by A. J. Cronin
“That sword!” Cain growls, his voice inhuman and unholy. “Why does it still exist?”
“Consider it Charlotte’s last act of defiance, father,” Alastor answers dryly.
Cain wastes no time, barreling toward Alastor with sword drawn. Alastor does the same, running at Cain, throwing Lionkiller’s sheathe to the wayside. Cain swings wide, trying to cut Alastor down, but Alastor falls to his knees, sliding on the wet, rain soaked road, rotating and plunging Lionkiller into Cain’s side. Alastor rips his sword out of his father’s side, cutting clean through the Black Armor.
“Damn that sword!” Cain roars as he staggers from Alastor’s attack.
Alastor jumps to his feet, ready to face Cain, but Cain is already mid-swing. Alastor instinctively raises his shield arm to catch the attack, but his eyes open wide as he remembers that he has no shield. Cain’s sword cuts through Alastor’s flesh, but is stopped at the bone. He shunts Cain’s sword away and thrusts Lionkiller into Cain’s ribs. They push each other away, standing still for a moment.
“What have you done to me?” Alastor demands.
“I did nothing, pathetic child, except unlock what was apparently within you all this time,” Cain answers vindictively.
“And what was within me?”
“Ask your mother!”
Cain attacks Alastor again, and the two fight wild and savage, each wounding the other with strikes and gouges that should be fatal to anyone else. The sound of their epic battle rumbles through Essain, louder and more powerful than the rain and the thunder. The more frenzied they become, the more that their injuries and lacerations stop healing. Alastor’s clothes are torn, leaving his wounds exposed, while blood flows out from under Cain’s armor.
Seeing both men so winded and hurt, the soldiers, the militia, the winged and even Uri’el and Taranis unsheathe their weapons, ready to pounce in at any moment.
Even with the armor, Cain is only an equal to Alastor. This thought infuriates Cain, causing him to find a second wind. Father beats son down; Alastor, unable to maintain his strength, falls to the ground, Lionkiller slipping from his hand.
“Just like when you were younger, right Alastor!?” yells Cain as he punches and kicks Alastor. “Or is it still Leon? You are nothing but a weak little kitten!”
Alastor struggles to move, slipping on the wet ground each time he tries to find a foot or hand hold. Cain circles Alastor, watching. All of Essain is frozen, by fear, by disbelief. Cain readies a final blow, pulling his arm back to thrust into Alastor.
Alastor can only think of those three words on the parchment. Take heart, Alastor. Elizabetha had never called him by that name, even before she gave him his second name. Could she have seen what was to come? Could she have known he would abandon the name he earned? Time stops as a cheerless smile crosses his lips.
Just as Cain’s blade is but a hair’s breadth from him, Alastor rolls to avoid it while retrieving Lionkiller. Cain plunges his sword deep into the stone road, all the way through and into the earth itself. In that same instant, Alastor drives Lionkiller into Cain, upward through his ribs, piercing his black heart. With a final twist of Lionkiller, Cain falls backward, lifeless.
No roars.
No screams.
He falls silently. The crowd looks on breathlessly, the reality of what they have seen not yet sinking into their minds.
Alastor lurches forward, standing over Cain, he himself unwilling to accept that he is dead. He kneels down, thinking of removing Cain’s helmet to check. The moment his finger touches the black metal, the armor reacts, showing a life of its own. It reaches out, like the tendrils of some sea-beast, coiling around Alastor, smothering him, encasing him. Alastor screams out in agony as the living armor holds him, but more terrifying to Alastor than the act is the will, the armor reacting to his own darkness and turmoil.
He feels it looking into his heart and soul. The armor becoming part of him.
Alastor writhes, overcome by the armor’s affect on his mind. But, like with all things, it subsides. Alastor rolls to his hands and knees. Through his blurred vision he can tell that his hands are not bare, but gauntleted, and his head covered by a helmet. Sitting up, he sees Cain, nothing more than a battered, broken man. Alastor feels his chest. There the armor is too. He stands, still in a daze, just noticing the hundreds of horrified faces looking at him, none of which matter except for Cardea, though she looks at him as she always had. A cough breaks the silence.
Cain still lives.
“How can this be?” Taranis says, running to Alastor’s side.
Alastor again looks at his metal clad hands.
“Samael’s agent will not so easily be killed it seems, Your Highness.”
“Is there nothing you can do? Use the armor perhaps?”
Without consciously thinking, Alastor wills a blade to come from the armor, a small laugh coming from him as he sees it. He attempts to run Cain through, but the blade retracts the closer to Cain it gets. Uri’el retrieves Lionkiller, which had been sent flying away when the armor latched onto Alastor. Uri’el hands Lionkiller to Alastor, but the armor prevents him from taking possession of it, the joints of the armor locking up until Alastor stops trying to take his weapon.
“Behead him,” Alastor orders Uri’el.
Uri’el swings the sword, but even as it passes through Cain’s flesh, the wound heals instantly.
“This is not good,” Uri’el says darkly.
“Uri’el, fly to Judeheim and let them know Cain is fallen but still alive,” Alastor orders. “They might know what we can do.”
Uri’el gives Lionkiller to Cardea before leaving. Cain stirs. With a shriek of hatred, Cardea thrusts Lionkiller back into his heart. Cain stops moving, but his breathing continues.
“What does this mean?” Taranis asks Alastor.
Alastor peers at all the gathered people, looking into their eyes. Into their souls.
“It means, Taranis... heartache. Until we can find a way to kill Cain and destroy this damned armor, the threat will never be over.”
~-~~-~
Morrigan pauses, as if recalling some further event.
“They eventually sealed Cain,” she continues, remembering that she is telling the story. “The combined efforts of the Essain and Judeheim priests creating a sort of spiritual key that kept his consciousness itself from waking. Or so it was hoped.”
“Amazing,” Mikha’el whispers.
“In all honesty, history judged Leon too harshly,” Morrigan reflects. “He did everything in his perceived power, and he accomplished more than was expected of him, especially afterwards, but he came to be called ‘The Lesser,’ just the same.”
Morrigan again becomes silent.
“What happened after that?” Lisa asks.
“Oh. Eventually Leon achieved a greater control over the armor, culminating in being able to remove it at will. He married Cardea and had children, but after that, his story is lost to history. It does not take much to figure out what happened though, and it is safe to assume that he was eventually betrayed by his own blood.”
“Leon was betrayed by his own offspring, even after all he did?”
“Cain’s curse lived on, and to this day continues to do so.”
“But what about what Cain said, about how all Leon’s strengths were actually attributed to Elizabetha?”
“After Leon died, that too died with him. No one, as far as I am aware, knows more beyond what I have recounted to you.”
Morrigan stands from her chair, pacing across the Cloud Hall. Amy and Lisa look at each other, silently reaffirming, both now knowing to a greater degree the origin of Alastor’s dark, tainted heart, and the destiny he is caught up in. Lisa also finally sees her place in it all, or at least she suspects. Mikha’el laughs lightly as he thinks over Morrigan’s tale.
“What is it?” asks Amy.
“I had no idea that Uri’el was so directly involved in the affair.”
“Of what importance is tha
t?” Lisa asks him.
“Uri’el was my ancestor, as Leon was Alastor’s. Fate is not lacking for a sense of humor.”
“No, it is not,” Lisa agrees.
Mikha’el’s smile changes, raising an eyebrow as a thought comes to him.
“What happened to Lionkiller?” he asks Morrigan.
“Why?” the Fairy responds.
“It seemed, from what you said, to have an extremely adverse affect upon not only the Black Armor, but Cain himself.”
“After Leon learned to control the armor, he was able to wield it again. He renamed it, then hid it in the event it was ever needed again.”
“Renamed it?” repeats Lisa.
“Yes, to ‘Charlotte’s Defiance,’ of course,” Morrigan says with a small smile.
“Fitting.”
“Where was it hid?” inquires Mikha’el.
Morrigan takes a bundle from behind a bookshelf, setting it down before Lisa. She uncovers the bundle, finding the sword Alastor had given her.
“Does this look familiar?” Morrigan asks her.
“I thought this was left in Essain,” Lisa says, amazed and relieved.
“This is Lionkiller?” Mikha’el asks.
“Charlotte’s Defiance,” Morrigan corrects with a grin.
“May I?” Mikha’el asks the Queen, reaching his hands out so that he can see the sword himself. She hands it over carefully. Mikha’el unsheathes the blade, looking at it in wonder. “An exquisite weapon,” he whispers as he sheathes it, handing it back to Lisa.
“Why did Alastor give it to me?” the Queen asks, unnerved.
“Only he can tell you why,” Morrigan tells her, “though I am sure it was quite deliberate.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sins and Vices
The world outside has become dreary and overcast, but remains calm and cool. While the others talk about Leon, Alastor and all points in between, Lisa slinks away to check on the Knight himself. Alastor sleeps peacefully. The Queen sits on his bed for a time, holding his hands, her eyes occasionally migrating to the bracers. Forced into accepting that Alastor will not be waking anytime soon, she returns to the others.
“How is he?” Amy asks.
“Good, I think. He is at peace it seems.”
“Something I always thought impossible to hear,” says Mikha’el to himself.
Lisa is struck by a thought like lightning from heaven.
“Can you tell me more about Cain’s curse?” she asks Morrigan.
“I can try,” replies the Fairy. “What specifically do you wish to know?”
“Alastor explained to me about the curse, and the armor being penance.”
“Yes, we talked about this. The armor and the curse are halves of a whole. The curse itself, the aftermath of Cain’s pact with Samael, can manifest in any number of ways, but more often than not it makes one more than human, and at the same time magnifies the vices in ones heart.”
“So, if someone had violent tendencies...”
“They become like Eoin’s father, a sadistic, murdering madman.”
“And what part does the armor play in that?”
“The flood gate through which the curse can flow.”
“If all that is true, how did Eoin and Alastor overcome their curses?”
“Who said they did?” Mikha’el counters.
“What were their vices then?”
“None of us knows. All I can tell you is that they both have avoided the darker fate of their precursors, striving to end Cain’s pact and destroy the armor. Except...”
“What?”
“Something went awry.”
Lisa moves her sight to Amy, recalling the story of Eoin’s murder. Morrigan notices this.
“No, Lisa. What Mikha’el refers to goes a bit farther back than Eoin’s death.”
“Then what happened?”
“My father gave in to his curse, and nine months later, my brother was born,” Alastor exclaims bluntly, coming without warning into the Cloud Hall.
They are all shocked at first, seeing Alastor up and about, however that shock gives way to overwhelming relief. Alastor takes his normal seat at the head of the table.
“Eoin gave in to his curse?” repeats Lisa. “I do not think I understand.”
“My bloodline has had many lusts, usually for power or bloodshed. My father was far simpler - he had an unquenchable thirst for the ‘company’ of women.”
Both Amy and Lisa blush, completely not expecting to hear such things of Eoin. Even Mikha’el is struck by this small though, by Alastor’s tone, powerful bit of information.
“Why would Lucius’ birth so greatly affect what Eoin was planning?” asks Lisa, still unclear.
“In my father’s youth, he would have as many women as he pleased. There were no ideas or grandiose plans in his mind; that is until he met my mother. She did not give in to him as so many others had, and this troubled him, ate at him. My mother became all he thought on, bordering upon obsession. Other women lost their appeal, and he found himself falling in love for the first time in his life. It was my mother that began the transformation of Eoin’s heart toward the truth of our blood, and the inherent evil we possess.
“In short, it was mother that brought about the divide between Eoin and his father.
“After Eoin was forced to kill his father, mother took him to Judeheim, which is where he converted fully to the nameless God and devoted his life to ending the curse. He studied prophesies and began to see parallels between his life and what the old texts had to say. He married my mother, expecting to have a son, me to be precise, but his wife remained without child. Thinking he wasted his time, read too far into prophecy, he let his cravings out for a little air, having countless secret whores, all the while pretending to be the Eoin my mother married.”
Alastor pauses, the shade of a sneer passing on his face.
“A few years passed,” Alastor continues, “and one day Eoin learns that his wife was pregnant. On that same day, he meets his bastard child, as did my mother. She was not angry, but her heart died. Father took Lucius and his mother in to our castle out of guilt, and through his guilt named me before I was born.”
Alastor stops, letting the story sink into everyone’s mind.
“Alastor,” speaks Mikha’el, “I was always under the impression that you were so named because of the prophesies Eoin studied.”
“No. Father had not delved that deep into them until after I was born. He so named me because he felt no better than Cain, and that the history of the name was more than fitting. He felt that the son whom his wife would give birth to should be the means of his eventual destruction, a walking punishment for his crime.”
“That makes it all the more interesting.”
“What happened to your mother, Alastor?” Lisa asks.
Alastor looks to Lisa, then to Amy. Amy smiles at him, both she and the Knight reminded of the last time this question was asked. Alastor nods, answering the question at last.
“Father took in Lucius and his mother against my mother’s pleas, so she took to living in the keep, alone, while she carried me. After I was born was no different. She kept me in this very tower, as far away from Lucius and his mother as possible, and here we lived until the day she went into the forest, never to be seen again.”
“She vanished?”
Again Alastor pauses, and again he looks into Amy’s eyes, not Lisa’s.
“No. She killed herself. Unable to live with her hollow heart, and unable to abide Lucius. Eoin she grew indifferent to, but she hated Lucius and his mother.”
Lisa and Amy bring their hands to their faces, horrified.
“That is when Eoin cast Lucius away and returned to Judeheim?” Mikha’el asks Alastor.
“It was.”
Lisa takes special notice of Mikha’el’s words.
“Cast away?” she repeats.”Is that why Lucius is the way he is?”
“No,” says Alastor. “Lucius had always sho
wn a darker side. Father kept him and his mother out of a feeling of responsibility, but when his true wife died, so too did that feeling.” Alastor laughs softly. “Fearing his first born, and completely unsure of my fate, father used his power over the armor, a control far greater than that of the Lesser’s, to create an icon; an item endowed with the ability to negate the power of Cain’s armor, and thus capable of defeating whomever, Lucius or myself, would wear the armor next.”
Revelation fills Lisa’s face as she reaches for her necklace.
“You mean to tell me...”
“One and the same, Your Highness,” Alastor says soft, tragic.
“Alastor,” Amy speaks up, “with what we know of your family’s history now, why would Lucius want to revive Cain? From the sound of things, none of your ancestors had any intention of doing so.”
“Honestly, I was hoping you might know, Amelia.”
“I cannot say that I do, sadly. He never spoke of Cain, or much of anything for that matter.”
“Is it possible he is trying to create a rebirth of Valachia?” Mikha’el asks. ”He has, after all, raised a sizeable army, gained control of a kingdom by means of murder and subversion. And, more importantly, the world has another Alastor. The similarities cannot be ignored.”
“Except that reviving Cain would mean that Lucius would have to abdicate power which he has spent years seizing for himself,” Amy points out.
“Or, he could just be doing this to instigate me,” whispers Alastor.
“All of this for the sake of sibling rivalry?” queries Lisa.
“No,” Morrigan speaks, “something more sinister, though no less personal. Lucius was taught the family history just as Alastor was. This is a sick joke born from Lucius’ demented mind.”
“You mean forcing Alastor to battle Cain, as Leon did so long ago?”
Alastor stands abruptly and leaves, going down the spiral stairs.
“But I thought Alastor was supposed to fight Cain?” Mikha’el asks Morrigan.
