Until This World Ends

Ch10: Surprises

"What is with that look, son?" Gareth leaned on his priestly title for that familiarity.

Regis almost snorted, not knowing where his past selves ended and his current self started. But the confusion inside him wouldn't reflect in his words if he could help it. "I need to see if the demoness is still where I buried her, roughly 52 lifetimes ago."

The priest looked at him sharply. "You're not drunk?"

"I was never one to hallucinate, just became more cruel in my observations, and you know that." The young man arched his golden brow, an unholy humor alighting his memory. He had not been favorable of the man's parentage the last time he dragged him half-dressed through town.

"Hrm..." Gareth was not one for fondness, even in the lives where Valentine favored him. "If I ignore your little outbursts, you will wind up half-dead down there, wandering in circles. I don't believe you're telling me the truth. But stranger people have been called by Ashera than you. Though, if this is the truth, I've no understanding of why the Goddess would be near your bed."

Valentine—the memory of him—agreed, but was thrown off by the name Ashera. The Goddess was Arden, had been so for every life he could remember. The history of this life was a jumble, but unsurprisingly, it fell inline with the older priest's words.

Regis protested. He thought he was well versed enough for even a Goddess to be tempted.

Older men might notice that lust isn't enough for many women. As the oldest woman in existence, Valentine couldn't fathom some shallow man-child being worth what he did to her. Perhaps it was allowing him to be distracted while she bit his head off. Many creeping things would, if pressured for procreation.

But he was Regis, for now. And the boy still had a shallow sense of pride. "She was in bed with me, thank you."

With that, the crown prince made his way to the main entrance to the catacombs. Gareth grumbled behind him, cursing the horniness of a manchild.

Valentine grabbed a rolled-up stretcher from the ancient busted armoire. He braced it in his non-sword hand. That concept meant little to Regis, a spoiled crown prince of a peaceful era. That was the last open expanse before they moved into the oldest part of King's Port's church.

At the entrance to the catacombs, Valentine stepped on the plate that counterweighted the old stone door. Then he turned all three latches and pushed the door inward to rest on its bracer.

That caught the old man's attention, as he lit a torch and his pipe. "How did you know?"

"Old man, I've buried you in here more times than I can count." It was a headache, trying to balance the deference of Valentine and the mischievousness of Regis at the same time. The truth tore out of him more than either aspect of himself would want. He pointed to an upright grave that held a scattering of bones and armor at its base. "Right here? This guardian of the tomb? It was the first time I served as your apprentice. We didn't have this fancy door, just the start of a rough-hewn grave that we built up bricks to block in, back here. All of the church was in this simple room, not the big cathedral. But we died so fast. After that, we buried only a handful of us before the Goddess gave up and called us home."

The old man snorted. "It's a story, and you are good at making them, young lord."

Valentine smirked. It had not been a trait of his in every lifetime. Most of his runs were silent or forced into silence as the last man left. There had been no need for stories. But it wasn't something he could explain to his mentor. He paced his turns into the maze that was the King's Port catacombs.

When he had placed Th'Thee, it had been the last space in a freshly re-homed wing. He had been sure it would be flooded by the sea if they dug it out any further. Occasionally, the crashing of waves could be heard at her burial point.

The entrance to that side had been bricked in by his own hands. He was not surprised to see most of them removed. Someone from a more recent year had started divvying up the bones of the dead. Skulls lined the carved shelf near the ceiling. Clay jars housed small, sundry bones. The upright displays were pelvic bones stacked 30 deep. The lower layers crumbled into antiquity.

Two freshly lain burials took slats closest to the door, wrapped in their herb-lined linens. Their noses barely brushed the shelf above. The stench of death wasn't that harsh, but it was present, burning the back of the throat. Gareth's pipe did much to mask the smell on its own, but the common spices in this year's burials were anise and fennel.

Death had a hard time competing, but made a valiant effort.

Valentine was used to the smell of carcasses. Regis was not. The inexperienced body started to dry-heave even as he forced himself deeper into the stacks of the dead. He wanted to rush. Knowledge reminded him that slow and steady didn't pass out like a fool.

Even so, he was still faster than Gareth wanted to take through the dimly lit, crowded halls. "Slow down, son. It's not like anything in here would run away from you."

That brought on the thought of the last monster he often met at the end of his days—the ill-defined dragon. Regis shivered. It wasn't the things that ran away that bothered him. It was everything he'd have to face. But what he wanted to see was only two turns further.

There, the dead end pulsed with the sound of waves crashing against the cliffside. The egg shone against the flickering light of Gareth's torch. There was a breaching air somewhere along the wall. A sudden pang filled Valentine, remembering what Th'Thee sacrficed to have her egg. It reminded him of his children, Carwen and Guin.

There was a chance they wouldn't be born in this life, either. It was a horrible realization to have sprung on him, when he was simply looking for validation.