These Shadows Remain by B W Powe Page B

won’t be long. Don’t disappear.”
    The fading shell in their arms shifted slightly and moaned.

    *
    On the battlement of the castle Cyrus watched. He had set up old style telescopes, black and small, and he looked through one into the distance. The image was hazy. All he wanted to see were glimmers. He’d been an astronomer before the images had leapt. He was accustomed to studying things that were far away, and accustomed to making reassuring lists and careful coordinates that ordered the mass of information he collected. He had once learned patience from such mappings.
    On the horizon there was a glow like a fire being stoked higher.
    Cyrus looked up from the telescope and back into the castle grounds. People gathered speaking in subdued voices. Cyrus thought he saw a flicker across their shapes, like the wavering of a TV signal just before it went to black. The people’s images wobbled as if interfering static had invaded their bodies. Then the flickering passed. The people’s bodies looked intact again.
    He looked through the telescope. Maybe he could see Adina and the two children who had stubbornly refused to stay behind these battlements.
    All he saw through his lens was the top of the trees and the glowing horizon.
    How long would humanity stand?
    *
    The whirlwind ascended in waves.
    â€œYou can’t defeat energy. It always leaves a trace. You could kill what you think is your father and still my pulse would remain. And you’ll always be an outsider. Freak mutant alien legend fool. That’s what they’ll call you behind your back. If you try to kill me, you’ll have nothing and belong nowhere.”
    â€œWhat makes you think I’m here to kill you?”
    â€œIsn’t that what sons do?”
    â€œI belong to two worlds now. And I didn’t bring a weapon.”
    â€œLet me guess. You have a plan to make me feel something for the flat ones.”
    â€œNothing like that.”
    The wind turned. For a moment Tomas thought for the first time he could see a face forming in the grey haze. Fleeting, something that resembled his own. Its spinning slowed.
    *
    â€œI expected more from them.” “Who?”
    â€œThe children, my children, the images, the toons. Now they’re becoming merely human.” He rustled like a moan of air through an open window.
    â€œIf I couldn’t bend the higher power, I could stir up the lower depths. Ah but it’s failed. This transformation. Not this time around. No, not this time.”
    Tomas squinted into the wind as if he were trying to stare into a blaze of light. He was trying to understand what was being said.
    â€œRelease me. Scatter me. What have they called you, those humans?”
    â€œTomas.”
    He heard the wind laugh.
    â€œA good name. Now you’re more my brother than my son. Someone among them has a sense of humour. Tomas, listen. Scatter me to the four quarters. Let me go back to nothing, my home.”
    â€œThe air.”
    They spoke quietly, unhurriedly, to each other. The circus outside had ceased to exist for them.
    â€œYes, just that. The air.” 
    â€œYou’ll disappear.”
    â€œIt’s what I want. To be nothing. Only you can do this. You have the power. You’re capable of living on both sides. Inject me with your openness. Let me go.”
    Tomas checked his toon hand. He felt solidifying bones and skin. The more sympathy he felt, the more his hand became flesh.
    Then he saw in his mind Gabrielle, Santiago, and Adina, and the sword. He saw it in the boy’s hand. Tomas’s only defense here had been his connection to the wind and his willingness to stand firmly in the open, where there was nothing to protect him.

    *
    â€œYou’ll be nothing. No voice. No mind. No future. No memory. No past.”
    â€œIt’s what I want,” the cloud said. 
    â€œHow will I do this?”
    â€œYou know.”
    â€œAnd the