courage,” drip - “Time,” drip - “Stillness,” drip - “Emptiness,” drip - “Light,” drip - “Dark,” drip - “Spirit,” drip - “Life,” drip - “Death.”
He watched as the Seal of Emptiness became black and began to glow whitish around the edges. as overwhelming sense of dizziness filled him, and he dropped to the earth with a heavy thud.

“I have killed fifteen people so far,” he said. “I have two more weeks to find the last person, for the scroll of Life.”
The streetwalker sighed heavily. “That’s some weird shit, there, stranger.”
He laughed, a sharp, short sound. “Yes.”
“And yet - this is going to sound so sick - it doesn’t seem all that hard. Why couldn’t you just round up seventeen - okay, sixteen - criminals and kill them all at once? Why not make the job easy on yourself?”
“If it were that easy, I would not be here.”
“Oh?” She looked up at him through thin, un-made-up eyelashes.
“Each Seal has a certain person whose life it desires. The Seal of Emptiness, for example, desires mine.”
“Oh.” Her voice sounded heavy, and sorrowful.
“Stillness was an old deaf man... Time was a four-year-old girl.”
“So you killed her?” The tired-out woman, it seemed, had seen enough so that killing a little girl didn’t horrify her as much at perhaps should have. She simply asked, understanding somewhere inside herself what the answer would be.
“Yes.”
She nodded. “Is it worth it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I could be that brave.”
“It’s not brave. It’s selfish,” he replied, once again staring through her with his black eyes. “I only wish that I’d be able to see him once before I died...” He sighed, and looked away.
“So you’re dying?”
“Yes.” He smiled coldly and ran a hand over his scalp. “My hair began to fall out about three years ago. People used to think my hair was very beautiful...”
She hadn’t noticed it before, because he’d been wearing a black, knit skull-cap, but he was completely bald, his pale skin was stretched taught and thin over his skull.
He held out a long-fingered hand. “I’d always been thin, but this is it... I’m nothing but skin and bone. It’s just my magic holding me together now.”
“Magic? Are you a Sorcerer?” She took his white hand in her olive-toned one. His thin was like gauze, and stretched over his bones. His hand shook ever so slightly, and his veins were thin and nearly invisible, even through his translucent skin. But the most shocking part of it was the absolute cold of his hand. He felt like ice.
“I used to be a Sorcerer Hunter. I used Eastern fire magic.” He shrugged and withdrew himself from her tight grip.
“Then... Shouldn’t you be warmer? If it’s fire magic, I mean?”
He laughed curtly again, almost viciously. “My time has almost run out, and so has my kindling. My fire is very weak, and concentrated around the most important part of my anatomy - my heart.”
“It... It must be very cold.” It make sense, suddenly, the way he’d been dressed when she first saw him. She’d vaguely wondered about it in the dim early-morning light. What sort of person wore all black, in August? This stranger was the sort of person, for all that meant. He’d been wearing wool trousers, a knitted turtleneck, a long, ankle-length trench coat, and huge, heavy boots, and a knitted, tight skullcap. He’d been carrying a black-hilted katana, as well, but that was hardly as strange as his clothing, and so she’d thought nothing of that.
“For all my magic’s attempts to keep my heart warm, that is the coldest part of me. My heart is vacant. That is why the Seal of Emptiness chose me.” With that, he stood up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I should get back to sleep. I must leave at sun-down, and I’d like to be as rested as possible by then.”
After staring blankly at the tall stranger for a moment, she said, “Take my bed, in the other room. I have some errands to run, so I won’t be using it anyway.”
He nodded and headed towards the bedroom.
“Anything I can get you?” she asked as she put on her shoes.
“No,” echoed his voice, and she left.

When the blonde woman returned home, around eight o’clock, she found the house empty. The spare bed mat was rolled up again and propped against the wall, the blanket folded and sitting next to it. The only evidence of the strange, cold, black-clad man was another large, gold coin sitting on the table. She sighed.
“So much for that,” she said to her walls. “Poor guy...” She pocketed the coin and set about making dinner so that she could eat before changing for a long night of work.

He stalked through the darkening forest, one hand on his katana hilt. The Seal of Life was silent in his pocket, but the Seal of Emptiness hummed softly beneath his heavy sweater, against his chest.
Absently, he wandered in the direction that he felt compelled to go. When the last target was near, he would know where to be...
His Seal, the one that had marked him for death, had begun to act up in the past six months. At first he’d thought he’d been imagining things, but then it began to thrum against his skin, and eventually the vibrations were accompanied by this audible, low-pitched humming.
Odd, it was the sound of his death... And he was used to it. He’d been facing, and, in fact, chasing after, his death for years now. Maybe it didn’t matter...

She was plowed over by a man in a cape of coarse cloth.
“Gomen ne, ojosan.” He pulled her back onto her feet and bowed shallowly in her general direction. He had almost dash off again when he stopped and turned around, and studied her. “You have his scent...” he muttered.
“What?”
“By any chance, ojosan,” said the cloaked man, “have you seen a tall, pale man who travels only at night? He would be carrying a small sack with him, and would probably be dressed in all black...?”
She blinked at the man in the dim early-evening light, trying to catch a glimpse of his face from beneath its tawny shroud. “Actually, yes. He stayed at my house during the day.”
He let out a deep breath. He was studying her, but she couldn’t see him, which bothered her slightly. “Please, which way did he go?”
She shrugged lightly. “I think he probably headed out of town, towards the forest, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Dammit,” whispered the man, staring at the ground for a long moment. Then he looked up. “Thank you, ojosan.” And with that he ran swiftly away.

He sat in front of the fire, wrapping his hands around a mug of steaming tea. The small, smoky fire had used up the last of his magic, he was fairly sure, and the flames, the smoke, and the tea’s steam were all that was left to warm him. He felt so very weak, but, luckily, the Seal of Life in his pocket was humming, and the sound was growing continually louder. So, he needn’t go anywhere else, his last victim was coming straight to him. After he killed the last target for the Seal of Life, he could simply spend his last days resting in this dense forest.
At that moment, a wind whipped through the clearing, and lifted the curling tendrils of smoke through the layer of tree branches and into the night sky. Then the fire was snuffed out, and he was left alone with only his cup of tea, the loudly singing Scroll of Life, and the happily humming Seal of Emptiness. Then the wind picked up and whistled loudly, drowning out the sounds of both the Scrolls.
“North wind, return to your Lord and Master Karuuman.” The wind disappeared as if it was been yanked away by a rope.
His eyes widened and he turned slowly, looking towards the source of the voice. He sighed heavily, and cast down his eyes, when he saw who was leaning against a tree, watching him.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear me coming,” said the cloaked man on the edge of the clearing.
“Don’t be. I am weak now, Gateau. Almost dead.”
The man threw back his hood and slowly closed the distance between them. The blonde man sat down next to his once-comrade, who was shivering. He touched the man’s hand, and worked the tea from his grasp.
Marron sighed deeply, and raised deep, pleading, black eyes to meet a sky-blue pair. “I haven’t the strength to kill you, now,” he said softly.
“Then don’t.”
“I can’t stop now...” he whispered harshly. “I am too close... If I stop... now... my death will be for nothing... and the deaths of those I killed will be for nothing... too... You are the last... Do you hear it singing now? It’s singing for your life’s... blood...”
The tall blonde shook his head. “I don’t hear anything.”
It... It was true... There was no sound any longer, no Seal of Life singing its macabre tune, no humming of his own demise...
“Why...?” He collapsed again Gateau’s coarsely clothed chest, and the larger man folded him into warm embrace.
“Why did I follow you?” The fragile man against his chest murmured assent, and he laughed softly. “I spent three years mastering Karuuman’s magic, what little the North God has. After I knew there was something I could do to help you, I came running. And I’ve been chasing after you ever since.” He brushed the man’s papery, white cheek.
“You’re... You’re silencing them...”
“Yes.” He nodded, despite the fact that Marron couldn’t see it. His face was pressed against Gateau’s chest.
“You’re so warm... I... Thank you...”
Tears welling in his eyes, he held tight to the hollow remains of the man he loved. “Sometimes you just have to let go, Marron... Just let go...” He fought back the terror at what he was inviting... He was encouraging Marron’s death... His voice was the true sound of Marron’s death... He couldn’t believe it.
He felt Marron’s eyes close, and his body relax. There was no dull white noise in the back of his mind any longer, the sound of the ethereal, eerie music he had been suppressing. He let his hot tears fall freely down his cheeks, and off his nose, onto Marron’s pale, white skull, and hugged the limp body in a crushing hug.
There was a sound other than his harsh, uneven breaths... The fire had picked back up inside the small ring of stones in front of them. It was pocking and crackling merrily. Beneath that, there was a second sound, that of very soft, laboured breathing.
Marron was... Marron was alive.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt some measure of warmth seep into his love’s loose body. He loosened the hold on Marron’s body somewhat, so as to give the fragile man some space to breath.
He smiled softly and pressed a kiss to the thinly covered head against his chest. “Yes, my love... You know when to let go...”
 
 
 
 
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