Villains by Necessity (v1.1)

by Eve Forward

  He pulled himself into a semi-upright position by the rim of the upper level of the fountain, and scooped a few mouthfuls of cold water from the top level. It didn’t much matter if it was poisoned or not; there were no exits out of this room and he’d die soon anyway without water. The liquid was cool and good, however, and helped ease his burning throat. A few splashes made his wounds sting, but further cleansing would be necessary.

  He slowly pulled himself into a standing position, and looked down at the upper bowl of the fountain, which reached his waist. The water was clear and still, and some trick of the light showed a very sharp reflection, fully col ored down to his bloodshot hazel eyes and sodden tunic, torn and twisted so that it revealed the birthmark on his shoulder. The sight was rather unpleasant, and Sam reached into the bowl to stir the water and break up the image, but as his hand touched the surface, the hand of his reflection seemed to come loose from the water, and grab his wrist. With a snarl, Sam’s reflection yanked him into the pool.

  “Well, they can’t be allowed to just slip away! Towser, get your mages together and get rid of this storm.” Fenwick was back in control, ordering his Company to begin sweeping the unflooded passes for signs of the renegades.

  Lumathix took to the air on his scorched wings to try to spy them out from above, while Fenwick, Tasmene, and their retinues took shelter under a ledge.

  Soon after the Company had abandoned the eagleshaped tower, a faint flash of white appeared where the assassin had vanished. Mizzamir stood there and looked up at the rain, frowning. With a wave of his hand, the drops suddenly parted, falling past as though an invisible umbrella protected the mage. Satisfied, Mizzamir stooped, and looked carefully at the inscriptions in the stone. They were still glowing slightly. He couldn’t enter the Test through the normal way, that was certain ... but perhaps he could open it, briefly? He could open portals between worlds, after all. He was the most powerful wizard in existence; made even more so in these glorious days, when the power of Good was so strong that even novice mages of Light could cast spells that once were much beyond them. Certainly this ancient magic Test must have loopholes somewhere. All it would take would be a brief open and twist, to expel the magic and “real” contents from the magical fabric of the Test; the assassin, and the Segment. Then he could rescue both. Well worth the effort, he decided and he began to lay out the runes and objects needed for the spell, weaving a circle of power around the faintly glowing entrance to the Test.

  Sam’s footing was bad, and he was weakened from his wounds. He fell into the bowl. Instead of falling into water and landing on the stone bottom, he fell on top of something that fought and kicked. The water seemed to cool his wounds somewhat and gave him an extra burst of energy. He fought back, the water in his eyes. At last he and his opponent separated and surfaced. The water was about three or four feet deep, with an oddly flat bottom.

  He viewed his opponent with surprise and amazement.

  Instead of a water-monster that had, through his feverish hallucinations, seemed to take on the form of his reflection, what was standing in the pool and facing him now, panting and dripping, was a mirror image of himself. The image was cast in solid reality, right down to the clothing and the wounds ... except that both his own wounds and those of his opposite seemed to be somewhat healed ... as though the damage he had originally sustained had been divided equally between them when the image had come into being.

  He had only a moment to marvel at this before the image drew a dagger, identical to one of his own Liteflite Shadrezarian blades, and lunged at him. Sam did not wait for the attack, but back-flipped out of the pool, stumbling slightly but recovering. The image climbed cautiously out of the fountain and approached him.

  “Who are you, and what the shades is going on?” Sam asked, watching warily as the other Sam shifted his grip on the dagger.

  “I suppose you’d call me your darker side,” said the figure, “except that you and I both know there isn’t much else to you. So, I’m just another you ... what better opponent to test your fighting skills?” The blond man had Sam’s own voice, and the strangeness of it gave him chills. However, it was the words that made his eyes open wide.

  “Test me? Am I in one of the Tests?”

  “That’s right. Surprised?” The figure almost grinned at him. “And I’m just as strong as you, just as fast, just as deadly ... I wield the fire too, as you’ve probably guessed ...” Sam had indeed; the way the other moved was distinctive; “Except darker. I’m everything you should be...”

  With a motion too fast to follow, the other threw his dagger. Sam dodged, but the blade flew up, hit a pillar, flashed back, and before Sam could move it had sunk deep into his calf, making his dodge turn into a roll. “... and,” said the other, drawing another blade, “I never miss, either.”

  Sam dodged the next blade, and its rebound, and it went purring off into the rafters. Then he threw one himself, the one with a camelian in the pommel. The other dodged it easily, having almost second-guessed where he would aim. Got to watch that, Sam noted. Sam dodged again as one of the daggers came back at him, and his opponent ducked behind a pillar. Sam realized that missile combat would be futile, so, a dagger in each hand, he leaped after his identical self.

  The other tried to duck, but Sam had been expecting that, and grabbed accordingly. They went down in a tangle of black cloth, silently struggling. Sam sensed something, and wrenched the other over just as the other tried to do the same. Sam had a pillar to brace against, though, so he won, flipping the other over on top of him. He heard the faint thunk as one of the flying daggers took the other in the shoulder. The other then used this position of leverage to knee him very hard in the groin.

  His reaction threw the other about ten feet to land rather awkwardly on the wet slippery marble around the pool. Sam spent an instant curled up, breathing fast to flood himself with fire and adrenaline to block the pain.

  When the footsteps came closer he jumped up like a startled cat, and just managed to dodge the second airborne dagger. The other had apparently had time to draw and poison a third dagger; a faint sheen of blue oil glistened on the blade. Sam looked at it.

  “We’re immune to blue poxwort toxin, darker self,” he admonished. His darker self looked at the blade and sighed.

  “Right, I’d forgotten.”

  “It’s all right... I would have done the same thing.”

  “Of course. Well, maybe the poison’s no good, but I don’t recall as we’re immune to steel, anyway.” So saying, he flung the blade. Sam tried to dodge, but his already wounded calf betrayed him, and he took the blade in the foot. The poison stung briefly, but he’d spent years adapting his body to all the toxins he’d ever use, carry, or encounter. The other was on him in an instant, a birchwood dagger going for his neck. Sam grabbed the arm and wrestled with it.

  “Two hits for one, Sam ... I seem to be winning,” said his other self.

  “Game’s not over yet, Sam,” grunted Sam, and with a mighty twist he sent the dagger twisting out of the other’s hand. He then grabbed for the neck, but the other jerked out of his way and they both rolled to the left as the carnelian dagger spanged off the floor where they had been. The exertion widened recent wounds, and they both became bloodstained. There was no time to draw weapons in this close combat, but there was no need; every assassin spends the entire first few years of training learning nothing but body combat, long before ever being allowed to pick up a weapon. Sam, realizing he was in a fight for his life, opened his heart and blood and will to the fire, letting the flames take him and lift him to ride where he would. His last clear image was of the sudden dilation and burning of the other’s hazel eyes, and a sudden hardness come into the face ... Is that what it looks like? he wondered, and then he was gone.

  They sprang apart and drew weapons, the other moving slightly to avoid the returning flash of the thrown dagger. They circled, wary as cats, a stab here, a jump there, never a connection. It seemed to Sam that his oppo
nent knew what he would do before he did it... at one point Sam thought of feinting to the left and then coming in with the right, and then as his opponent slashed for his left Sam turned and countered as the blade suddenly changed hands and lunged for his right. He jumped away as the flying dagger flicked past once again. The two men circled each other.

  We’re cautions, Sam thought, through the fire. I’m cautious.

  We’re too alike... but we must be different somehow ... he is my dark side... what would my dark side be least likely to do? Or most likely to do? He didn’t get a chance to think-his dark side lunged at him, daggers flashing.

  Sam ducked under and came up with his own, managed to get in a lucky jab in the shoulder, and grabbed at the other by a leg, tossing him aside. The other Sam landed oddly, and there was a splash of blood. Sam’s hunter instincts saw it and tensed. He’d managed to widen the wound in his enemy’s hip with that wrenching throw.

  Mizzamir looked at his preparations with satisfaction. A ring of glowing stones outlined the Test gateway, and a few candles burned under his rain-shield. With a pleased nod, the Arch-Mage raised his arms, called up his mighty magic, and began to chant in a deep, powerful voice.

  His opponent was up in an instant, and ready for what would have been Sam’s killing blow. He slashed expertly with his shortsword and cut a large gash across Sam’s chest. Only Sam’s quick turn saved his jugular. Sam staggering back from the blow, leaned against a pillar, clutching at his chest and making bubbling noises. The flying dagger came at him again, and he ducked to avoid it; it clattered off the pillar and flew away into the rafters. Sam opened one eye slightly; his opponent, he knew, had run out of good throwing daggers, and Sam was exhibiting all the characteristics of a lung wound, an easy kill. So easy, in fact, that it would be best and most satisfying to his darkest killing instincts to stick the wide long blade of the shortsword in from close range, to watch the face twist in the rictus of death and feel the satisfaction of a kill. The other Sam approached carefully, sword at the ready, as Sam gasped and gurgled and spat, his legs shaking, strength apparently failing.

  The other approached to close range-Sam could smell the sourness of his own familiar blood and sweat- and with the fire dancing in his eyes, raised the blade to strike...

  Sam grabbed the sword with one hand, twisting it away, and with the other he jabbed his flattened hand up and in, like a blade itself, through the hip wound on his opponent’s side, breaking through flesh and membrane and closing at last upon a mess of slimy intestines ... and froze.

  They looked into each other’s eyes. Sam saw in the other’s expression that realization of death, with his own eyes showing the same look he had seen so many times before; not even a fear, just a sudden knowing, like looking into the world beyond that of the living. The intestines and blood vessels in his grip trembled slightly. Sam stood there, with his hand inside his own belly, as it were, and looking into his own fire-lit eyes, and holding his own life in his hands.

  “You sly bastard,” said the other, with his voice. “Do it.”

  To thine own self be true, Sam thought, recalling the words of an ancient play... but which is my own self? He hesitated, the fire burning but held as though frozen at the instant of the kill...

  There was a sudden peripheral flash and a meaty noise.

  The familiar face he stared into suddenly took on a strange, puzzled expression, the eyes unfocusing ... and the body fell down on top of him, knocking them both to the ground. Sam recovered his hand from its gory grip and wriggled free and looked down. Sunk into the back of his darker selfs skull was the camelian-pommeled dagger that had flown through the air for so long.

  He recovered the dagger, wiping it clean, then turned the body over, and stared at his own face, pale and twisted in the rictus of death. He stared at it a long time, the fire slowly calming.

  Then pillars and walls and pool and corpse became hazy, and blew away on a white mist. He looked up, but there was nothing there. Just white, on all sides. And hanging in midair, a ruby crystal segment.

  He reached for it, but an invisible force blocked his way. A voice boomed out of nowhere.

  “If you would pass the Test of Tamarne, you must make a sacrifice, as he did. You must give up that which makes you special, that which is your greatest power.”

  “I just killed myself, dammit,” Sam snapped, aching from his wounds. “What more do you want?”

  “You must give up that which makes you what you are, that which is your source of pride and identity, as Tamarne did. This must be your sacrifice, for the Segment of the Spectrum Key.”

  “I’m no demigod!” cried Sam, feeling like an idiot for talking to empty space.

  “You have the means. Have you the will? Only for this price will you gain the last Segment.” The voice fell silent.

  “The means ... ?” asked Sam, thinking.

  Legend ... he took out a tiny black pouch he’d had tucked in his pants lining, and shook the glittering Heartstone, which Blackmail had given him for Robin’s life, into his hand. Legend had it that those with strong enough will could use the power of a Heartstone to drain the very essence of their enemies. That was why they were so valuable, said to be tears of the gods, gems of rarity, magic and beauty so strong they could only be destroyed by the deliberate actions of a true and mighty Hero. Perhaps he could ...

  No. He couldn’t. He knew what the Test wanted him to give up. Not his soul, maybe, but almost... There was only one thing he had close to the vitality and power of a demigod’s immortality. But give it up... never. Without it, he’d die. He’d be worse than whitewashed. He’d be useless.

  But without the Segment, they couldn’t open the Darkgate ... and then where would they be?

  Sam stared into the Heartstone, lost in desperate thought. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he could make it. After all, he did have training, thirty-some years of experience, plenty of weapons ... it was only a bit of an unusual mindset he was being asked to give up, just a sort of magic “gone awry.” He pictured his companions; the incorrigible Barigan, the beautiful aloof Druid, the sly Nathauan, the mysterious knight, the young centaur, saw them waiting helplessly as the Light poured through the world and the trees and rocks blew away on a brilliant wind and all was sublimated into a featureless, blinding emptiness of pure positive energy ... and, for those allied with evil, an agonizing, torturous death ... he saw the flesh charring away from the bones in the shining light, heard the dying cries of pain and despair ... he saw Kaylana’s tears.

  He gripped the stone in his hand and closed his eyes, his brow wrinkling with concentration, summoning the fire for what he knew was the last time.

  Sam sent the fire rushing up in his blood, swirling higher and higher, his breath getting shallow, his heart pounding. What the strange power might be, whether insanity, talent, or inherent magic gone strange and dark, had never been explored. Sam recalled all the times he’d felt that instinctive, rushing, endless strength, from the faintest glow to the steady raging flame that drove him from within beyond the bounds of his flesh and bone. He called the fire and it filled him with tension and glory and power... ... and then forced it out with a supreme effort of will that brought tears to his eyes from more than exhaustion and pain. It was like breathing a last breath, like feeling his soul ripped raw. The feeling was worse than any wound, any hurt, as the flames swirling in his body were slowly sucked out, drained into the sparkling depths of the Heartstone and leaving aching weakness in their place.

  The fire rushed out and away, leaving a strange, empty ache in every vein. Sam felt himself being sucked dry, helpless, the warm pride he’d always had around his heart torn away in bloody shreds.

  The last glowing flickers ripped themselves free of the assassin’s soul and spiraled away into sparkling crystal.

  Sam opened his eyes and hand ...

  Mizzamir began to near the completion of his spell and readied himself for the final burst of energy aimed at the Test, his power cr
esting. * * *

  The Heartstone sparkled in his palm with new unearthly beauty, crimson and jacinth and soft blackness, like a drop of blood, shadow, and flame. He only saw it for a moment before it vanished, snatched away by the magic of the Test, and Sam crumpled slowly to the floor ... ... And Mizzamir released the spell.

  As his magical force wrenched open a gate that was being exploded outward anyway, the effect was rather like a geyser of magic. The candles blew out and the glowing stones skittered away. The ledge exploded like a fountain of fireworks, red and white and silver. Mizzamir stumbled backward as the explosion crashed into him and fell off the ledge. There was a spurt like a volcano that decapitated the eagle-rock and sent an indistinct figure sailing high away over the mountains. The area lit up like noontime, and the people of Fenwick’s Company and the Einian army exclaimed at the fiery burning farther down the mountain range.

  Mizzamir caught himself by magic long before hitting the ground. As the explosion died away, he hovered back up the pinnacle and examined the ledge hopefully. Nothing was there but a charred patch of stone. He thought of the indistinct figure he had seen go sailing away.

  “Bother,” he said to himself. “The Segment and that assassin must have been blown into who-knows-where.”

  He sighed. “I’ll have to go looking.” So saying, he teleported back to his Tower to his magic scrying mirror.

  The Segment sailed into the air. It described a graceful arc, then tumbled down. It smacked into a rock outcropping, striking sparks, and then bounced its way down along the jagged outjuttings and ledges. It glittered dancing in the raindrops, then hit a rock midstream and clattered down a steep hill, finally coming to rest, an impossible treasure, on a pile of rough stones in the bottom of a dry gully.

  Sam was mercifully unconscious for his airborne journey. He flew through the rain and air and wind, tumbling limply, spattering the ground below with drops of blood.

  Some tiny last bit of his luck held out, and he splashed down in a deep, fast-flowing river.