By noon Quarzel was moving again.
The destroyed sections stayed behind.
New performers replaced the dead.
Three purchased from a prison convoy.
Two from a Human temple intermediary who asked no questions about destination as long as the payment arrived.
One Night Elf bought from a Harpy slave trader.
One Ga’rrathi captured after a border skirmish.
Asahi remained.
He had learned six words.
Water.
Food.
Stop.
No.
Home.
Corny.
He used the last one most violently.
Corny found him beside the carriage.
Asahi pointed at Corny.
“Corny.” “Correct.” “Home.” “No.” Asahi hit the bars.
“Home!” Corny crouched.
“Impossible.” Asahi did not understand.
Corny drew a circle in dirt, put a stick figure inside, crossed it out.
Then pointed at Asahi.
Asahi understood enough to start crying.
Corny watched.
“You’ll adapt.” Asahi spat through the bars.
Corny wiped his cheek.
“Also adaptation.” He stood.
Rai approached.
“Where are we going?” “Akatoa.” “Why?” “She has a theatre property available.” “The Harpy who buys Humans by weight.” “Yes.” “You’re expanding.” “Yes.” Rai stared.
“After Rangiora?” Corny looked back at the cages.
“Especially after Rangiora.” “You saw what this became.” “Profitable.” “That’s your lesson?” Corny smiled.
“No.
The lesson is audiences don’t care what happens behind curtains as long as what happens in front is entertaining enough.” He tapped his cane against the ground.
“So we need better curtains.” Rai looked sick.
Corny enjoyed that too.
It meant Rai still expected something from him.
Expectations were handles.
Corny wanted fewer handles on himself and more on everyone else.
At sunset they reached a broken bridge between two cliffs.
Corny burned Twenty-Three.
A silver road appeared across the chasm.
Wagons rolled over impossible air.
Halfway across, one prisoner tried jumping.
Card Sixteen stopped him in mid-fall because Corny reacted quickly enough to throw the card at the descending body.
The Human froze below the road, suspended.
Corny leaned over.
“That was rude.” The prisoner screamed.
“LET ME DIE!” Corny looked at Card Eight in his hand.
Another copy.
He considered using it.
Permanent inability to die would eliminate future escape attempts.
Rai saw the number.
“Don’t.” Corny looked at him.
“Efficient.” “That’s torture.” “Possibly.” “Corny.” Corny smiled.
Then burned Eight.
The card struck the prisoner below.
Immortality entered him.
The man screamed before anything else happened because he understood enough from Dio’s act.
Corny used Twenty-Four to create a column of water beneath him and lift him back onto the road.
The prisoner landed choking.
Corny crouched.
“Try again whenever you like.” The man’s face collapsed.
Rai whispered, “You’re a monster.” Corny looked at him.
“Meaningless category.” “You know exactly what it means.” Corny stood.
“Yes.” They continued.
Later Corny used Card Twenty-Five.
His favorite.
Still Room.
The card burned.
A sphere of absolute silence spread around the carriage for sixty seconds.
Wheels made no sound.
Chains made no sound.
Prisoners’ mouths opened without sound.
Wind disappeared acoustically.
The world finally stopped touching him.
Corny’s shoulders relaxed.
He closed his eyes while walking.
Heaven, if he had believed in heaven, would have been this and nothing more.
No dead relatives.
No eternal reward.
No purpose.
Just sixty seconds in which nobody could force their existence into his ears.
When the silence ended, twenty-three prisoners’ voices returned at once.
One crying.
One coughing.
Asahi shouting home.
Rai arguing with Taki.
Kio complaining.
Corny’s entire body tightened.
He turned toward the cages with sudden hatred so pure it surprised him.
Not ideology.
Not morality.
Sensory resentment.
They were noise.
Needs.
Demands.
Faces requiring decisions.
He understood for one terrible moment why his father had reacted to children as burdens.
The thought entered cleanly.
Corny froze.
His father appeared beside the road.
“There you are.” Corny stared.
“No.” “Now you understand.” Corny laughed.
“I’ve always understood.” “Then we’re the same.” Corny looked toward the cages.
“No.” His father smiled.
“Why?” Corny thought for several seconds.
No moral answer came.
No law.
No god.
No universal boundary.
Only preference.
“Because I hate you.” His father laughed.
“That’s all?” Corny smiled back.
“That’s enough.” The hallucination disappeared.