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All that remains: Part I

In the land just past the Decapolis, by the tombs of the city's most ancient forebears, there lived a man called Legion. Some days, he howled like a beast, laughing as he savaged his own flesh with the jagged edges of stones. Other days he wept like a child, teeth chattering even as the sun blazed overhead. But more days still, he lingered in the quiet spaces, haunted but lucid: A stranger to the land and a stranger to himself.

He called himself Legion because he was made of many parts. Memories without attachments, stories without endings. Fragments. Worse, he felt like he could only hold a few of the pieces at a time. Trying to assemble himself felt like an endless effort of cupping his hands together tight, filling them with details, reaching up to his mouth, and realizing they had already slipped through his fingers. An endless thirst for which he had no cure. 

The town called him Legion, because they remembered what he often forgot: That he was a Roman, as well as a former soldier. If he’d been anything less, they’d have driven him away. Instead, they fussed over him endlessly, all too aware that to harm a single hair upon his head was to invoke the wrath of the largest army the world had ever seen.

(Which was a problem, because he was all too willing to harm himself.)

On Legion’s good days they simply gave him space. He’d tried describing once, all the things that could bring his demons out: The clash of metal, the twang of a bowstring. A scream of pain. Those were easy enough to remember and avoid, but others were not. Certain phrases in Latin, ones related to marching, used for giving directions. Certain smells - the roasting of pork, the burning of sulfur. The way some men from distant lands braided their hair. 

So many little things. 

They were a lot to keep track of, and the cost of failure was high. It seemed easier for the people of the town to simply avoid him altogether. That it let them ignore his suffering was simply a pleasant side effect. 

On his bad days, they had to intervene more directly. He was strong when he was well, but his sickness could make him almost invincible. Whole teams of men would be sent into the tombs while he screamed and roared, and it could take them hours to tie him down and pry the rocks from his trembling fingers. To put a rolled up rag into his mouth and silence the phrase he shouted over and over, summoning more demons into himself with each incantation: TORNA MIRA, TALIS EST COMODUM MILES BARBATI. 

Sometimes, it took more than a day of being restrained that way for him to find himself again. They’d send children out to the edge of the town to listen, and when he finally went silent they’d travel back to free him from his chains. It was a beastly, shameful task every time, and Legion made it worse by never being angry. Without fail, the first thing he said every time the rag was removed was:

Συγγνώμη, δεν ήθελα να σε τρομάξω.

Forgive me, I did not mean to scare you. 

Everyone knew that the way things were being handled wasn’t enough. Everyone, even Legion, knew how things would end. They just weren’t sure when. 

It turned out that it was longer than six years.