Chapter 86 - Mistakes Were Made (Patreon)

Zeke finished tying the knot as Abby asked, “Are you sure that’ll hold her?”

He shrugged, replying, “I have no idea. I never really learned much about knots. I think it’ll be fine, though. Besides, where is she going to go? That place seals when I dismiss the cottage.”

“You think she’ll be okay, though?” asked Abby, glancing at the young woman. Tabby had ropes tied tightly around both her ankles and her wrists, which were behind her back. She was as bound as they were likely to make her. “Spatial storages are weird. Some can’t accommodate organics at all. This first satchel I bought, I got it for what I thought was a great price. But when I tried to put my rations inside, they just disappeared like they were never even there.”

“That doesn’t happen with the cellar,” Zeke stated with a confidence he didn’t really feel. The truth was that he had no idea what would happen if he put a living being into his spatial storage. He couldn’t even do it via mental command; instead, he would have to physically drag the woman down there and seal the space manually. But it wasn’t as if they had a plethora of choices in front of them. “I’ve put lots of monster meat down there, and it was fine.”

That much was definitely true. In fact, so long as it remained sealed, time didn’t appear to move at all within the cellar that constituted his spatial storage. It was only when he opened it up and went down there that anything inside seemed to age. He was eager to find out how all of that would affect a living being like Tabby.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, noticing the girl’s wild eyes. She was terrified. But that had been the case even before he’d told her where she’d be spending the trip to the next waystation, Redoubt. So, he wasn’t certain if it was the prospect of being inside of his spatial storage that had freaked her out or if it was the fact that she was still only one wrong move from being summarily executed. Either way, Zeke didn’t truly care. He wouldn’t kill her without reason, but he wasn’t overly concerned with her well-being, either. She was an afterthought and nothing more.

Abby sighed. “Fine,” she said, sitting next to Pudge, who had once again managed to coat himself in blood and gore, this time from the attackers that had been killed. Abby was busy sorting through the equipment they’d looted, which was sorely lacking in quality. The only thing they’d found that held any worth was the leader’s short sword, which Zeke had insisted Abby take for herself.

She held the blue-bladed sword up, admiring the arcing power that ran along its blade. “It has an effect,” she said, giving it a couple of exploratory flicks of the wrist. “From what I can tell, if it makes contact, it’ll be like getting tazed. I don’t think it’ll do much damage, but it’ll stun someone for a second or so.”

“Useful,” Zeke said, reaching down to Tabby’s waist and picked her up. She was incredibly light. He threw her over his shoulder and walked toward the cellar, which he’d already opened. He descended the steps, and once he was entirely down the stairs, he deposited her into a corner. “You’ll be okay down here. Just don’t mess with anything. If you do, I’ll know.”

The woman, who’d only muttered a handful of words since the end of the interrogation, gave him a pleading look. “Please don’t leave me down here,” she breathed. “I…I don’t like the dark…”

There was a part of Zeke that wanted to empathize with the girl, especially considering how young she looked. Most of that was due to her size, but that knowledge didn’t seem to matter to his instinctual impulse to treat her like a lost teenager. Maybe that was what she was. For all Zeke knew, she was just as young as she looked. But that didn’t excuse her from her actions. She had participated in an attempt to kill him, Abby, and Pudge. And with that action, she’d forfeited any right to his sympathy.

“You’ll be fine,” he said, turning around and moving back toward the stairs that would lead up to the cottage’s ground floor. “It’s only a couple of days to Redoubt, and we plan on traveling through the night.”

She stammered a few more pleas, but he ignored them. Instead, he climbed the stairs to rejoin Abby and his soulbound companion. The cellar’s trapdoor closed with a sense of finality, and he announced, “You done sorting through all that stuff? You didn’t find any hidden gems, did you?”

She shook her head. “Nope,” was her response. “Just the sword. Are you sure you’re okay with me taking it? We could sell it, and –”

“You can use it,” he stated. “Besides, you killed her, so it’s yours anyway.”

Abby looked like she wanted to argue, but she suppressed the urge. Instead, she said, “Well, no reason to stick around, right? Let’s get moving toward Redoubt. I don’t want to be responsible for that girl for any longer than absolutely necessary. She gives me the creeps.”

“She’s just a kid.”

“I know,” Abby said with an exaggerated shiver. “I’ve never liked kids.”

“If it’s any consolation, I think she’s older than she looks,” Zeke said. “Like, maybe older than me.”

“I’m sure she is,” was Abby’s response. “Nobody gets to her level at that age. It’s too dangerous. If I had to guess, she probably took a skill that let her slow down the aging process. It’s rare. Most people don’t get that option. But for someone associated with the Crystal Spiders, it could be helpful.”

“How so?”

“Think about it,” she said, gathering her things in preparation of his dismissal of the cottage. If they left something inside, it would be there when he re-summoned it, but it would be inaccessible until then. “Would you suspect someone that looked like Tabby as an assassin? You’ve already let it cloud your judgment, and you know exactly what she did. But in a city like Beacon? Nobody would suspect her at all.”

Zeke sighed. “You’re probably right,” he said, stepping through the door. “How old do you think she really is?”

“My age, maybe? I don’t know,” she answered, following him outside into the night air. It was dark, but after spending so much time in the troll caves, he had little difficulty seeing by moonlight. Pudge waddled along behind her. They’d have to get him cleaned at some point; perhaps there would be a likely stream on the way to Redoubt. “Age is weird in this new world. Nobody looks their age, and that’s just counting from when they got here. You have eighty-year-olds who look like they’re in their twenties. That’s not even considering people who’ve evolved their race. You know we’ll age at like a tenth of the speed of normal people, right?”

“I figured it would be something like that,” he said. He’d heard that Lady Constance had been at Beacon’s head for centuries, so it stood to reason that aging worked differently in the Radiant Isles. With a thought, he dismissed the cottage, and it popped out of existence. “I don’t think…”

He trailed off as something intruded into his mind. An awareness he’d never felt before. But even though it was unfamiliar, Zeke knew precisely what it meant.

“Shit.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Abby asked, looking around, her bow already folding out from her glove. She conjured an arrow. “Did you see something? What’s out there?”

Zeke massaged his temples as a piercing headache knifed its way through his mind. “That sucks,” he grunted.

“What happened?” she asked, still on alert. However, she’d deduced from his lack of reaction that there were no monsters upon them.

“The girl,” he muttered. “She…uh…give me a second…”

A moment later, he summoned the cottage exactly where it had been before. Without another word, he went inside and made his way to the trap door that led into the cellar. Flinging it open, he descended the steps. Abby followed, still wary, but no longer alarmed. When she finally got down into the storage space, she let out a gasp.

“What the…”

“I don’t know,” said Zeke, who’d picked up a stray drachnid claw and was poking at a pile of aged bones. They crumbled to dust at the slightest touch. “This is…it used to be her…I have no idea how this happened.”

“Spatial storage and living things don’t mix,” Abby said, her irritation evident. “I told you. I made it abundantly clear that something bad would probably –”

He held up a hand, saying, “I know! I know, okay? It was a mistake.”

“A mistake that cost a girl her life.”

He locked his eyes on hers, saying, “She deserved it. I’m not saying I meant to do this or anything, but…well, she did try to kill us. I refuse to feel guilty about it.”

It was a lie, and one Abby clearly saw straight through. It was one thing to kill someone in the heat of battle. He might’ve even been fine with an execution. But to kill the girl by mistake? After he’d told her everything was going to be fine? That was a different story altogether, and Zeke didn’t look forward to examining how he felt about the whole thing.

Unbidden, Tabby’s youthful face sprang into his mind. Zeke knew it was just a façade. She wasn’t the fresh-faced teenager she seemed to be. But that didn’t make the image any less impactful on his psyche.

“It’s okay,” Abby said, reaching out to grip his upper arm. She gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You didn’t know.”

He let out a tired sigh. When did it become his job to decide who got to live and who deserved to die? Everything was so much easier when he was fighting for his life. Those decisions made sense. There were no shades of grey. But what had happened with Tabby? That weighed on him in a way he never could have anticipated, especially considering that she was an admitted murderer who had been taking jobs working for the Crystal Spiders for years.

But now she was gone, her life cut short, and not because of an active choice. Rather, she’d died because of an accident. An oversight. Zeke’s stupidity and hubris. He couldn’t afford to dwell on it, though. Not now. Maybe not ever. Down that road lay ruin.

“At least we don’t have to go Redoubt, now,” he said. “Unless you have a reason to drop by?”

Abby shook her head. “It’s not a good place,” she said. “It’s a military encampment. Nobody goes there unless they have to.”

“We’ll skip it, then,” Zeke decided.

Abby said, “You can talk to me,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? I might not be a therapist anymore, but I am your friend. If you ever need to just…I don’t know, let it out, I’m here for you.”

“I’m fine,” he lied, refocusing on what really mattered. Though, in the back of his mind, Tabby’s face still hovered over him, an accusatory expression on her youthful visage.

“I disagree,” Abby said. “But I can’t make you open up about it. I know you didn’t mean for this to happen. You’re a good person.”

That was a matter of opinion. A million different doubts about his actions sprang to mind. Zeke had murdered thousands of creatures, some of which were at least semi-sapient. Even the trolls, for all their monstrosity, had used tools and had formed a rudimentary society. He’d killed hundreds of them in their sleep, and that wasn’t even counting the ones he’d killed in battle. Then there were the drachnids. Most of them had been warriors, and as a society, they had been responsible for hundreds of needless deaths. However, he hadn’t just killed the ones responsible. He had murdered every humanoid arachnid he had come across in Nightweb Ravine. Surely, there were innocents in there. The lizardkin in the sewers were in a similar boat. They’d been abducting and killing children, but surely, they weren’t all responsible. He had summarily executed them all, and without so much as an investigation.

And now, there was Tabby.

“I don’t know if I agree with that,” Zeke said. “But the thing is, I don’t think a good person can survive in this new world, much less get stronger. I think we all have to make compromises. Otherwise…”

Zeke let the word hang in the air. He didn’t regret his actions. He couldn’t afford to. However, despite his assertions otherwise, that didn’t mean he felt no guilt. He did, and it would probably stick with him until the end of his days. But that was just the price of survival in a brutal world.

“Come on,” he said, heading back to the stairs. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take care of the remains while we head north.”