Sparse grasses studded the white sand dunes of southwestern
Sepira, those soft hills curled like mastodons against the wind. And mastodons
indeed there were, more than I had ever seen, herded by the thousands. Some
were organized into columns and separated here and there by lines of men in
silver Profusionist armor, encouraging them along. There too, the machines of
the white swarm were spread along above the ground, a haze thicker than the
sand and rising even to the knees of the great beasts. And far to the east, at
the limit of what even the oculars could see, more mastodons plodded up the
ramps of a further dozen Profusionist greatships.
But whoever
rode the skiff, when I finally found it, his face was still too indistinct to
see, and I put the oculars down.
“It seems
like forever,” I said, “since I first awoke and thought that I was laying in a
sarcophagus with a bunch of white Sepiran sand. Congratulations on a victory.
It is a triumph that we are here.”
He started,
turning – and frowned. “I win nothing until everything is finished. But you
will behold the Jade City, just as you once promised me. I have not forgotten
that. But you have recovered yourself. I would never have had you injured. Too
many were, and not all of them have healed.”
I shifted
the oculars in my hand, asking, “Are we even human anymore? No one survives the
wound I got.”
He smiled,
facing the shore. “You include others in questions you ask about yourself. Do
you fear death?”
I shivered,
thinking of my beloved and the enemy coming at me along the head of the
mastodon. “Julius said you would show us the meaning of war. I believe that is
it: that we are always terrified. That there is no blade that cannot reach us,
that our friends cannot always help us, that at any moment we may fail or die
outright.”
He nodded.
“They say that one’s life becomes clear only when it is ended. But I tell you that
life is its own ending, and it is we ourselves who are clear or unclear.”
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