25. Death

This is the way Shard of White Obsidian, the once-favoured daughter of the Lair-Mother, whom her countless victims had called a defiler, a despoiler, and a demon, died: with prying shears grasping the split plates of her shell, and with strong porcelain hands ready to pull. Hers was not the death of the body, however, which, while inevitable, was only promised for later. It was a more insidious death, one that left her still breathing and still bleeding, but no less obliterated: it was the death of the soul.

When her siblings bolted her to a steel table and presented to her the tools of her unmaking—the hammer and the chisel, the shears and the saw, the scalpel and the cleaver—Shard made a promise to herself that she would not beg for reprieve. After all, her captors were her kin, and she knew them well enough that there would be no real mercy coming, only ever an illusion of it meant to render the deferred torment even more intense. The promise broke quickly: as her siblings turned her body into a shattered porcelain plain mottled with lakes of gushing black blood, Shard screamed for any kind of relief; then she couldn't scream again, so she was given a chance to regain her voice, before the tools were put again to her shell and her flesh.

But, unfortunately, that was not enough to kill: not the body, and not the spirit. At the end of the day, Shard was put on that plateau of pain past which suffering becomes distant and abstract, too vast to encompass with thought or experience. And yet, she lived, and worse yet, she remained with herself, buoyed on the surface of an endless, drowning sea. For her siblings, this was a mark of their failure, because they took their sister in to do more than just torment her, but to destroy, like she had destroyed so many of them before.

Circling around the bloodied table, they conferred with each other, looking for a new approach, one that would bring them their long-awaited revenge for what she had done to Blood-Slick Thorn, but really for the more profound injustice that was the fact that Shard used to be in their shared mother's greatest favour. Neither the hammer nor the chisel, neither the shears nor the saw, neither the scalpel, nor the cleaver would achieve it alone: a change in approach was needed.

Throughout the next day, they did not touch her a single time. Asphalt-like scabs closed over the bleeding wounds, the robust physique of a Lair-Mother's child refusing to give up even on a body long past repair. They gave her water to drink, ushering back a kind of consciousness into what they had reduced into a quavering sort of nothingness the day before. And when Shard could again recognize them, and name them, the one called Cuts made her an offer.

"Do you remember, back in my temple?" it asked, the black wedge painted freshly over its head.

Of course, Shard could not reply in kind, not with her mouth pried open, and tongue pulled out. All that was left to her was to watch her sibling, deftly balanced on a low stool, beholding its victim with an inciting smile.

"I asked you then," Cuts continued, drawing complex shapes in the air with the tip of her extended claw, "if you would not like to be a piglet of mine. No hands. No feet. No tongue. A very sorry life. But a life. And you wouldn't even have to suffer too much, too often."

It took into its hand a splitting saw, and scraped a fleck of dried blood from between the pointed teeth. This is where Shard's death began in earnest: with her mind conjuring up the image of being turned into Cuts' permanent trophy, of a life reduced to dumb humiliation and ceaseless abuse, but a life nonetheless. Her mind then put the image against the idea of the saw biting again into the cracks of her shell, against the idea of the wet crack of more of her body being permanently laid bare, against the idea of the bowl filled with the shards of her growing even more full. Death was in the way the scales tipped.

Cuts had to sense that, so it applied the saw. Tenderly, though, less to hurt, and more to remind Shard of its tangibility and proximity. Once the awful, grinding sound died down, it perched itself back up.

"Do you think we could convince Mother," it asked its siblings, "to let us keep her that way, forever neutered? Would it not make for a better lesson than the pit?"

Others chimed in with their opinions, trilling in favour, or voicing concern that Shard was too broken to serve well in this function. But Cuts dismissed that, and went on to argue if this experiment in punishment was to work out well, maybe the Lair-Mother could even be convinced to patch up the gaps left in Shard, to make her serve all the better as their little piglet.

"Our little bitch," another sibling, whose name was Ruining Motion, and who wore a veil over its face offered.

"Yes," Cuts agreed, nodding eagerly. "A bitch! She has insisted on that femininity, has she not? Perhaps we should not take it away from her, if it is so dearly held."

Helpless not to follow the discussion closely, and growing wretchedly hopeful that perhaps her future would have in it something other than the chisel and the hammer, Shard died by degrees. She moved her fingers, thinking of the world where empty stubs replaced her hands; she breathed laboriously in, and out, every expansion of her chest another jolt of spearing pain.

"We should have her teeth filed, though," Dream of Midnight, whose body was splattered in silver and gore, suggested. It took a metal file and touched it to a Shard's fang.

Others laughed in a multitude of hungry voices.

"Why not pull them out altogether, then?" Nothing Riddle, who, true to its name, never revealed its porcelain skin from under its coiled robes, replied. "Why let her bite at all?"

"I still think it is pointless," Poetry of Fall shrugged from above its basin, where it was currently trying to remove crusted blood from the instruments of torture. "So much effort, for so little gain. Let's just give her to Mother."

"Maybe, maybe," Cuts nodded again, pointing at Motion to grab the shears.

It had them inserted right below an exposed piece of Shard's shell, the cold metal pressing into the bloodied flesh beneath, the delicate pull slight enough to precisely foretell the cataclysmic pain that could follow at a single motion. Then, Cuts reached into Shard's mouth, and freed it, releasing the jaw and the tongue, drawing only a single tiny wound across its inside.

"Now," it said, letting Motion lean on the shears ever so slightly. "Tell me, sister. Would you want to be our bitch? Or is this," between its fingers, it flashed a little scalpel blade, "what you prefer?"

Though the answer was obvious to Shard, she was still too alive to say it freely. She choked on the words, until delicate encouragement made her spit them out from her steel-clenched throat.

"Say it louder," Motion demanded, applying a little bit more pressure to the shears, tearing the shell just a little bit away from the flesh.

This, alone, was enough.

"I want to be your bitch!" Shard whimpered as close to a shout as she could manage.

The reward was instantaneous: the pressure did not increase. Still, Cuts appeared unconvinced, the scalpel still dancing circles in its fingers.

"Unfortunately for you, the offer is no longer free," it explained. "You should have taken it back then. Now, I have more on my hand, and I am not sure if I am ready for the commitment. But maybe, maybe you have something you can still give, hmm? You had such riches given to you, sister."

"Your pain is stale," Dream added. "Feed us better…"

"...and we will convince Mother to take mercy on you," Riddle clacked.

"Maybe," Poetry shrugged again, "they can't guarantee it.

Motion pulled once more; Cuts played with the blade, waiting for Shard, and Shard, trapped a single stroke away from the obliterating pain, finally received the small mercy of having her soul die in full. She whispered out a name she had already betrayed too many times, and when the offering was accepted, her siblings left her in peace.

And thus, there was no more Shard. What remained bolted to the table was a breathing vessel, mostly broken, but entirely. It was going to serve well as a toy, completely given in, and fully emptied. Whatever had once filled it drained away, leaving behind bare life, tender flesh, and nothing more. It watched the room it was in impassively, without a thought or a feeling, having finally found a measure of peace. Though its body hurt, the pain reached it as if from behind a thick veil, subdued and flat. For Cuts, this was an enjoyable sight, and it spent long hours discussing with its siblings how they would train their bitch, once Mother was convinced. With the soul being so obviously dead, the successful convincing was looking increasingly likely; Mother would have no use in punishing something so insensate. Only Poetry worried that they would too be held responsible for failing to deliver Shard alive into their mothers' hands, which was an honest concern to have, but what could they do but wait?

After some time, Motion and Dream vanished from the cellar, and when they returned, they held in their claws a mortal girl with a cleanly shaved head, and eyebrows painted on with kohl. The girl had once meant something to the shell that used to be Shard, but fortunately not even the sight of her—nor the overwhelmingly sweet and familiar taste of her fear—managed to rouse anything out of the cracked vessel. It observed idly as its siblings held the girl, who named Ifi, aloft, and explained to her, in great and vivid detail, just how deeply Shard's treachery ran.

All the way through this conversation, the girl's eyes were primed somewhere else: on the ruined body bolted to the table. She just could not pry them away from the open wounds and the ruined landscape of the once-pristine shell, not even when Cuts slapped her across the face to grab her attention.

"Is she dead?" she demanded to know, her voice laden with so much worry and so much fear that even the dumb, empty body that used to be Shard could not help itself but to savour this wonderful feast.

It could also see how its siblings were already getting drunk on this. They had not yet even laid their claws on her, and already she was feeding them such exquisite agony of the heart; Shard had truly paid for the survival of her flesh in full, and more than that.

To think that they didn't need to shed blood to draw even more out of this mortal. Still kept off the ground, the hem of its robe collecting dust and dried blood, Ifi had it presented to her what was the reason she was called to this place.

"You will help us," Cuts crooned, deliriously sated, and yet hungry still, "remove those parts of her that are no longer necessary. You will make sure she doesn't bleed out as we take her tongue away."

If the shell could think, instead of simply letting the stimuli flow through, perhaps it would note that it was ridiculous for it to be referred to as "her", given how Shard was dead, and only flesh remained. But it could not, so instead it just submerged itself deeper and deeper in the bottomless ocean of Ifi's fear and despair, without even noticing the false note lacing its calamitously sweet taste.

"Once you do," Motion added, preparing the surgical instruments for the amputations, "we will kill you, just the way we like."

The broken vessel acknowledged, though without the surprise it should have evoked, that this promise prompted no new bloom of delicious anguish. Ifi was still looking at it, her eyes still wet with tears; she was ignoring Cuts.

"So she is alive," she exhaled with deep relief.

Cuts slapped her again, the sound echoing off the walls of the torture chamber.

"Have you not heard?" it demanded. "You will help us cripple her. And then..."

It left its voice hang, a claw pointing out at the piles of implements of torment scattered all around. Ifi shook her head, uninterested in the sight. Slowly, her fear began to recede, its sweet wave withdrawing further and further back. But its taste was not as quick to leave. It lingered behind, increasingly bitter with each passing second. A delicate quake of nausea went through the emptied shell: a sign of what was to come.

When Ifi did not react again, Cuts shook her violently, petulant.

"Do you not see?" it asked, wincing at some unseen sensation. Voracious greed laced its voice, reaching for more of that honeyed terror, and finding only less of it. "How are you not afraid?"

Finally, for the first time since getting dragged in, the alchemist looked away from the bloodied ruin on the steel table. Worry, exhaustion, and sadness marked her face as she stared straight into the featureless mask that was Cuts.

"I am already dying," she explained, so very light, so very gentle.

The words passed through the cracks in the shell, and came close to finding something left inside. But then, another sick tremor shook the body, making it twist in the bonds. An awful, frothing bile bubbled up its restrained throat. It noted that it wasn't the only one feeling it. Its siblings glanced around nervously, confused as the overwhelming high of Ifi's fear transmuted into a gnawing sickness.

"And so are you," the alchemist whispered, her voice cracking slightly in pain and in triumph.

Black, stinking foam gushed from behind Motion's veil, half blood, half poison. It screeched in mortal pain, the sound quickly turning into a wet gurgle as it clattered the floor, its swinging arms dragging trays of murderous steel down with it. Cuts froze in shock, and before this shock could turn into a realization, or into murderous intent, it was bent in half with a hacking cough, black goo splattering everywhere around it. Ifi slipped from its hand, jumping back as the Lair-Mother's children turned their claws on her in a desperate, final act of violence.

Dying in the flesh, the shell that used to be Shard saw none of the slashes find its mark. It watched porcelain bodies stumble, trip, and collapse. None of them died instantly; the Lair-Mother's children were known for their iron grip on life. The mess of blood, bile, vomit, steel, and porcelain writhed on the torture chamber's floor, wheezing breaths and horrid damp screeches marking its slow passage into the stillness of death. The emptied vessel could feel it taking it over, too, the burning course of a toxin turning its blood into fire. It hurt. It really hurt. Thankfully, the pain was far away.

In half crouch, the alchemist spat out blood herself, and then, hands shaking, she grabbed something from under her robe: a flask. The cork fell out, and she gulped down half the liquid inside, before coughing again; but it was a different sound, more complete. Her eyes returned to the table, and to the dying body bolted to it. That body could feel the burning, hot pain the alchemist broke through as she dug herself up from the floor, and carefully stepping over the horrid swamp of death churning underneath her feet, made her way to the broken vessel.

She poured the rest of the flask into the broken body's mouth, and forced it to swallow. The liquid met with the black froth somewhere in the throat, and parted it, draining down into the body and blood, stopping its boil. In its wake, there was a new pain, just as distant, but far less deadly. But the alchemist didn't know that.

"Please work," she prayed, waiting to see if she was going to survive and, more importantly, if the shattered remains of Shard were to live, too. "Please work."

The words were a softly repeated litany, braided together with heavy, pained breaths. Around the table, the torture chamber slowly went still, the bodies of Lair-Mother's children finally succumbing to the poison. In the silence that followed, every breath and every heartbeat resounded bell-like.

"Please work," Ifi asked one last time. Then, after a short, tight pause, she added: "It did."

The broken vessel was going to live, and so was the alchemist. The antidote evaporated the poison, leaving only a faint, acrid taste behind. Ifi exhaled again, leaning against the table, legs buckling her under.

"Shard," she said in a tired whisper, "it worked. Sun and stars, what did they do to you…"

She was seeing the ruin of the body again, this time without the veil of fear; she had to force herself to look at the scabbed over wounds, or at the pile of broken shell fragments in a bowl by the table. With each look, with each detail registered, her fear started returning, the golden wave swelling once more and sweeping into the wounds of the emptied vessel, once more lifting it up blissful waters.

"Shard?" a new kind of worry lanced through the alchemist. Smaller than the fear before, but infinitely sharper. "Shard, can you hear me?"

The body could hear, but that meant nothing. The sound was registered as any other stimuli would be. What voice could come out of an emptied, broken dish? What thought, what feeling? There was nothing.

"Shard!" Ifi raised her voice to a shout, and when that didn't help, her fear exploded into a bloom of pain so sublime that nothing before could compare. "Shard!"

To the emptied vessel, it was like sinking into the sun. Like being lifted up from the base world, and surrounded with a pleasure beyond description, a beatific bliss beyond words, experiences, or thoughts. The Lair-Mother's children were taught to eat pain and drink fear, to feast themselves on misery: and those feasts were so filling that few of them ever strove to reach past the easy harvests of murder and terror. But, in that moment, the emptied vessel had to wonder just how much of a waste this was, when breaking your lover's heart could elevate it to such lofty heights. Nothing would ever feel so good again.

Nothing ever should. This was wrong. The broken vessel did not deserve this feast. It was not-

"Don't you fucking dare, Shard!" from somewhere far away, a voice reached it, a familiar one. It was strung so tightly with despair, but held together by fury.

There were hands on its shell, warm, demanding. The touch was so very familiar. So very close to-

"No, no, no," Ifi pleaded with the empty torture chamber, and with the empty shell. "Please. No."

She didn't deserve to suffer like that. It should not be making her suffer like that. She should not be making her suffer like that. She had been hurt enough. Shard had hurt her enough. Something stirred in her, some remnant grasping at the edges of consciousness, and trying to pull herself up from the abyss. It almost worked. But Shard was a ruined mess, and her body could no longer hold her self inside. She slipped, and felt that moment of lucidity leak out, as if through a sieve, once again leaving behind an empty, dumb vessel.

Above the broken body, Ifi sat still, hands folded on the head, staring at the living flesh that nonetheless no longer seemed to contain the monster she came to love. It seemed impossible to believe, and even harder to accept, that all that was left to her to reclaim was just some broken porcelain, and some raw meat. The litany of denials, of profanities, of pleas, failed to reel Shard back in. In its place, resignation crept in, extending its welcoming, soft embrace with the promise that it could all be declared over, and finished.

"At least I killed them, right?" the question came out small and flat, a piece of flint chucked into black depths. "The ones who did this to you."

Her hands were on the cracked shell, feeling the edges where the porcelain fractured, pressing against the sharp edge. They refused to let go, however futile it really was. It seemed that even dead Shard could not stop hurting this girl, nor drinking her pain. It dripped like a soft rain from a summer sky, so bright, so vibrant. If the shell could want, it would want for nothing but to stay in this light forever.

Screws groaned as Ifi undid the bolts holding the shattered body's arm to the table; she wove her fingers with its, holding the hand as if it could mean anything.

"I should hate you, you know?" she asked, only a little less cracked than the ruin she held in her hands. "I should have let Villis kill you. I should have thrown you out. I should have left you here to rot. I should have never let you give me hope."

None of it was true, and even the broken vessel could register as much. The words had hooks at their ends, slipping into the many openings left in what used to be Shard, looping through the bare flesh and pulling taut, drawing the last vestiges of guilt from where it settled in bone and muscle.

"Everyone kept telling me that," Ifi's voice reeled the lines back in, straining under the weight of what it was trying to dredge up from the bottom. "Everyone. Myself included. And what of it? I'm here, you're saved, and not even here anymore."

There was space for a single breath; for one more blossoming of that divine pain, the one that felt too good to endure, the one that even the dead shell could not bear without shame.

"Everything you do is betrayal. I should hate you. But, instead, I..."

"I'm sorry," Shard said, whispering through a throat shot from screaming.

The veil parted; the hooks anchored the soul to the remains of the body, pinioning them in place with guilt, regret, and something else, that should remain without a name, lest Shard betray it, too.

"Shard?" the alchemist's voice ground to a halt over a single question, suspended between obliterating despair, and the single burning moment of hope.

"I'm sorry," the Lair-Mother's child said with the last of its voice.

Then came the time for a silence of confusion, of relief, of dry, cracked fury at everything that had culminated in this swamp of dead bodies and shattered lives. But they made it through, to the simple declaration waiting on the other shore.

"You damn better be," the alchemist exhaled, the fear cut off as if with a knife, replaced by tender, exhausted, exasperated joy. "Because I am not forgiving you ever again. You fucking monster."