Jack the Overlander

Nineteen

He woke to find himself sitting up in bed, nineteen years old, tense and alert. His hand searched for Sandwich's sword, even though it had been seven years since he'd held it. Luxa laid an arm over him, comforting him, but it was impossible to unsee the visions. Ares retained his unshakable reality, as always.

The others appeared occasionally. The Bane, Twirltongue's head still grasped in his savage jaws. Tick, Pandora, Frill, Hamnet. Often he saw Twitchtip, crawling blindly in a pit, bleeding out. But it was predominantly Ares that refused to leave him. Ares, betrayed, banished, infected with the plague. Strong, noble. Unsung. Deserving of so much more. It was so wrong, so totally wrong. All of it.

"I've got to go see Ripred," he coughed out, leaving the chamber. His wife's eyes followed him out of the room.

The rat, during his stays in Regalia, usually spent his nights in a cozy den which had been lavished upon him by Luxa. Gregor found him there now. One eye blinked in the pitch-darkness as Gregor entered the enclosure.

"Hey, Ripred," Gregor said, leaning against the stone wall.

"Isn't it past your bedtime, boy?" Ripred's eye remained open, staring at him shrewdly.

"Very funny. I've been having dreams again, Ripred. Ares. The Bane. But mostly Ares. It's been years, but the wounds are still there. The killing... I still..."

The rat was staring at him.

"I don't understand it, Ripred."

Ripred was silent for a second.

"You know, Warrior, that every year, I visit the Garden of Hesperides?"

This was news to Gregor.

"No, I didn't."

"Well, I do. I take some time to sit in the cave where my wife and my pups drew their last breaths. I pay my respects and seal my scars. I weep. It reminds me why I've got to keep going. There are things worth fighting for. War is bad — terrible. But it's necessary. Just imagine what would've happened if you hadn't killed the Bane. That's why you're here. That's why the world needs warriors. And the world rends its warriors apart. But we still live on, boy. And we make it. There's hope, too, even in the Garden. I remember what they died for, and I make it my mission to continue the pursuit of that goal."

Ripred rose.

"Hesperides — I think you may need something similar."

He passed out of the room, and Gregor followed him, feeling twelve again. They took a trio of bats, two to trade off bearing Ripred, out of Regalia. Over the Underland they flew in silence and in darkness, all five of them having no need for light. Eventually, they arrived at the Plain of Tartarus. Gregor recognized it easily, even after seven years — there was the ledge on which he and Ares had hidden. There was the tunnel in which Ripred had defended his sisters. He had avoided this spot, without failure. The terrors that it embodied.

They coasted in to land on what had once been the final battlefield of the war. "We'll climb from here, I think, fliers. Thank you," Ripred said.

They labored up the rocks and cliffs on which the Bane, so long ago, had pursued Gregor and Ares. Gregor made out a few places where he could still see claw-marks in the stone.

They reached the cave, both of them breathing heavily, where it had happened. There was nothing inside. Someone must have cleared out the bodies at some point, and done something with the blood. But Gregor knew the exact spot.

"I lay here," he said, rolling onto his back. "And Ares — Ares was here..." He reached out on the stone.

Ripred stood, silent as a sentry, at the edge of the cave. Eventually, he slid into a sitting position, retaining a certain solemnity which his usual posture did not allow for.

Gregor did not know how long he lay there, nor if or how much he wept. He felt very hollow inside. The cave's history leaked into him. Ripred's words came to him, too. The rat was right. There were things worth fighting for. There were things worth dying for. He just wished that it hadn't taken Ares. He just wished for that.

Some indeterminable period later, he felt a human hand on his shoulder. He turned over and saw that it was Luxa. There was light in the cave.

"Aurora followed the fliers," she whispered, by way of explanation. He could see her drinking in the legend of the cave. She was sweating, as though she'd climbed here too.

Gregor sat up. His face was wet, so he must have let tears out at some point. He was steady, now, though.

"We saved the Underland here," he said. "Our home."

Luxa knelt and embraced him.

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

There was Ripred, in the same place. Scars flickering in the light from Luxa's torch. The rat said nothing, but turned. He led the way back out of the cave and down the rocks. Gregor stood, keeping an arm around his wife. They turned and followed the rat.