Solomon Wreath (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peacefullywreathed) wrote2014-07-03 09:30 pm
peacefullywreathed) wrote2014-07-03 09:30 pm
Dream a litte dream plot; for Tushan
At first Solomon had resisted the idea of bathing anything in the fountain during the Jubilee. It was only after his conversation with Asti that he had decided otherwise. Practically speaking, now it was proven that such rituals might have some power to them, he wouldn’t lose anything by trying. He might even gain something. The hardest part had been figuring out what to use as a stand-in for something ‘precious’, but when he thought about it there was really only one object which had defined his life so completely.
The cane he had bought was a nice one, similar in length and style to the one his father had once owned. At least if nothing came of this it was something he might be inclined to use in the future.
He didn’t actually regret it until he was asleep and dreaming. The cane spun dizzily before him in a place that seemed to be made of darkness. There wasn’t enough light to cast shadows, yet light rushed past him toward it. Solomon felt a twinge of misgiving and stepped back, but this state of not-dreaming wasn’t under his control. He couldn’t do much more than watch as the cane coalesced into a figure. The truth was, when he realised whose figure it was, he didn’t think he could have moved even if he wanted.
Da blinked and glanced around in a very bemused fashion Solomon vaguely recalled but hadn’t ever quite noticed. Then he smiled and the smile made Solomon’s gut twist. “Hello.”
If this was what the kedan considered a worthwhile investment, Solomon was torn between shooting the lot of them and not. “Hello.”
They regarded each other for what felt like a long time, though Solomon couldn’t rightly say how long it was. Time didn’t exist in dreams. He wasn’t even sure whether this was a dream. There was too much preparation involved for it to be completely so; but did that preparation ensure direct interaction with a part of Solomon’s own subconscious or interaction with his actual father, in mind and soul?
He was dimly aware of how the drawing-room came into being around them, like a film scene fading in from the central point of his father’s figure. Da was sitting in his favourite armchair with a book on his lap and embers glowing hot in the fireplace, and the room dim but polished. It could have been a memory, Solomon reasoned (even though memories in dreams were never so detailed).
“Extraordinary,” murmured Da, and his smile now was the delighted little smile he wore when he was fascinated by some conundrum. “You look a great deal like I’ve imagined my son will when he’s grown.”
… Most likely his actual father, then. Solomon felt numb. Of course it would be his actual father from a time before his death. Naturally Solomon would be given the opportunity to change his past and yet be unable to do anything about it. What was the likelihood that Da would awaken and remember anything save a curious dream? Very slight. In the meantime Solomon would remember and know that nothing had changed.
Ought he pretend to be a dream? It seemed the most prudent thing; Da had frequently fallen asleep in that very chair. Yet Solomon couldn’t move, let alone speak, and in time Da’s brow furrowed.
“Is this a dream?” he wondered out loud.
“I don’t know,” said Solomon. “I think I’d rather prefer it was.” Da looked startled and then thoughtful, and Solomon asked before he could stop to think, “How old is your son?”
“Ten,” said Da, and the pride in the whole of his being made the immaterial knife in Solomon’s gut twist further. He must be from not long before the ambush in the lane.
“He’s—”
A witch.
A demon.
A sorcerer.
“—gifted.”
“I know,” said Da with a smile, bemused as though he wasn’t sure why an apparition might tell him what he already knew.
“He can use magic.”
Da looked startled and didn’t say anything for a long while. Instead he closed his book and regarded Solomon in a very familiar manner, one which still managed to bypass any walls Solomon had built between himself and old childhood guilts. When Da finally spoke, somehow his question was a surprise. “What’s your name?”
“Solomon. Solomon Wreath.”
“Solomon.” Da chuckled. “The wise king. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“It’s not often I receive visitors from another world,” said Da. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Typical. Solomon couldn’t think of many people from that era who would immediately leap to the idea of extradimensional visitors, and Da was the only mortal. Of course, Da was thinking he was some sign from Heaven. “I’m not King Solomon.”
Da lifted his eyebrows. “Yet you call yourself Solomon. If that holds no meaning, why would you be here?”
Solomon chose not to answer. He turned away instead, moving around the room and afraid to touch anything in case it turned out nothing felt as real as it appeared. Even knowing it was an illusion, he was afraid to reveal it for being so.
“Ah,” said Da after a moment. “Are you the one who is here, or am I the one who is there?”
And that, too, was typical. Da always had been able to see things from a completely different perspective than most people even bothered to conceive was possible. Knowing that, Solomon couldn’t even remember why he would think Da wouldn’t believe him about magic, except that he had been so afraid at the time. So afraid and so young.
“I’m not sure,” he said finally, stopping by the fireplace to look into the embers. “I suspect it is the latter.”
“Then my first observation was more accurate than I knew,” Da said softly. “Kian?”
“Don’t.” The word came out before Solomon could stop it, and curt. There was a brief length of silence. Solomon could have said so many things—wanted to say so many things—and yet none of them came to his tongue.
“You are a vision from the future, are you not?” Da—Ailbe—asked quietly.
“I am.”
“Is the vision for my benefit, or yours?”
Solomon thought of the fountain, and the ritual, and answered bitterly, “Mine, ostensibly.”
There was another bout of silence and then Ailbe spoke again. “If for yours, then I can hardly aid you unless you speak. Or at least—turn and face me.”
It was equal amounts gentle suggestion and request and plea, and even before Solomon made the conscious decision he turned. Ailbe stood in the middle of the floor, having abandoned his book and now watching him with an expression of studied concern. Solomon held himself aloof and straight, and his expression impassive.
It didn’t seem to fool Ailbe for a moment. “Does the sight of me pain you so much?”
Solomon could have lied. He could have pretended. Usually, he’d be able to. But in his whole life there was only one lie he’d ever told his father, and it had led them both to ruin. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I lied to you.
Because I killed for you.
Because I pretended all our problems were gone when they weren’t.
Because you saw right through me and still loved me.
Because I couldn’t save you in the end.
“I failed you.” His voice came out thick and Solomon had to look away and take one long, deep breath. He couldn’t tell if it was due to dream or distraction that he didn’t even hear Ailbe approach until Ailbe cupped his cheek. Solomon flinched.
It was warm. Warm and real, and Solomon didn’t know he had shed tears until Ailbe’s thumb brushed them away.
“There’s no possible way you could fail me, my son,” Ailbe said quietly.
“I can do magic.”
“You said that. I fail to see how that changes my previous statement.”
Solomon had to laugh, and it came out watery. “The exorcism you had me undertake suggests otherwise.”
Ailbe paused and something self-recriminating crossed his face. “I had you endure an exorcism? Why?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I have magic. The work of the Devil, is it not?”
“Not necessarily,” said Ailbe, very slowly but holding his gaze. “I … understand why so many assume so, because it is in the nature of men to fear what they don’t understand.” His thumb moved up, caressing Solomon’s cheek. “But logically, it makes no sense. All things come from God, and God is nothing but good. Magic is of the world, as anything else. Surely it can be subverted or twisted, but it cannot be inherently evil, or it would not exist. And if it doesn’t exist, then the point of fearing it is a moot one.”
Those words should have been vindicating. They weren’t. All they did was tell Solomon how much of a fool he truly had been, to keep the secret he had. If he had only told Da earlier, if he had told the truth, then Da wouldn’t have seen him use magic for the first time in the very worst of ways—to murder, even in self-defence. If he hadn’t lied, Da wouldn’t have judged him.
“You didn’t tell me, did you?”
Solomon shook his head wordlessly.
“What happened, Kian?”
It took a few moments to answer. Solomon’s voice came out raw but mostly even. “Some of the King’s Guard were sent to ambush us in the lane, and leave evidence the gypsies were responsible for our deaths. At that age my magic manifested through controlling people with their names. I ordered them to kill each other.”
There was a pause. Solomon stared at the wall and didn’t dare look at Ailbe’s face.
“What age?” Ailbe asked finally, and Solomon smiled bitterly.
“Ten.”
“… Ah.” The sound was an explosive breath of understanding, such that Solomon’s head almost rang with it. That was the age when everything had changed in all the worst ways. Had discovering magic in such a way driven Da to defend their land even more hotly? Was that the only way he could think to give Solomon something worth having, after the exorcism failed?
Such thoughts had gone around and around in Solomon’s head in the year after Da’s death, until he had forcibly locked them all away behind mental walls.
He still wasn’t expecting Ailbe to pull him forward into a tight hug. At first Solomon could only stand there numbly. It felt real, but it couldn’t be. The last time Solomon had seen his father, he had only come up to Da’s shoulder. He was too tall now. It felt wrong.
It felt wrong but Solomon still found himself gripping the back of Ailbe’s dressing-gown. He flinched a moment later when he felt Ailbe’s fingers in his hair, and that felt familiar. It felt excruciatingly familiar. If Solomon closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was standing on a stool. That he was the age he was meant to be, and Da was still alive.
“I was killed by the Guard, wasn’t I?” Ailbe said softly. Solomon nodded into his shoulder. “What happened to you afterward?” Something inside Solomon quailed and while he didn’t flinch, he drew inward. Ailbe held him more firmly to keep him from pulling away altogether. “What happened, Kian?”
Ailbe wasn’t the sort to command. He made firm requests, and made people want his respect so much that they obeyed. Solomon didn’t stand a chance. He never had. There were very few men whose respect he actively wanted.
“I lost control,” he whispered. “I killed them all, with magic. A sorcerer felt it and came and found me. She took me away from the estate to somewhere I’d be safe.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does when you explicitly avoid mentioning it.”
In spite of everything, Solomon managed to laugh. It was short and horribly unamused, but it was a laugh nevertheless. He needed a breath a moment later. “The Necromancers’ Temple.”
For the first time, he felt Ailbe tense. “Necromancers?”
“They—” We. “—believe in being empowered by death. In … controlling it. In—” Murdering three billion people to save the rest. “—in saving people from it …”
His voice went quieter and quieter, and trailed off into nothing.
There was a very long minute in which Ailbe didn’t respond. Then he asked, “Is that what you believe?”
“I don’t know,” Solomon said in a very small voice, and felt, all of a sudden, very young. Four hundred years and he’d clung to that faith because it was all he had, and now suddenly confronted by his father it all went up in smoke. “You told me to live.”
“But not at the expense of your soul,” Ailbe said quietly.
“I might have been able to save you by going with her.”
“If I died standing for my convictions, then Necromancy is not a manner in which I would have wished to be saved.”
“You don’t even know anything about it.”
“I know that anything which deals in ‘saving’ people from the natural end of God’s creation is toeing the line of goodness at best. At worst—” He couldn’t seem to finish but his hug tightened until it took Solomon’s breath away. That was fair. Solomon felt numb, but his embrace was nearly as tight.
“I don’t have a choice,” Solomon whispered. “I don’t have anything else left. I don’t believe in God. I can’t—after what happened to you. I don’t have any friends outside the Temple. Not that I’d care if I did.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“You always said not to let others dictate my beliefs.”
Ailbe laughed. Or maybe he cried. Solomon couldn’t tell. “There’s a difference between faith and obstinacy, Kian. Sometimes beliefs must be reconsidered—they just cannot be changed by force.”
He had to pull away. He had to—Solomon forced his fingers to relax and stepped back to push Ailbe aside, but Ailbe only gripped him more tightly.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
“Please—” Solomon’s voice cracked. “Please let me go.”
“I already did that once, apparently,” said Ailbe, “and now look at you. Are you happy, Kian?”
Yes.
No.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Nothing matters except your Temple’s goals and tenets, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“How is that a life worth living?”
“What else do I have?”
“What else do you want?”
Solomon laughed again, choked on his tears, and looked around the vision of the drawing-room. The only home he’d ever really had. “I want to go back and do it all over.” He laughed again, and it was equally as watery. “Not that it matters. I can’t go back. There’s no point in wishing as if I could.”
“Why can’t you change things now?” Ailbe asked.
“What could I change them to?”
“To what do you want to change them?”
Solomon sighed. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly, and released his grip on Ailbe, shifting backward. This time Ailbe let him go, and smiled at him with such excruciating gentleness that Solomon had to look away. “I don’t know. I’ve never stopped to think about it. There didn’t seem to be a point.”
Ailbe reached up to tug on his hair. “You’re such a curious boy. Always asking questions. Why did you stop?”
“The answers hurt too much.”
“Perhaps,” said Ailbe, “but usually that only means they need asking all the more.” He let his hand fall to stroke Solomon’s face and rest on his cheek. “As I should have, before I died. I am sorry I did not. But we all do foolish things out of fear, Kian.”
Yes. Like plot to murder three billion people.
Part of him wanted to say it. To show Ailbe why he shouldn’t be showing so much care to a man too late to save. To prove to Ailbe why he needed to remember after he awoke, so he could change things—if it was possible.
“You don’t really know me,” he whispered.
“I don’t need to. Kian, whatever it is you’ve done or think you’ve done—they don’t matter to your future unless you let them.” Ailbe gripped his shoulders tight and shook him, but gently. “You make your future, Kian. Whatever your magic is, whatever your past has been—if you do not like the man you are now, you can change. If you wish.”
“To what?” Solomon demanded. “Everything in my life has led me to the man I am now! How can I possibly—”
“You can,” Ailbe interrupted. “I know that you feel as though you’ve invested too much in what you are now, but if you feel as though you’re drowning then something needs to change. And you are drowning. You would not have clung to me so if you weren’t.”
He smiled sadly and ran his fingers through Solomon’s hair. “I don’t know what change you should make, Kian. You will have to discover that for yourself. But regardless of your age you are my son, and I am proud of you. If you need something to help you draw your courage—use that.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Solomon admitted.
“Because it makes you feel guilty about how you have failed me.”
Solomon nodded wordlessly.
“I forgive you,” said Ailbe. “However you feel you’ve trespassed against me, I forgive you, Kian. Does that help?”
His fingers brushed Solomon’s cheek and Solomon’s vision blurred. He managed to speak, but softly, and even then his voice came out raw. “Yes. And no.”
Ailbe drew him back into a hug and Solomon didn’t resist. Neither of them said anything else. There was a wealth of things Solomon could have said, felt he should have said, but he could think of nothing that would have changed anything Ailbe had already said. Even if he claimed he was irredeemable just to make a point, Ailbe would point out that he hadn’t followed through—yet. And, according to Skulduggery, wouldn’t. Even without the benefit of these experiences, he had been unable to follow through on the Temple’s beliefs.
Solomon just didn’t know whether that was a result of lacking faith—or lacking purpose. He might not. It might not even matter. It hadn’t happened yet. Maybe now it never would.
Maybe that’s what was happening right now, in a different fashion.
Time blurred together, as it did in dreams. Solomon couldn’t have pinpointed the moment when the vision turned into dream turned into sleep turned into wakefulness, except that the sensation of being held, the dual feelings of grief and love, lingered. When he awoke his chest was tight and his pillow was wet, and even though his feelings about everything were muddy he felt centred for the first time since he had arrived in the city.
The cane he had bought was a nice one, similar in length and style to the one his father had once owned. At least if nothing came of this it was something he might be inclined to use in the future.
He didn’t actually regret it until he was asleep and dreaming. The cane spun dizzily before him in a place that seemed to be made of darkness. There wasn’t enough light to cast shadows, yet light rushed past him toward it. Solomon felt a twinge of misgiving and stepped back, but this state of not-dreaming wasn’t under his control. He couldn’t do much more than watch as the cane coalesced into a figure. The truth was, when he realised whose figure it was, he didn’t think he could have moved even if he wanted.
Da blinked and glanced around in a very bemused fashion Solomon vaguely recalled but hadn’t ever quite noticed. Then he smiled and the smile made Solomon’s gut twist. “Hello.”
If this was what the kedan considered a worthwhile investment, Solomon was torn between shooting the lot of them and not. “Hello.”
They regarded each other for what felt like a long time, though Solomon couldn’t rightly say how long it was. Time didn’t exist in dreams. He wasn’t even sure whether this was a dream. There was too much preparation involved for it to be completely so; but did that preparation ensure direct interaction with a part of Solomon’s own subconscious or interaction with his actual father, in mind and soul?
He was dimly aware of how the drawing-room came into being around them, like a film scene fading in from the central point of his father’s figure. Da was sitting in his favourite armchair with a book on his lap and embers glowing hot in the fireplace, and the room dim but polished. It could have been a memory, Solomon reasoned (even though memories in dreams were never so detailed).
“Extraordinary,” murmured Da, and his smile now was the delighted little smile he wore when he was fascinated by some conundrum. “You look a great deal like I’ve imagined my son will when he’s grown.”
… Most likely his actual father, then. Solomon felt numb. Of course it would be his actual father from a time before his death. Naturally Solomon would be given the opportunity to change his past and yet be unable to do anything about it. What was the likelihood that Da would awaken and remember anything save a curious dream? Very slight. In the meantime Solomon would remember and know that nothing had changed.
Ought he pretend to be a dream? It seemed the most prudent thing; Da had frequently fallen asleep in that very chair. Yet Solomon couldn’t move, let alone speak, and in time Da’s brow furrowed.
“Is this a dream?” he wondered out loud.
“I don’t know,” said Solomon. “I think I’d rather prefer it was.” Da looked startled and then thoughtful, and Solomon asked before he could stop to think, “How old is your son?”
“Ten,” said Da, and the pride in the whole of his being made the immaterial knife in Solomon’s gut twist further. He must be from not long before the ambush in the lane.
“He’s—”
A witch.
A demon.
A sorcerer.
“—gifted.”
“I know,” said Da with a smile, bemused as though he wasn’t sure why an apparition might tell him what he already knew.
“He can use magic.”
Da looked startled and didn’t say anything for a long while. Instead he closed his book and regarded Solomon in a very familiar manner, one which still managed to bypass any walls Solomon had built between himself and old childhood guilts. When Da finally spoke, somehow his question was a surprise. “What’s your name?”
“Solomon. Solomon Wreath.”
“Solomon.” Da chuckled. “The wise king. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“It’s not often I receive visitors from another world,” said Da. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Typical. Solomon couldn’t think of many people from that era who would immediately leap to the idea of extradimensional visitors, and Da was the only mortal. Of course, Da was thinking he was some sign from Heaven. “I’m not King Solomon.”
Da lifted his eyebrows. “Yet you call yourself Solomon. If that holds no meaning, why would you be here?”
Solomon chose not to answer. He turned away instead, moving around the room and afraid to touch anything in case it turned out nothing felt as real as it appeared. Even knowing it was an illusion, he was afraid to reveal it for being so.
“Ah,” said Da after a moment. “Are you the one who is here, or am I the one who is there?”
And that, too, was typical. Da always had been able to see things from a completely different perspective than most people even bothered to conceive was possible. Knowing that, Solomon couldn’t even remember why he would think Da wouldn’t believe him about magic, except that he had been so afraid at the time. So afraid and so young.
“I’m not sure,” he said finally, stopping by the fireplace to look into the embers. “I suspect it is the latter.”
“Then my first observation was more accurate than I knew,” Da said softly. “Kian?”
“Don’t.” The word came out before Solomon could stop it, and curt. There was a brief length of silence. Solomon could have said so many things—wanted to say so many things—and yet none of them came to his tongue.
“You are a vision from the future, are you not?” Da—Ailbe—asked quietly.
“I am.”
“Is the vision for my benefit, or yours?”
Solomon thought of the fountain, and the ritual, and answered bitterly, “Mine, ostensibly.”
There was another bout of silence and then Ailbe spoke again. “If for yours, then I can hardly aid you unless you speak. Or at least—turn and face me.”
It was equal amounts gentle suggestion and request and plea, and even before Solomon made the conscious decision he turned. Ailbe stood in the middle of the floor, having abandoned his book and now watching him with an expression of studied concern. Solomon held himself aloof and straight, and his expression impassive.
It didn’t seem to fool Ailbe for a moment. “Does the sight of me pain you so much?”
Solomon could have lied. He could have pretended. Usually, he’d be able to. But in his whole life there was only one lie he’d ever told his father, and it had led them both to ruin. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I lied to you.
Because I killed for you.
Because I pretended all our problems were gone when they weren’t.
Because you saw right through me and still loved me.
Because I couldn’t save you in the end.
“I failed you.” His voice came out thick and Solomon had to look away and take one long, deep breath. He couldn’t tell if it was due to dream or distraction that he didn’t even hear Ailbe approach until Ailbe cupped his cheek. Solomon flinched.
It was warm. Warm and real, and Solomon didn’t know he had shed tears until Ailbe’s thumb brushed them away.
“There’s no possible way you could fail me, my son,” Ailbe said quietly.
“I can do magic.”
“You said that. I fail to see how that changes my previous statement.”
Solomon had to laugh, and it came out watery. “The exorcism you had me undertake suggests otherwise.”
Ailbe paused and something self-recriminating crossed his face. “I had you endure an exorcism? Why?”
“Why wouldn’t you? I have magic. The work of the Devil, is it not?”
“Not necessarily,” said Ailbe, very slowly but holding his gaze. “I … understand why so many assume so, because it is in the nature of men to fear what they don’t understand.” His thumb moved up, caressing Solomon’s cheek. “But logically, it makes no sense. All things come from God, and God is nothing but good. Magic is of the world, as anything else. Surely it can be subverted or twisted, but it cannot be inherently evil, or it would not exist. And if it doesn’t exist, then the point of fearing it is a moot one.”
Those words should have been vindicating. They weren’t. All they did was tell Solomon how much of a fool he truly had been, to keep the secret he had. If he had only told Da earlier, if he had told the truth, then Da wouldn’t have seen him use magic for the first time in the very worst of ways—to murder, even in self-defence. If he hadn’t lied, Da wouldn’t have judged him.
“You didn’t tell me, did you?”
Solomon shook his head wordlessly.
“What happened, Kian?”
It took a few moments to answer. Solomon’s voice came out raw but mostly even. “Some of the King’s Guard were sent to ambush us in the lane, and leave evidence the gypsies were responsible for our deaths. At that age my magic manifested through controlling people with their names. I ordered them to kill each other.”
There was a pause. Solomon stared at the wall and didn’t dare look at Ailbe’s face.
“What age?” Ailbe asked finally, and Solomon smiled bitterly.
“Ten.”
“… Ah.” The sound was an explosive breath of understanding, such that Solomon’s head almost rang with it. That was the age when everything had changed in all the worst ways. Had discovering magic in such a way driven Da to defend their land even more hotly? Was that the only way he could think to give Solomon something worth having, after the exorcism failed?
Such thoughts had gone around and around in Solomon’s head in the year after Da’s death, until he had forcibly locked them all away behind mental walls.
He still wasn’t expecting Ailbe to pull him forward into a tight hug. At first Solomon could only stand there numbly. It felt real, but it couldn’t be. The last time Solomon had seen his father, he had only come up to Da’s shoulder. He was too tall now. It felt wrong.
It felt wrong but Solomon still found himself gripping the back of Ailbe’s dressing-gown. He flinched a moment later when he felt Ailbe’s fingers in his hair, and that felt familiar. It felt excruciatingly familiar. If Solomon closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was standing on a stool. That he was the age he was meant to be, and Da was still alive.
“I was killed by the Guard, wasn’t I?” Ailbe said softly. Solomon nodded into his shoulder. “What happened to you afterward?” Something inside Solomon quailed and while he didn’t flinch, he drew inward. Ailbe held him more firmly to keep him from pulling away altogether. “What happened, Kian?”
Ailbe wasn’t the sort to command. He made firm requests, and made people want his respect so much that they obeyed. Solomon didn’t stand a chance. He never had. There were very few men whose respect he actively wanted.
“I lost control,” he whispered. “I killed them all, with magic. A sorcerer felt it and came and found me. She took me away from the estate to somewhere I’d be safe.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does when you explicitly avoid mentioning it.”
In spite of everything, Solomon managed to laugh. It was short and horribly unamused, but it was a laugh nevertheless. He needed a breath a moment later. “The Necromancers’ Temple.”
For the first time, he felt Ailbe tense. “Necromancers?”
“They—” We. “—believe in being empowered by death. In … controlling it. In—” Murdering three billion people to save the rest. “—in saving people from it …”
His voice went quieter and quieter, and trailed off into nothing.
There was a very long minute in which Ailbe didn’t respond. Then he asked, “Is that what you believe?”
“I don’t know,” Solomon said in a very small voice, and felt, all of a sudden, very young. Four hundred years and he’d clung to that faith because it was all he had, and now suddenly confronted by his father it all went up in smoke. “You told me to live.”
“But not at the expense of your soul,” Ailbe said quietly.
“I might have been able to save you by going with her.”
“If I died standing for my convictions, then Necromancy is not a manner in which I would have wished to be saved.”
“You don’t even know anything about it.”
“I know that anything which deals in ‘saving’ people from the natural end of God’s creation is toeing the line of goodness at best. At worst—” He couldn’t seem to finish but his hug tightened until it took Solomon’s breath away. That was fair. Solomon felt numb, but his embrace was nearly as tight.
“I don’t have a choice,” Solomon whispered. “I don’t have anything else left. I don’t believe in God. I can’t—after what happened to you. I don’t have any friends outside the Temple. Not that I’d care if I did.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“You always said not to let others dictate my beliefs.”
Ailbe laughed. Or maybe he cried. Solomon couldn’t tell. “There’s a difference between faith and obstinacy, Kian. Sometimes beliefs must be reconsidered—they just cannot be changed by force.”
He had to pull away. He had to—Solomon forced his fingers to relax and stepped back to push Ailbe aside, but Ailbe only gripped him more tightly.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
“Please—” Solomon’s voice cracked. “Please let me go.”
“I already did that once, apparently,” said Ailbe, “and now look at you. Are you happy, Kian?”
Yes.
No.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Nothing matters except your Temple’s goals and tenets, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“How is that a life worth living?”
“What else do I have?”
“What else do you want?”
Solomon laughed again, choked on his tears, and looked around the vision of the drawing-room. The only home he’d ever really had. “I want to go back and do it all over.” He laughed again, and it was equally as watery. “Not that it matters. I can’t go back. There’s no point in wishing as if I could.”
“Why can’t you change things now?” Ailbe asked.
“What could I change them to?”
“To what do you want to change them?”
Solomon sighed. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly, and released his grip on Ailbe, shifting backward. This time Ailbe let him go, and smiled at him with such excruciating gentleness that Solomon had to look away. “I don’t know. I’ve never stopped to think about it. There didn’t seem to be a point.”
Ailbe reached up to tug on his hair. “You’re such a curious boy. Always asking questions. Why did you stop?”
“The answers hurt too much.”
“Perhaps,” said Ailbe, “but usually that only means they need asking all the more.” He let his hand fall to stroke Solomon’s face and rest on his cheek. “As I should have, before I died. I am sorry I did not. But we all do foolish things out of fear, Kian.”
Yes. Like plot to murder three billion people.
Part of him wanted to say it. To show Ailbe why he shouldn’t be showing so much care to a man too late to save. To prove to Ailbe why he needed to remember after he awoke, so he could change things—if it was possible.
“You don’t really know me,” he whispered.
“I don’t need to. Kian, whatever it is you’ve done or think you’ve done—they don’t matter to your future unless you let them.” Ailbe gripped his shoulders tight and shook him, but gently. “You make your future, Kian. Whatever your magic is, whatever your past has been—if you do not like the man you are now, you can change. If you wish.”
“To what?” Solomon demanded. “Everything in my life has led me to the man I am now! How can I possibly—”
“You can,” Ailbe interrupted. “I know that you feel as though you’ve invested too much in what you are now, but if you feel as though you’re drowning then something needs to change. And you are drowning. You would not have clung to me so if you weren’t.”
He smiled sadly and ran his fingers through Solomon’s hair. “I don’t know what change you should make, Kian. You will have to discover that for yourself. But regardless of your age you are my son, and I am proud of you. If you need something to help you draw your courage—use that.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Solomon admitted.
“Because it makes you feel guilty about how you have failed me.”
Solomon nodded wordlessly.
“I forgive you,” said Ailbe. “However you feel you’ve trespassed against me, I forgive you, Kian. Does that help?”
His fingers brushed Solomon’s cheek and Solomon’s vision blurred. He managed to speak, but softly, and even then his voice came out raw. “Yes. And no.”
Ailbe drew him back into a hug and Solomon didn’t resist. Neither of them said anything else. There was a wealth of things Solomon could have said, felt he should have said, but he could think of nothing that would have changed anything Ailbe had already said. Even if he claimed he was irredeemable just to make a point, Ailbe would point out that he hadn’t followed through—yet. And, according to Skulduggery, wouldn’t. Even without the benefit of these experiences, he had been unable to follow through on the Temple’s beliefs.
Solomon just didn’t know whether that was a result of lacking faith—or lacking purpose. He might not. It might not even matter. It hadn’t happened yet. Maybe now it never would.
Maybe that’s what was happening right now, in a different fashion.
Time blurred together, as it did in dreams. Solomon couldn’t have pinpointed the moment when the vision turned into dream turned into sleep turned into wakefulness, except that the sensation of being held, the dual feelings of grief and love, lingered. When he awoke his chest was tight and his pillow was wet, and even though his feelings about everything were muddy he felt centred for the first time since he had arrived in the city.