Chapter 401: The Varied View of Death

“Hey, Alex, how’s that cake coming over there?” Thundar asked, stirring a pot of goat stew.

“About the same as the last twelve times you asked me,” Alex fired back, carefully measuring out a portion of white sugar. “It’s baking. Cakes bake when they’re put in the oven, Thundar. That takes time. You know, time? That continued sequence of existence that events occur in? And asking how it’s doing until my ears fall off won’t make one bake any faster.”

“Oh come on, can’t you do something to make it go any faster?” The minotaur glanced at the window of the insula’s kitchen. The sun was setting. “You know…apply some kind of special technique?”

Alex paused, mid-measurement and gave Thundar a withering look. “Really? ‘Apply some kind of special technique’? To make time go faster?”

“No! Don’t be ridiculous!” Thundar glanced at the position of the sun again. “I mean…look, you’re a skilled baker—”

He said, throwing a meaningful look at Alex’s marked shoulder. “You can’t like…find some special way to speed things up? Make it bake faster?”

The young Thameish wizard gasped. “Thundar!” His tone sounded scandalised. Which reminded him of Professor Jules’ that time a student suggested they could work faster without masks and aprons. “Baking is an exact science. Cooking is a science! And this isn’t something forgiving like boiling some vegetable soup or something! You have to balance the heat. You have to keep it even. Too high and the cake burns or dries out and—”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Thundar raised his hands in defeat. “You can take as long as you want with your cake, jeez. You’re acting like I just asked you to cut off an arm or leg.”

“You may as well have,” Alex said, shaking his head. The young wizard looked at the position of the sun through the window and glanced at the hourglass he was using to time dough he had resting under a towel to rise. Not for the first time, he wished the kitchen had one of those fancy timekeepers. “What’s got you so antsy, anyway? We’re fine! If anything, we’re ahead of schedule. The pies are done, and the roasts are on. The sauce for the noodles is almost finished simmering, the cake will be baked before our time slot runs out…everything’s going great. We’ll have more than enough time for clean up, and all the food’ll be ready for Oreca’s Fall tomorrow.”

He cocked his head, closely watching Thundar’s body language. Something odd was going on with the minotaur; his movements were jerky and tight. There was an uneasiness in the way he stood: his hooves shuffled against the tiles and were spaced closer than usual.

“Say…what’s up, man?” Alex asked. “You look tense. Has stuff that happened lately been bothering you or something?”

“Wait, what?” the minotaur startled, chuckling nervously. “Naw, naaaah, no way! Nothing’s bothering me!”

Alex stared at him.

“Yeah even I didn’t believe that,” Thundar admitted.

“Aha, so there is something. Well, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to…but is it you know…the thing that we talked about?”

Alex made the sign of Uldar over his chest.

“Eh? Oh that—Ow, shit!” Thundar tasted the stew, grunting as it burnt his tongue. “No…well, kinda.”

“Kinda?”

“Well, it’s not that directly, I mean…look, I know it’s a big deal, but it’s so big that I can barely comprehend it. Like I know what it all means and what we might have to do, but it just doesn’t feel real.”

“I get that, how could it?” Alex shook his head. “So then, what’s up?”

Thundar looked around as though spies were hiding in the corners and rafters of the kitchen, then he slunk over to Alex. “Well, that thing made me think about life, you know? Things can come unexpectedly. Anything can happen. I know you know what I mean.”

“Oh yeah, I definitely do,” Alex said, thinking back on the mini-crisis he went through when Minervus was killed, and when the chaos essence and dungeon core remains exploded.

He thought of the encampment, wondering how things were going there. The research team was still doing their experiments on dungeon core remains, and the castle was on schedule to be completed before first semester final exams began.

As for the living dungeon core? Baelin and Jules had it locked away while they developed protocols for powering it up and having Carey and him experiment with it.

He was looking forward to getting his hands on it again, even though he was also wondering if Carey would be up for it; the young woman had taken a leave of absence, which he could easily understand. If he wasn’t already considering the revelation that shook her so badly, he might be on a leave himself.

As it was, he’d experienced too many life-altering events for certain things to break him at this stage.

“You start wondering if tomorrow might be your last day,” Alex said to Thundar. “And you begin thinking about things you want to do in case it is. Or things you might never get to see.”

“And then you think about acting,” the minotaur finished. “Before you never get the chance to.”

Alex looked at him sharply. “Acting? You mean like… on the stage? I didn’t know you wanted to be a performer?”

Thundar stared at him.

“What? Since when have you wanted to act?”

Thundar sighed. “Not that kind of acting, Alex.”

Alex was silent, then realisation hit him.

“Ohhh, that kind of acting,” he said sheepishly.

The minotaur shook his head, “I don’t know about you sometimes. We’re talking about, and I quote, “tomorrow might be your last day,” and next thing ya know, you have me performing on stage!”

“I don’t know, maybe you have some secret yearning to be an actor. It could happen.” Alex weakly defended himself.

Thundar muttered something in a language Alex had never heard him use before before continuing with the original conversation.

“Anyway, well, the first thing I did was write home,” he said. “I mean, like, I hadn’t done that in a while and I’d feel pretty shitty if I died and my folks hadn’t heard from me in months.” He snorted. “Speaking of that, Khalik apparently had a hell of a time writing home.”

“Really? He didn’t say anything to me.”

“Yeah, probably didn’t want you taking it on. See with me, I told my folks that I got involved in something dangerous, but cool. Something the ancestors would be proud of. Everyone in my family’s going to be cheering me on. They’ll be proud of me if I make it through, and—if I don’t—they’ll be proud of me for falling while doing something worthy.”

“Really?” Alex asked. “They wouldn’t tell you to come home, like yesterday?”

The minotaur laughed. “Listen, I get that things are different all over the world, but my tribe…my herd doesn’t really have much use for cowards. Our lands can be harsh and we don’t have a horrible doom orb looking to kill all of us every hundred years, but we fight monsters and beasts for resources. Not everyone in our tribe’s a warrior, but none of us are cowards. Trust me, any ‘coward-leanings’ are smacked out of us when we’re young.”

“That’s…that’s sad, in a way,” Alex said. “Sometimes cowardice is a good thing.”

“For some people, but not for us.” The minotaur looked toward the sun again. “I ain’t gonna lie, sometimes I look at you Thameish and think you could do with being a little more like us. Imagine if all of you picked up the sword, the spell, the bow and the miracle. Not just your soldiers and Heroes. Everyone. Then everybody would be involved in defending your lands.”

“Maybe,” Alex said. “But if everyone stayed to stand their ground and fight, a lot more people would die. Maybe so many that—when the Ravener was finally defeated—not enough of us would be left to sow and harvest. Our land would be this empty ruin: just someplace for wild beasts and Ravener-spawn.”

Thundar mulled that over. “Yeah…I can see that. Thing is, my people live in smaller groups. We farm less. Hunt more. Herd more. If we sent half our people away when trouble came, maybe there wouldn’t be enough of us to fight whatever the threat was. When push comes to shove, we need every hand around a weapon, if those hands are strong enough to wield one.”

He grabbed a fork and went to a delicious smelling roast turning on a spit, speared one end and pulled some of the meat off for sampling. “We’re not blood drinking berserkers here. In our eyes, the best death is one where you’re in a comfy bed after a long life with your family around you. But we mortals don’t often get that luxury. So, dying in a fight against something terrible for a good cause? That’s seen as good too.”

“Huh…” Alex murmured. “Makes ya think.”

The way Thundar was talking about death so casually startled him since their perspectives were so different. It wasn’t often that he thought about how distinct all of their cultures and lives were. But one thing he knew for sure was that if Theresa’s parents caught even the slightest whiff of what had happened—what had really happened—they’d do anything to keep their daughter and potential son-in-law alive.

They were proud of her, of her strength and fearlessness, but just giving her their blessing to go up against Uldar himself would, without a single doubt, be pushing things beyond insane thinking. Thundar, though, his family would be proud of him even if he were to lose his life. It was such a strange idea to Alex: if anything killed one of his friends, he couldn’t imagine reacting with pride.

He could only imagine grief, rage and a need for vengeance. And after that? The slow grind of coming to terms with it, like he had with his own parents.

“Well, it’s a different way of looking at things,” Alex said. “Guess it makes it easier to send letters about what you’re doing to your family.”

“Yeah, I remember Theresa said that she hid her stuff for awhile,” the minotaur said grimly. “But, that’s nothing compared to Khalik’s problem.”

“Right, back to that,” Alex said. “What’s going on?”

“Well, not to go into too many details, but he’s been having trouble telling his folks about the dangerous stuff he’s faced here. It’s not that he outright hides it, but he has to try and put things in the best light, sorta like putting nice clothes on Ravener-spawn to make them look better. And with this Uldar stuff, he’s oathsworn—like the rest of us—not to give details. It’s hard to get the gravity of the situation across without details, so he’s gotta walk this tight line. He doesn’t want to hide what’s going on from them, but if things get too rough…well, you know his position.”

“Yeah, I could see them coming up here to take him back home, which could be a mess ‘cos he won’t want to go.” Alex shook his head. “Let’s hope for his sake that his brother can keep them away for a while longer. I remember he said they’re already getting twitchy since it’s been over a year since they laid eyes on him. And by the Traveller, I don’t even want to imagine how that meeting could turn out. I mean…he’s him and his parents are who they are, while we’re a bunch of idiots.”

“We are,” Thundar chuckled, biting into the piece of roast. “Hm, good flavour but probably still a little tough for human teeth. Anyway, I kinda wanna try not to embarrass him…but I also kinda wanna embarrass him a lot. Enh, Isolde will be there to make a good impression, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Alex laughed. “They’ll probably ask why all his friends can’t be like her. But anyway, that’s beside the point. You were talking about writing home to your family because of so much uncertainty about the near future. Anything else come to mind?”

Thundar paused. “Well…”

He went silent.

“Well, what?”

“Look…promise you won’t tell Khalik. And definitely not Isolde,” he finally said.

“I promise nothing.”

“Alex.”

“…oh shit, you’re being serious. Yeah, okay, mum’s the word. What’s up?”

Again, the minotaur looked around conspiratorially and leaned toward Alex before whispering. “I’m going to ask Kohana out.”

Alex paused. “Wait…you mean our Cleansing Movement instructor? That Kohana?”

“Keep it down, will you?” Thundar hissed, his eyes wide. “Jeez, why not scream it to the whole campus?”

“Sorry, it’s just that…I never thought you would.”

“Really?” Thundar snorted. “I’m no coward, Alex.”

“Yeah maybe not on the battlefield, but we’ve been going to those classes on and off for like a year now and…jeez, she came to visit you after you were laid up from the mana vampire attack. And you didn’t do anything then?”

“Didn’t seem right,” the minotaur grunted. “There I was, injured, right? Or just getting better and then I go and ask her out? Could look like I was trying to guilt her into going out with me. Like I was after some sorta pity date.”

“Yeah, fair, but I mean…you waited so long, she’s gotta have a partner. I mean, look at her—”

“I have.”

“—yeah, that’s a fair point too, but look, all that Cleansing Movement practice shows.”

“Ya, it sure does,” Thundar was grinning. “Getting a no won’t kill me, but dying before even throwing out a line? Now that’s cowardice. And what’d I just say about that?”

“True,” Alex said.

“It’s why I’m going to do it after the Festival,” the minotaur said. “We’ll honour the dead, and then…I’ll do something for the living. The living being me.”

“You know…” Alex said. “In the stories, this is the kinda thing characters say just before they die.”

“Yeah,” Thundar said. “But if I’m gonna die, I’ll die anyway. So what’s the point of hiding from life? I just want tomorrow to go perfectly. There’s a lot of dead to honour. And, if things get rough enough in Thameland, there might be a hell of a lot more.”

“Let’s hope not, Thundar,” Alex said. “Let’s hope not.”