Death After Death
Chapter 247: Seeing the Unseen

The emotions that Simon’s new relationship uncovered were a surprise only in their severity. They were like an abscess in his soul, and until he lanced it, he hadn’t known how infected it really was. Until now, he’d seen those dark emotions as a sort of growing pains. However, they were hardly healthy if they made him feel like he might be betraying Freya, even after she’d buried him alive for half a century.

His feelings toward Elthena made even less sense, considering that she was the one who had rejected him in two lives. These things didn’t have to make sense to feel like they did. I’m going to have to do something about this too, he realized that morning. He’d put in a hell of a lot more time studying the way that birds moved across scattered updrafts than the way his past heartbreaks had made him feel.

While he made an effort to start working on these things himself, there was no one he could talk to about this. Certainly not Zoa. She was a sweet woman, but she was far too grounded in topics like cheese making and art than she was in more metaphysical concepts like the idea that Simon might remember his past lives. She was a village girl, not a priestess.

Honestly, Simon wondered how she’d ever ended up in a place like this. A lot of the people here were seeking some higher calling, but his Zoa seemed happiest when she was making candles or watching a sunset, not contemplating the nature of the universe.

“I came here on behalf of my family’s patron once when I was young. The Alexins, though you wouldn’t have heard of them as a foreigner,” she explained when he’d asked.

“From Coramin,” Simon said with a smile. “I know their estate well. It’s the very definition of lavish.”

“You must have lived quite a strange life to end up there, Simon,” she smiled before she continued her story. Apparently, their oldest son had a question but did not wish to waste their only question on something as simple as business dealing, so they paid to have men in their service bring her here to ask it instead.

“And when I got here and asked the Oracle that question, she told me it wasn’t really my question. I don’t know why my lord ever thought he could fool someone like her. How can you fool someone who’s supposed to know everything?” she continued, telling him about that encounter with the elusive woman. "Anyway, after all of that, we talked for a while, I decided I didn’t want to go back. It just felt right here.”

Simon nodded at that. She hadn’t said his name, but he could very easily believe that the young man who would grow up into the Lord Alexin he’d known would try to cheat the system in just this way. The man seemed to think he could buy the whole world, and he was almost always right.

“Life takes us some strange places,” he agreed. “I never thought I’d end up here either.”

“Right?” She answered, snuggling even closer to him. “I just think we should live while we can.”

Simon found that impossible to argue against, especially when she was naked and pressed against him. Still, some strain of that attitude was true for a lot of the acolytes who seemed likely to be stuck wearing gray the rest of their lives. Those who just wanted to have a good life found it, but they didn’t advance very high in the obscure ranking system they used for rank here in Hepollyon.

This place was as much a mystery to him as it ever had been, but over time, he slowly became less of a mystery to himself, and he supposed there was value in that. He’d been here for nearly four years now, and in about four more, the zombies would theoretically return. If he wanted to start dealing with the Pit in an optimal way, he should probably get moving soon and head north.

Still, Simon couldn’t do that just yet. That wasn’t just because he was anchored by his new relationship, either. Despite how uncertain it was, Simon felt like he was definitely making progress on something important. Even if it felt strange that he hadn’t unsheathed his sword or cast a spell in years, there were other benefits. His mind felt sharper than it had in any of his lives, save for perhaps his decade-long stint as a teacher.

Simon enjoyed his time with Zoa, with and without his clothes on, and though he didn’t spend time with her just so that he could deal with lifetimes of accumulated baggage, he never wasted an opportunity to do just that. Whenever they would lay together, and some slender strain of guilt would rise up, he would remind himself that he was doing nothing wrong.

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I did everything I could for everyone I loved, he reminded himself as they lay there in the dark. And if it had been within my power, I never would have left them.

Often, those sentiments felt hollow to him, even after he had accepted that he could have done better, especially with Freya. I could have done better in almost every situation I’ve been in since I’ve been in the Pit, though, he reminded himself. What mattered was that I didn’t repeat the mistakes I made with Freya in my next relationship.

Sometimes, those words felt futile; however, slowly but surely, he could feel himself healing, if only in the ever-reducing frequency and severity and the guilty pangs he felt. That was when he finally saw it for the first time.

It was a day like any other when it happened. He woke in a good mood and a clear mind, even though he hadn’t even laid with Zoa the night before. One moment, when he was stripping off his light gray robes to go for his daily swim, he looked upon the waters and the way the sun glimmered on them between the cloud of patchy mist. It was a beautiful sight that he would love to paint.

In that moment, though, as he thought that and soaked it in, he noticed that it wasn’t just the glimmers on the surface. As he looked deeper, there were hundreds of swirling lines. Some of them were red and orange and hinted at warmth, and others were so dark they were almost black, which his mind read as cold.

As he watched them ebb and flow, it took him a few seconds longer than it should have to realize that he was seeing exactly what he’d been trying to for so long. He saw a web of currents playing out below the surface with a chaotic and ever-changing topology. Sometimes, the channel of cold water shifted to the left or the right, and sometimes, it sank faster or slower into the depths of the boiling lake, but it was always shifting and adjusting.

He looked across the inlet to where different people were swimming, and though he saw a handful of people swimming within the bounds of the channel that was at a comfortable temperature, most were far enough outside it that they were far too hot or too cold. Almost every one of them was glowing as they swam there in the water. None of them were particularly bright, but he was sure they were all in the positives just as far as he was in the negatives. It was a beautiful moment, and it burned its way into his mind as he took it all in.

Then, it all fell apart when he glanced down at his own reflection. For a moment, he saw the twisted shroud of smoke that surrounded him, which contrasted greatly with the faint light he’d seen from most of the other acolytes. Then, just like that, it was all gone, and he was back to viewing the world through his own eyes.

That was a blow, but not enough of one to stop him from diving into the water. As he swam across the inlet, he considered what it was he’d just seen. He’d known that the men and women who could see auras saw the world differently from him. What he didn’t know was how different it was.

He’d always supposed they just saw people and could tell him they were good or bad at a glance, but if they could walk around all day seeing air currents and the nature of everyone’s souls, well, they were operating on a different plane entirely. For the first and only time, he understood why that old woman at the inn had killed him. If he ran an inn and spent all day dealing with people who were mostly a little good, with a few bad apples, and then someone strolled in with an aura like the devil himself, Simon probably wouldn’t hesitate either.

Over breakfast, he shared the experience with Zoa, and she was excited by what he said, or at least said she was. He could hear disappointment in her voice, too, though, and when he asked about it, she said, “Well, if you finally achieve clarity, then you’ll spend all day with the priests and not with us.”

Simon smiled and tried to reassure her. “No matter who I spend my days with, I’ll still spend my nights with you,” he promised her.

Still, despite what he said, the white robe that gave them all assignments that morning seemed to sense the change almost immediately, and instead of ordering him to work with Zoa to grind grain into flour like he had for the last three days, he sent her off with someone else and told Simon that he would be painting a mural instead.

That surprised him on multiple levels. The city’s whitewashed walls, had other pieces of art. These were mostly mosaics made from white and black stone. His would be the first splash of color. Still, the request implied several things all at once. It implied that they knew what he’d seen, as well as the fact that they knew he could paint, which was something he’d certainly talked to his friends about, but it was hardly common knowledge.

“What do you want me to paint?” he asked.

“Show us how you see interconnectedness,” the white-robed man answered.

“Well, if you know what I saw, then you probably also know that I can’t see it right now,” Simon said.

“That is almost always the case,” the man agreed. “These gifts come to us slowly and are intermittent at best.”

“Well, then, how am I supposed to paint what I can’t see?” Simon asked.

“I can see it even now,” the man smiled, “But I could not share it half so well as an artist like you. Trust in your own instincts. You will do fine.”

Simon nodded. That much was true. He didn’t need any special sight to paint. He might be out of practice, but he was sure that after a day or two of thought, he’d find some image to inspire him.