Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [55]
“He died calling your name.”
It took an effort for Kira to pry her horrified eyes away from the array of corpses and continue her journey to the office where she and Torrna had spent so much time together.
The small wooden structure had held up remarkably well during the attack only a few scorch marks differentiated it from Kira’s memory of the building. Several familiar faces greeted her hastily; others ignored her completely. One person, a merchant who had set up a shop specializing in merchandise from Endtree, muttered, “Thank the Prophets she’s here. Maybe she can talk some sense into him.”
Nobody sat at the sergeant’s desk.
She entered Torrna’s tiny office. The general sat behind his ricketywooden desk, which was piled top to bottom with enough refuse and detritus to be a serious fire hazard, given the conditions outside. The small bar that sat under the window was full of empty, overturned, and broken bottles. Kira was therefore not surprised that the smoky stench that had filled her nostrils since Tunhal’s ship came around the bend was now being overpowered by several different types of alcoholic beverage. At least three more bottles were visible on the desk, not to mention the large glass that Torrna Antosso clutched in his right hand.
The smoke obscured the view of the mainland, as it obscured everything right now.
The general looked like a zombie. His eyes stared unblinking, straight ahead. If not for the smell of alcohol not to mention Torrna’s atheism Kira would have thought he was in the midst of a pagh’tem’far vision.
“They’re dead,” Torrna said without preamble, his voice barely more than a monotone. “Dead dead dead dead.”
“I know, Hiran told me about the prefect and Admiral Inna. But”
Torrna made a sweeping gesture, knocking over one of the empty bottles. “No! Not them. I mean, they’re dead, too, but tha’s not who I mean.”
“Who’s”
“Lyyra! She’s dead!”
Kira found herself unable to reply at first. She had been prepared to console Torrna on the deaths of Natlar and Inna even as she herself struggled with the fact that the serene prefect and the no-nonsense admiral were gone.
“What about the kids, are they”
“They’re dead, too. All of ‘em, dead dead dead dead dead. An’ they didn’ know.”
Frowning, Kira prompted, “Didn’t know what?”
“Th’I was alive! B’fore I could get home I found Takmor’s regimen’.”
“I heard.”
“By time I got home, they were dead an’ I never got to tell ‘em I was alive!”
“They probably found out from the dispatches,” Kira said, not sure if, in the chaos of the end of the war, anyone would have the wherewithal to contact Lyyra about so trivial a matter as the fact that her reported-dead husband was still alive. Especially if she and the kids were close enough to the fighting to be killed. Hell, knowing Lyyra, she was right in the midst of it. She was always a healer at heart.
“Doesn’ matter. Nothin’ matters. They want me to take over now’t war’s over. Ain’t gonna do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gonna drink m’self to death. If that doesn’ work, I’m gonna cut m’throat. Don’t wanna live in this world without ‘er.”
… Odo “putting on” the tuxedo for the last time before descending into the Great Link…
“Listen to me, Antosso, you can’t just give up.”
“Why not?” He pounded his fist on the desk, rattling the bottles and knocking several papers off. “Haven’ I done enough?”
… Bareil, his brain barely functioning, slowly fading away on the infirmary biobed…
“No, you haven’t! You’ve spent all this time fighting, you can’t give up now! Perikia needs you! They couldn’t have fought this war without you, and they certainly wouldn’t have won it without you.”
“Doesn’ matter. Without Lyyra”
… Captain Sisko the Emissary traveling to the fire caves, never to be seen again…
“There are still hundreds of people out there who fought and died for Perikia including Lyyra. Without Natlar, without Takmor, without Inna they’re going to need your strength. They need the man who beat back the Lerrit Army. They need the man who trudged through the swamp and the mountains to get home. They need