"Athanasius wrote in his memoirs that he had never feared death, but only the knowledge of the Whole and the absence of Being."

  Excerpt of The Life of the Tyrant-Emperor, by Costia of Arial, holy protégé of the Perpetua. Fragmented edition.

  Night had fallen for several hours when I entered through a secret entrance.

  The captive had been placed in a seated position, no doubt considered more comfortable or to prevent him from choking on his tongue in his sleep. After the dose of toxin that had been administered to him earlier, it would have been quite unfortunate as a result after so many efforts. In any case, he was now very awake and he would never have succeeded in closing his eyes with the corpse in front of him.

  The dead girl watched him with her extinguished eyes; he did not even dare breathe freely although he was beginning to accept that she was only a simple witness. People said that the Necromancer saw everything through the dead and their eyes. He tried to move as if to attract her attention but she continued only to stare at him. He had eaten nothing since that very morning when his parents had abandoned him.

  “Giving yourself to the venerable immortal is one of the greatest honors for us” his mother had revealed to him. “You will be remembered. It is also a great honor for you.”

  He understood much later that the plan underway was not to make him serve. They had taken him and then moved him again and again; the curtains of the carriage were black, opaque, and pressed against the windows. It was when they made him get out that he understood he was not going to serve.

  The last thing he remembered was the imposing shadow of a man behind him while they pushed him inside the central courtyard. He did not even dare cast a glance unexpectedly. Then nothing. They must have knocked him unconscious because he did not remember being carried or even undressed. He was still almost naked, only a woolen shawl and a large white sheet — which nevertheless seemed of quality — covered him.

  He had heard the end of the discussion between his captors; he had clearly heard the word “sacrifice.” That, he did not care about. He wanted to live.

  Immortals normally only came into contact with mortals in cases of extraordinary incidents. He himself lived in a part of the City into which they did not enter or only visited for an event, a celebration, or some similar reason. If some wished to die for this cause, he was not one of them. Karin was waiting for him at home.

  A kind of revolt took hold in him. Thinking of her, Soulless felt a tightening in his chest. He was thinking of his wife and his home when the intruder — that is to say, myself — arrived without warning.

  A secret door next to the fireplace slid open to allow me to appear, me. Dressed in dark trousers and a black jacket and an axe in hand, I advanced toward the dead girl who had in no way noticed my presence.

  With a movement of the hands above her head, I raised my axe and brought it down against the skull of the dying woman. The poor creature remained open-mouthed and jerked before becoming still. To be sure of her incapacity to move again, I decapitated the dead woman without consideration. Putrid blood flowed from the severed throat but it had already coagulated and dried. The head rolled into the shadows.

  “A dead person should have the right to rest and not serve in this way… don’t you think?” I suggested. I had only little inspiration for a promising beginning. But one could not have everything after all.

  It took about ten seconds for Soulless to understand that I had just asked him a question. And also to realize what had just happened. Taken by a terrible fear, he had soiled the mattress underneath him with urine and had not even noticed it. He did not know what to do. Scream? Call for help? That will be no help, he already knew.

  The man in front of him could kill him in a fraction of seconds if he wished. The edge of the blade was covered with a filthy black blood. I suddenly had a much softer expression; I placed the axe on the floor and approached without turning back. The fire in the fireplace now provided only a simple shimmer and the oil lamp illuminated only the corner opposite the bed.

  “Do not be afraid. I am not here to kill you,” I said as if to respond to his thoughts following the act I had just committed.

  As if to extract myself from his thoughts, I sat at the end of the bed without paying attention to the strong smell.

  “I am going to open the window.”

  I suddenly stood up and approached the window. A freezing wind soon passed through the room and allowed the different odors to fade and disperse. I had carefully avoided the bloodstains on the floor.

  “You are sensitive to smells from what I know,” he revealed. I resumed my place near him.

  “What is—”

  “Shh,” I cut him off suddenly. “Forgive me, I am sorry to have to appear in this way in such circumstances but I could only intervene. We do not have much time. Rhodo will soon intervene upon understanding that his protégé is no longer here…”

  I was referring to the dead girl I had just neutralized. And to the necromancer.

  “A dead person is dead. He cannot return to life. It is a dreadful trick, to be used like this…” I stepped back.

  Soulless’ mind was working at full speed. He thought he had become mad or that he must have fallen asleep, no? Yet he was fully awake and conscious, he was sure of it. He noticed that I spoke in a sporadic manner, as if my voice did not come entirely from myself.

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  To his eyes, I was too perfect.

  “Who are you?” he finally asked after a moment that seemed infinite to him. “Why are you here?”

  “Who I am does not matter. The real question should be: what can you do for me?”

  Soulless did not dare look me in the eyes. But perhaps this was his only chance.

  “You can help me? You can free me?”

  He indicated the chains at his ankles and his bound wrists under the sheet and behind the bed bars.

  “No, I cannot do that, Soulless.”

  “How do you know my name? How did you know I was here?”

  Soulless was his real name. He had never been able to stand it.

  He was never called that at all. He never knew who had chosen really, apparently it was the Frame's choice but he always doubt the fact that it was actually his mother who choose this name. Sometimes people used to call him Nameless or Boy. He was called Admiral by Karin.

  Names ending in -less were always removed from birth records and "destroyed" in some way. Only Nameless or Unnamed was accepted more or less but mostly in private.

  But for the moment, a million questions swirled in his mind. Although I no longer seemed to be a direct threat, the captive remained on his guard. He suddenly felt hot then cold from the draft.

  “I know many things, it is I who built in part the plans of this Tower. If you want to know everything, half of the inhabitants of this city have no names. You are among the rare privileged ones to have one…”

  “If you do not intend to free me… why are you here?” he cut me off. “You are not answering my questions…”

  “You ask many questions for a person at the threshold of death. I am here for a very particular reason that in no way concerns your liberation in the sense that you understand it.”

  I could not help but be sensitive to his distress. Most of the people I encountered insulted me or simply ignored me. His ignorance and his illusions were almost touching.

  “Your destiny can be changed from now on,” I therefore taught him, or rather it must in truth. “If I am here, it is not entirely of my own will. It happens that things must be accomplished to avoid Annihilation.”

  I touched his forehead with my hand. He was warm and damp. Still too alive. He opened his eyes wide wanting to call out to me. I had not moved. He was sweating heavily and his mind was clearer than it had ever been. He could see me observing him in front of him and he then understood that there was no one in front of him. He closed his eyes. Opened them again. He was alone.

  “I observe you constantly without you knowing,” I said behind him.

  If Soulless had never known true terror, he knew it now. I returned in front of him; my gaze crossed his again.

  “You have two solutions. You can choose to die now and be sacrificed tomorrow. Or you can become an immortal and possess a supreme power envied by all. Poor Athanasius apparently never would never have done anything with it. It is time for that to change. We need a new Amaranth.”

  “Amaranth?”

  He seemed to have already heard this name but did not remember where and did not see the relation with himself. He was too calm. He thought he was dreaming or hallucinating. Yes, it was surely the drug after all…

  “Yes, Amaranth is one of your ancestors and it is he who allowed Arial to be founded. He died some twenty years later. He was the only one able to guarantee a future for humanity in his time…”

  I then breathed deeply; I had had access only to a limited number of informations about the past. My predecessor had died just after the former conqueror. I had no other choice than to cross my fingers to limit my anxiety. Fortunately, informations were not lacking here and I had, so to speak, greater advantages and more powers. And I could not fail to accompany a viable and necessary solution.

  “So, do you wish to live or not?”

  It seemed to him that all of this should ultimately have no importance if he was dreaming. So he answered immediately: “To live, obviously.”

  He then continued, as if uninhibited, asking me why I was truly here.

  “I serve the Frame. My mission was simply to warn you. Another like you will act in my place.”

  “In that case, why are you here?”

  I gave a patient smile.

  “I serve the Frame. I am here because I have everything to gain from it. The story must move forward, that is all. I needed to establish in your mind the only viable future. And I sometimes get bored as well…”

  I stood up and dusted my clothes as if they had gathered dust, ready to leave. Soulless frowned, understanding nothing of what I was saying. He tried to put the pieces back into place but seemed incapable of it.

  “What is your name?”

  He was now speaking only to feel real and present. He did not know if it had importance.

  “The Frame gave me the title of Narrator. I will give you my true name perhaps later once you have succeeded… As soon as I leave the room, you will surely forget almost everything of our discussion. Do not worry, I will not forget anything on my side. ”

  "I will now doze, go out a little further before dawn. The morning is likely to be quite eventful… And I am not even speaking for myself, though I suppose I must do my duty as well.”

  I now felt lighter than when I first arrived. I cast one last glance towards the prisoner.

  And after having revealed this last in thought, I picked up the axe again, closed the window, stepped over the pool of blood and disappeared through the same opening from which I had appeared. It was now completely dark in the room.

  Night returned and Soulless, still shaken but without knowing why, eventually fell asleep again when his lethargy returned. Or perhaps he only thought he had partly dreamed when he woke with a start at dawn as the door opened and a woman screamed upon seeing the severed head.

  As for this part of the story, it will be detailed later.