Page 120 of The Tainted Cup

“Where have you been? What have you done?”

He said nothing.

“Did you help her break into the halls of the Hazas?”

Still nothing.

Then, sighing, Miljin asked, “Ditelus…where are you going, man?”

For a while Ditelus kept hobbling on. Yet then he answered in a soft, curious, high-pitched voice, whispering, “H-home.”

“You’re going home?”

“Yes,” he gasped. Blood flew from his lips with the word.

Miljin looked ahead. “There’s naught but wall in this direction, son.”

“I…I am going home,” whispered Ditelus. His face shook with pain. “To the g-green fields of beans, and…and yellow fields of wheat I once knew.” He blinked hard, and tears began running down his cheeks, carving cloudy lines through the blood. “Air hazy with pollen in early spring. And th-the forests thick with leaves just after, and then heavy with d-dark fruit.” As he limped on, his body began to shake, and he wept. “I shall be there soon.”

“The hell is he talking about?” said Kitlan.

“Oypat,” I said quietly. “I think he’s describing Oypat.”

“Y-yes,” whispered Ditelus. “It was my home. Yet it is dead, and…and I go to join it. I will wander those lands in this next world. And w-what…what a joyous thing that will be.”

Then he stopped, arms limp at his side. His whole body was quaking now.

“Captain Miljin,” said Kitlan lowly. “Get away. Get clear.”

“They took it from us,” wept Ditelus. “Let it die. Made it die.”

“What do you mean?” Miljin demanded. “Who did?”

“And then her…He did it to her, I…I…He did it to her, didn’t he?” Ditelus said helplessly. “Didn’t he?”

“Who?” demanded Miljin. “Jolgalgan? Is that who you mean? What’s happened?”

“Miljin!” said Kitlan, louder. “Get away! Something’s wrong!”

She was right. Something was moving at Ditelus’s breastbone. Something twitching and curling, under his shirt.

“You…you Iudex,” screamed Ditelus. “You say you want justice. You always say that! Youalways say that!”

Miljin saw what was happening now. He wheeled his horse away, looking back over his shoulder as something within Ditelus began to…

Sprout.

“To see these walls!” roared Ditelus. “To see what men have made! And know that they could have saved us, but…but…”

Then came a horrid sound, akin to thick fabric ripping, followed by an awful crackling, crinkling sound; and then, like a moth breaking free of its pupa, the dappleglass emerged, a thick, vibrant, undulating shock of bright iridescent green splitting his flesh and rising into the air. It burst from his collarbone, parting him along the side and boiling forth from the edge of his rib cage. Blood poured from his throat in a sudden splash, and then his face was concealed, lost in the shivering coils of roots and the quaking, dark leaves; but the crackling sound continued, as if the vegetation was breaking every length of his bones, crushing them to powder. Then the crackling stopped, yet the column of dappleglass kept silently rising, stretching into the sky in a dark, shimmering column.

I watched as the dappleglass consumed him, until he was little more than a giant puppet held aloft in the towering shoots. I heard the cries and the calls of the Apoths about me, but I had no mind to listen. There between two slender shoots I could spy a sliver of his face, his sad eyes staring into shadow.

“Must have been infected for some time,” Kitlan said. “His crackler’s body contained it until it…it…”

I kept staring at his tears. Watched how they gathered at his chin, growing into a pregnant pink drop, before tumbling off into the leaves.

“From where?” said Miljin’s voice besideme.