Erasing a Soul, Lentil Stew, and a Question of Remembering (1/2)

The next morning, Rowan watched the young man as he slept in his bed, pale arms and legs straight as sticks, face as smooth and still as if he were dead.

He had to admit the clothes the man had worn when he appeared at the bridge suited him more than this old nightshirt. Just as the smooth skin on his chest had suited him more than the firebrand slash of a scar that was there now.

Illusion.

The more Rowan tried to push the thought away, the more it pushed back.

The night before, Rowan had tried to talk to him, but any awareness the young man had possessed at the bridge had been swallowed up by the empty shadows that had materialized to extinguish the brief, bright flame.

Rowan was truly impressed that he'd managed to lure the man all the way back to his hut with his singing. He'd been even more impressed when he'd instructed the man to lay on the bed and sleep, and he'd done so without the slightest resistance.

To have someone obeying his commands so obligingly—indeed to issue commands in the first place—made a sense of discomfort swirl in his chest, as if the whole world had been flipped inside out.

Rowan left his ward to his rest and collected the shadow creature's soul-seed from where he'd placed it on his table. He didn't bother with his hair, which had managed to stay halfway braided with the blue ribbon tied around the end, while the other half had loosened itself into a nonsensical mess over his left shoulder.

After everything that had happened, he only had enough energy to do one thing, and that was to dispose of the creature's soul, as he said he would.

At least Rowan could feel somewhat relieved that he didn't become possessed by a need to transform every soul that could potentially pose a threat to the Order and the reality it protected.

At the back of the garden, dragonflies zipped above the surface of the black pond on sapphire wings. Beneath them, white lilies created by Rowan to hide the emptiness beneath floated in clusters, soft faces open to the sun.

The pond, a secret weapon of the Order hidden here in Rowan's garden, had not served its true purpose in all of Rowan's time as its guardian.

Under the ink-sheen surface of the water lay a pocket of absolute nothingness. Neither Order nor Disorder. A place where things could simply be erased from the memory of time.

Rowan pressed the shadow creature's soul-seed between his palms. To drop it in the pond meant the owner never existed and never would again. It would be totally obliterated, something much different than a simple release into the Aether.

He felt an unexpected twinge of sadness as he tossed it in, not because he wanted to save it, but because the act of erasing a soul went against the magic flowing in his veins, even if he believed it was a necessary thing to do. It sank quickly beneath the surface as the water separating Order from Void swallowed it whole.

A song of mourning swelled in his chest, and he released it quietly over the pond.

The dragonflies stilled at the sound of his voice, the swift buzz of blue-glass wings silent as they landed on the lilies to listen. When he'd finished the brief verse, they resumed their flight, cutting zig-zag patterns over the pond once more.

Rowan turned when he felt a presence behind him to discover the young man standing some distance away, at the place where a cacophonous stretch of wildflowers gave way to the grass around the perimeter of the pond.

The man stared at Rowan with golden topaz eyes, his gaze fixed on Rowan's face. The shadows that had descended the night before seemed to be gone, and in the light of day, the man's eyes shone like clear jewels. The nightshirt hung slightly askew over one shoulder, but the loose neck revealed a chest that was smooth and flawless once more.

"Oh. How long were you standing there?"

The man's eyes slid to the pond then back to Rowan. They traveled the entire length of his body before centering on Rowan's chest. Rowan couldn't help but feel like he was staring at the exact spot where his locket hid the garnet-seed.

"I'm sorry if my singing disturbed you," Rowan said.

The man blinked, and his eyes snapped back to Rowan's face. A frown tugged at the corner of his lips.

Rowan approached him, but of course not too close. His ward had been through enough. He didn't need to be defiled yet again.

The man's body tensed, and his eyes narrowed slightly. Rowan sensed a bit of the danger that was present the night before, but this time it was aimed at him, as if the man was waiting for a reason to attack.

Rowan preferred not to be tossed into the pond or severed in half, so he held out his hands and stepped back.

"Don't you remember me? I'm not going to hurt you." Rowan painted on a nervous smile. "I found you. You'd somehow lost your body, but I brought you back. They call me the Caretaker. You can call me Rowan. I work for the Order. You have nothing to fear."

The man's eyes narrowed even more, and he stepped toward Rowan.

Rowan clasped his hands behind his back and walked a safe distance from the black pond. The man's face darkened as he pivoted to watch him.

Was this the same person who had saved him the night before on the bridge?

If those creatures appeared at this very moment, Rowan thought now the man might offer to help them rip him apart.

He tugged on his sleeves as the man's eyes drifted over the freckles on his bare forearms. "I can see that you don't trust me. Please believe me when I tell you that I only want to help you. Your soul spoke to me, and I felt compelled to give it a new beginning…though I was expecting to only sing your soul to a point where it could be released to a new body at birth. I will confess, I never thought for you to appear in a ready made body like this one. I didn't know it was possible."

"You were singing just now. You sang to me as well?"

Rowan nodded, a strangely gratified that his guest had decided to speak. "Yes. Do you remember?"

"I thought it was a dream." A haze drifted through the golden eyes. "Aren't you a dream?"

"I really hope not." Rowan cleared his throat. "Thank you again for saving me yesterday."

"I don't remember saving you."

"You did. But I have to ask. Since you are the way you are...I wonder if you're still connected to your previous existence. Do you remember anything? Anything at all? Do you have a name? Yesterday you used magic…"

The man tensed again. "No."

Rowan held his ground this time and pressed on. He wanted to know exactly who he'd brought into his garden.  He still believed in new beginnings, but he wanted to know what he was up against.

"You were wearing different clothes last night, then they transformed back to this before my eyes. And your scar...what happened to it?"

Not to mention the way he'd sliced the creatures in two and made them vanish with only a crook of his finger.

The man's response was half-whisper, half-growl. "I don't have a scar."

The shadow-filled look that could only be described as a detachment from reality descended upon his face. Rowan reached out with his magic to be rebuffed by an impenetrable wall of anguish.

The young man stared at something Rowan couldn't see. He shook his head and pressed his hands to his eyes. "I have to get out of here. This is one of his traps. Leave me alone…I promise…I'll kill you."

"One of whose traps?"

The man slowly lowered his hands and strode toward Rowan, his eyes wild. "You aren't real. He put you here."

Rowan released a pulse of energy to shield himself, but the man knocked it aside with a sweep of his hand as if he were brushing away a leaf. A rivulet of blood-red magic snaked around Rowan's neck before he could even think about what to do next.

The man drew close enough for Rowan to feel his breath on his cheek and raised his hands as if he'd decided to choke Rowan with both his magic and his fingers.

Yet both magic and fingers hesitated, shadow and light flickering in his eyes for control.

"Don't do this." Rowan's throat bobbed against the magic as he spoke. "You're trapped. Let me go so I can help you. It's my fault you're like this."

"You're lying. This isn't real. You don't think I can tell an illusion from reality? You are a lie."

"You're wrong. Your soul asked me for help. I only want to help."

The man's face softened. The magic loosened its grip to slide down to the hollow of Rowan's throat, where it pressed warmly against his vocal chords. "Was it your voice I heard?"

"Yes."

"Will you sing now?"

Rowan's lips parted on a song, the one he usually sang for his birds when he was trying to lure them to his hand.

"No. Not that one."

Rowan switched to the song that could only be described as belonging to the person in front of him. The young man jerked slightly, and the shadows drained from his face. He withdrew his magic and looked away.

Rowan's ward followed him back to the hut without another word.