The Pass by Zion Kistler (top 100 novels txt) 📕

sat there thinking once again for what must have been several long, confused minutes. Treaf continued to think of bursts of ideas that once he thought for several more moments only became meaningless hopes that faded into the impossible predicament that they were both in. They could not sacrifice a live human being—that would be against the law, besides Treaf’s moral awareness. Actually, I kill in battles; I’ve killed Spirits, Creatures, and Men alike. If I can kill these, why can’t I kill a being in a sacrifice? He supposed that this would be different if it was an enemy of his, perhaps a Dark Hood, but most of them had died in the battle…Death. Dead—The Dead. All human bodies, the energy drained from them…it was at this moment that Treaf stumbled upon the revolutionary thought, the single thought, that startled and shocked him into dumb recognition. His heart beat quickened, and he broke the long silence by saying slowly, very slowly, “…What if the alternative source doesn’t have to be alive.” The Elder looked up. Treaf continued again, slowly, “If we had the body of a dead man…no, not quite dead, still breathing, but not capable of living for long—and if we placed this person away from the circle, and performed the activation, once the homunculi did not supply the wanted energy, the Spirit would take all the remaining energy from the almost—dead person…and he would be killed, but at the same time supplying the wanted energy.” Once Treaf looked up, he saw an expression of either sadness or realization on the Elder’s face, Treaf could not tell; maybe both. There remained silence once again as Treaf waited for the Elder to say something. Finally, after a while of pondering the Elder did.
“What you are suggesting is still murder, Treaf.” No, its not! He thought, and rushed on, “It isn’t if we use an enemy! Perhaps even a Grewl in the forest, or—”
“No, I will not do such a thing. Using a life, however dead it already is, is both uncanny and morally violating, besides revolting. I will not dishonor magic with an atrocity such as this.” Treaf felt anger at this. It was not ‘morally violating’ nor uncanny; they had killed hundreds of lives in one battle. And it was the only way that Treaf could think of that would be more morally correct than anything else.
“Well fine,” Treaf replied hotly, “Perhaps it would be better to use an innocent, fully alive person instead?” The Elder closed his eyes as if exasperated.
“I am not saying that. But we need to think of a different way. And I am not readily thinking of us playing with our enemy’s lives; half killing them and then finishing them off with a spell will simply not do. We need to find a way to do it correctly, without using lives for our purpose.” Treaf was going to reply that the lives they would use were hardly innocent at all, after all they were the enemy, but he decided not to. What the Elder was saying made sense, and Treaf also did not want to play with people’s lives. But no matter how hard he tried, Treaf could not think of another solution.
“I believe that the results would be better anyway if we play by the Spirit’s rules. If we did use a partially dead human life, I doubt there would be enough energy in its body to satisfy the Spirits.” I guess that makes sense, Treaf thought. Once he thought about it there would be little more energy in a partially dead person than in the homunculi in the first place, so the Spirits would probably not see it as a good energy source and then attack something else. And that was the very thing they were trying to avoid: getting them or anyone else injured or killed. The Krog uses energy from beings such as ourselves, right? So, what of we didn’t use a human at all, but instead used an animal? Treaf immediately saw that this was impossible right after he thought it. The Krog only uses energy from humans. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be in any danger, because the homunculi would just support the energy needed. Actually, Treaf had been thinking recently only about if the homunculi weren’t human, not that they were. If they were than they weren’t in any danger, and the entire backup would be pointless.
After Treaf thought this, the Elder, still with his eyes focused down in concentration, said: “We cannot play to the rules if we don’t have an ample energy source, or one from a something other than a human. So we cannot make any sacrifices or alternatives—unless we trick the Spirits inside.”
§

After realizing and thinking about this, Treaf and the Elder talked more for about fifteen minutes, but once they reached the breaking point to where they could not think of any alternatives, Treaf said good-bye and left the Elder’s house. All that they had talked about made sense to Treaf as a beautifully working rule to nature, except for one thing, which was really the most important thing of all: an ample energy source. Every time Treaf thought about it all returned to that one thing: an ample energy source. Of course, there was always the possibility that nothing would happen at all and they would have to revise their use of the Kagra spell until they got it right, without error.
Now Treaf was walking through the city, and the sun had fully come out during his time in the Elder’s house. He guessed that it had been about a half hour or more, so by now it was the established time in the morning where everyone was doing something. Even though Treaf was quite far on the eastern side of the city, he could hear a few faint signs of men fighting in the training grounds: a few cries, many clangs, and loud orders being shouted all became one muffled sound.
Since he had nothing else to do, Treaf began heading south, hoping to find the factory that he had previously been in again. As he started doing so the buildings became less packed, and he gradually started to here the clangs, thumps, and loud whistles going off that the factories were producing.
Once he passed through a large gate, (which he was glad was unlocked), he headed straight down a sort of path, or at least it looked like a path since there were tall, dirty buildings on either side of it. Of these most of them had large chimneys which spewed black smoke, remnants of previously burnt material, and small glowing embers.
As Treaf began looking for the certain factory that boiled oils, he looked ahead of him and strangely enough, it was straight in front of him.
Walking to the front steps, he raised his hand, but then remembered that there was no point in knocking since it was so noisy inside. So instead he walked right in.
As usual he was greeted with the loud noises and bustle of people working in it, pistons pumping, tanks being filled with liquids, and rows of trays shaped in strange ways. These were new as to last time Treaf had been in the factory. In fact he saw quite a few new things going on; before there had only been cauldrons filled with boiling liquids, and now it seemed like they were pouring the oil into other tra Imprint

Publication Date: 08-24-2011

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