Death After Death

Chapter 63: A Little Mistake

The answer proved to be zero, as it turned out. Without magic, he might have lost all of his digits, of course, but with a few applications of lesser healing, Simon was able to turn all his toes and even his blue and black nose back to a healthy pink color. That was great, of course, because he was fairly certain he would have hit the reset button and started this run-over if he had to cut his own nose off. That was too disgusting for words.

The home he’d chosen to spend the night in had no bodies, but it had plenty of meat and vegetables that were suffering from only a little freezer burn. The fact that they were edible after he turned them into a stew that he’d let simmer for hours while he soaked in the heat from the small cookfire only proved that this had happened recently.

“But why now, though,” he asked himself as he took another bite.

If Helades had truly wanted to stop this tragedy, couldn’t she have had the portal open up in the moments before the mage had completed his experiment? That frozen look of panic flashed unbidden in front of Simon’s face as he contemplated the moment.

Clearly, the man had just enough time to figure out the fact that he’d screwed something important up to run away. So why couldn’t Helades have sent Simon here at that moment, or even ten minutes before, to do what he’d just done before everyone else who lived in this town had paid the price?

“At least some people got away,” he said to himself, poking the fire absent-mindedly before taking another bite of his mushroom and mutton stew.

It wasn’t as good as Freya would have made, he decided for the dozenth time, but he instantly forced the thought out of his head before he allowed his mind to wander to all the painful places an errant thought like that could lead.

After his somber, tasteless dinner, he searched the small two-room hut twice for alcohol but found none. So, he decided to go to bed early. He’d cleared this level as far as he was concerned, but he still wanted a day or two to poke around and see what could be learned from this mage’s mistake.

. . .

In the morning, Simon woke up sweating in his furs, and when he went outside, he found the snow had receded quite a bit. It was still present in a ring around the village proper, and the rooftops of the central buildings still glistened with ice. However, the fields between here and there had melted, and there was only a line of slightly darker mud to mark the radius that had previously been a winter wonderland.

As he walked toward the center of the village, he started to feel a little chilly, but until Simon got to ground zero, he felt nothing that even resembled the bitter chill he’d been forced to struggle against yesterday. When he got to the house that was the epicenter it got colder still, but this time it was merely as cold as a walk-in freezer rather than the inhuman cold it had been suffused with yesterday. He barely felt it through his furs.

This time he could take his time, and he very deliberately went room by room looking for clues to what exactly had happened here. Judging by the state of the larder and the quality of his silverware, the man that had lived here had obviously been well off, though not as wealthy as either of the Barons that Simon had served.

He’d been rich enough to have two servants, too. The maid had frozen to death on the kitchen floor by the stove, and the footman had died in front of the hearth. Both had sought warmth to protect them from something that could never be held back by mere flames and though Simon didn’t know what that was yet, he was going to find out.

“Not my problem,” he said finally, rising to his feet and tromping through the melting snow toward his real destination.

The street from the house he’d been investigating to the temple that held the portal to the next level was eerily quiet, and Simon briefly considered looking in some of the other houses but suppressed the urge. There wouldn’t be a point after all. It was possible he might find some gold or silver, but he really didn’t need it for where he was going, and other than maybe a few more arrows for his longbow, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to carry around.

He wanted to get back to level twenty, so he could give Helades a piece of his mind, and the only thing he had to do to make that happen was to cut through a wall of ice, walk through a city of the dead, then a swamp, and finally, he had to kill a Basilisk. While he wouldn’t call that to-do list easy, it was certainly simple and straightforward, and he didn’t need to complicate it by digging any deeper into this place. The mystery had been solved as far as he was concerned.

So, with that thought in mind, he pulled back his hood and enjoyed the brisk air before he reached the front door of the temple. Once there, he forced it open with a brief shove and wiped away some of the snow that rained down on him from the eaves as he did so.

From here, Simon could finally see his destination. This time, it didn’t glow red with sunset because he’d taken much longer. This time, the ice was as black as night, but he was certain it still led to the same place, and with a smile and a flourish, he unsheathed his sword, watching it burst into flame as he did so.

“Alright,” he said with a smile, “let’s see what this baby can do.”

He plunged the flaming sword into the icy barrier in front of him, smiling grimly as he felt it slowly cut through the thing like a hot knife through butter or, perhaps more poignantly, a lightsaber through a blast door. This felt like real progress to him. The last time he’d been through here, he’d blasted his way through mostly with pure desperation and barely managed to avoid freezing to death. This time, though, he was very deliberately cutting his way toward the dead city that lay beyond, with a tool he’d made with his own two hands, and that was extremely satisfying.

He studied his reflection in that melting block of ice as he started down the second side of what would eventually be a doorway. Even taking into account the distortion of the ice, he looked as different as he ever had in his whole life. In truth, he barely recognized himself. Losing all that weight had given him cheekbones he didn’t even know he had, and it left him looking angry and older than he remembered, and the snow in his hair only intensified the illusion. For a brief moment, he had a good idea of how he’d look when he was his dad’s age.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure he liked it. Despite the number of times he’d already died, he really didn’t like the idea of getting old. That was something he wouldn’t have to worry about for a long time from now. It didn’t really matter though, did it, he decided. The only person his looks should ever matter to, old or young, was dead. He could become one of those greasy, unshaven mountain men now for all he cared.

“Well, I could, except for the lice,” Simon corrected himself with a laugh. He was at a point where he didn’t really care what he looked like, but he definitely still cared if he itched or stank, so that wasn’t going to happen.

Once he finished his third cut through the ice block, he sheathed his sword, noting the cloud of steam it created as he put it away. Then, he put his back into it and shoved hard, pushing the block of ice out of the way and into the dark cobblestone street beyond.

This place, at least, hadn’t changed a bit. It was a city full of the dead, and he had no idea what it was the goddess wanted him to do with it.