The Quest Of The Legend

by A. J. Cronin

  “He would have, in time, after he was properly made ready.”

  “And that is why Lucius had Eoin murdered, so that Alastor would never be made ready?”

  Morrigan and Mikha’el begin discussing the intricacies of fate. Amy leans toward Lisa.

  “Perhaps you should go talk to him,” she tells the Queen.

  ~-~~-~

  Lisa finds Alastor in his room, on the balcony. She walks beside him, standing silently, still holding her necklace. Alastor watches her, the forlorn look on her face.

  “What is wrong?” he asks her.

  “I had always had a set idea of what this necklace meant. Something better.”

  “A betrothal?” Alastor smirks.

  “Yes,” Lisa answers, not having the courage to face Alastor.

  “I lied to you I am afraid.”

  “How?”

  “My father did not fear Lucius, at least not in the way he feared me.”

  “What does that have to do with lying to me?”

  “That necklace was not made for the possibility of Lucius taking the armor first. Just me.”

  “Why would you keep that secret?”

  “It is not easy to openly speak with the woman intended to be your executioner, I am afraid.”

  “Executioner?”

  “A far cry from a betrothal, no?”

  “Quite.”

  “May I ask you something, Lisa?”

  “Of course.”

  “If you had all the power in the world, right now, what would you do?”

  “Reclaim Essain,” she exclaims without hesitation.

  “And if you had to die in order to claim that power, would you still?”

  “Without a doubt. There is nothing I would not sacrifice to bring freedom back to my people.”

  “Death does not frighten you?”

  “Why should it? After seeing my father again, I would embrace whatever fate might be in the hereafter.”

  Alastor grins, detached from everything, at these words. Lisa had never seen the Madness, so she had no reason to fear it, and she never will.

  “I wish I could know your optimism, Your Highness. Your fearlessness.”

  “Why do you ask me these things?”

  Alastor sighs as he thinks of an appropriate answer.

  “I suppose I was looking for confirmation.”

  “Of what?”

  “What I should do.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “I believe so.”

  Lisa places her hand on Alastor’s.

  “You will go to face them both then?”

  “I do not see much of an alternative.”

  “When will you go?”

  “At such a time as Fate in her infinite wisdom instructs me to.”

  They stop talking, staring at the world. Lisa rests her head against Alastor’s arm. He does not try to stop her.

  ~-~~-~

  A blackness engulfs the west, ominous clouds gathering. Alastor heaves a heavy sigh. Lisa too knows that the building storm is the sign that Alastor has been waiting for. She does not find Fate’s grotesque sense of humor even remotely amusing, and ending this perfect moment with Alastor borders on unforgivable.

  Lisa looks up into Alastor’s eyes, and he into hers. Cautiously, she leans forward, bringing her lips to his. They kiss, albeit briefly. Alastor says nothing, and neither does she. He takes the Queen back up to the Cloud Hall with the others, who are also looking out from the tower balcony. Morrigan, however, is nowhere to be seen.

  “Where did the Fairy go?” Alastor asks Mikha’el as the winged one faces him.

  “She mumbled something about needing to pray, then just left.”

  “Where?”

  “She did not say.”

  Alastor and Lisa both turn to Amy.

  “Morrigan said nothing to me,” she admits.

  “Did she leave before or after that storm started?” Lisa asks.

  “Just as it began, actually,” Amy recalls.

  Lisa stands with Amy and Mikha’el, at which point Alastor tries to make a stealthy exit, only to be caught.

  “Where are you going?” Lisa calls out.

  “Down to see father,” he answers with a lukewarm tone.

  “Hurry back, then. We need to start formulating a proper plan for assaulting Essain.”

  “As you wish, Your Highness.”

  ~-~~-~

  In Eoin’s crypt, Alastor stands beside the encased body of his father.

  “It is such a strange thing,” Alastor whispers to himself. “I spoke with you what was only a day or so ago, yet here you are. Can you even hear me I wonder? Whether you can or not, I need to say this: Cain is revived, father, and the armor is still whole and Lucius is the cause of it all. Together they will bring only pain, death and destruction if I allow them to go unchallenged. Father, I know what you believed but... nothing that has happened since you died has made any sense whatsoever. What am I supposed to do? Lucius alone would not have been a contest. Time consuming maybe, but I would have been the victor. Cain alone would have been nothing more than a recreation of Leon’s duel with him. But... both? What would you have done, father? What would Leon have done? Not that those situations hold any meaning. I am not you, father, and I am not Leon-Alastor either.”

  Alastor sets his right hand on Eoin’s crystal coffin.

  “I am going to unseal the armor. Success or failure hold no sway. If I triumph, then the curse is ended anyway. If I fail, Lisa is more than capable, now equipped with all she would need. I know this is far from what was planned, but I see no other choice.”

  Alastor stands still for a time, staring at his father, remembering not how he was in life, but in the Madness, and in Valkyr. The Knight in Shining Armor. Alastor leaves the crypt, methodically climbing up the spiral stair. He pivots his head upward, wondering what Lisa, Amelia and Mikha’el might be discussing. He also ponders on why Morrigan would leave. His history with Fairies praying was not an ease to his mind. The first time was in Arkelon, after killing the barbarians. The second was in Judeheim’s catacombs, that time it being the younger Fairy. Alastor at that memory wishes he could speak with that younger Fairy right now. Unlike Morrigan, Alastor finds that she is one he can talk to and get answers from. She, even though appearing young, had a very matriarchal quality to her. A grandmother. Perhaps even a mother. Yes. That is who she reminds him of. He shakes the thought from his head, however. To think such things now is childish.

  Rather than going back up to the Cloud Hall as he said he would, Alastor heads for the armory.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Return of the Black Knight

  The Black Armor stands where it has since Eoin encased it, the helmet looking as though it wears a mocking smile, knowing that it is soon to have a new wearer. Alastor reaches out, forcing a reaction from the bracers. What was once solid metal changes, moving, reforming, and finally becoming taloned gauntlets. Alastor looks at them with a mix of fascination and disgust. He flexes his fingers, forming fists, feeling a taste of what the armor has to offer.

  The Knight digs his talons into the crystalline formation, piercing it with loud cracking, splintered slivers falling to the ground. The armor itself reacts, expanding and contracting to help free itself from its casing. Tendrils form from the talons, burrowing in and finally causing the crystal to shatter. The talons retract their tendrils, and Alastor is left staring at the armor, into the eye slits of the helmet. He reaches out to take the helmet, but it, the armor, reaches out first. Alastor briefly panics, but he remembers what his father taught him. He remembers hearing Eoin’s explanation of how it felt to have this parasitic armor latch on for the first time. The shock fades, and he becomes motionless, letting the armor do what it will, reshaping itself to mirror Alastor’s internal state.

  More disturbing than the fact that the armor is alive is that Alastor can hear, as well as feel, a heartbeat from the armor. No story, nor tale, from his father ever warned of thi
s. The spirit of the armor finally enters Alastor’s psyche, triggering the darkness of Cain’s curse. Alastor drops to his knees, trying to cope with this change. Pounding his fists into the floor, he cracks it, shakes the tower itself.

  He roars.

  He snarls.

  He then remembers Lucius. Cain. His mind refocuses, the building rage and darkness channeled and the overwhelming desire for self-destruction calmed. The Knight faces the armory wall, the west wall, as though he can see his brother from here. He plows toward it, smashing through the wall and leaping from the keep to the ground far below.

  When he lands, he discovers his stallion there as though it had been waiting the whole time. A bit of ice can be seen on the reins. When the Knight mounts, the armor spreads over the animal. It rears up, frightened, but soon finds control once the armor has finished its work. The stallion, without Alastor needing to rein it, starts the journey to the west. This, the greatest of horses, has proven its worth.

  Essain awaits them both.

  ~-~~-~

  Lisa, Amy and Mikha’el discuss the best way to infiltrate Essain and avoid the turncoat army. A roar interrupts them, followed by the keep shaking violently.

  “Alastor!” Lisa whispers before she runs down to the armory, Amy and Mikha’el following after her with panic in their hearts.

  The keep staggers severely, dust being knocked free from the bricks, followed by one final tremor and a loud crash. They come into the armory, see the hole in the wall, and below Alastor riding away at unnatural speed. Lisa and Amy stand there, watching, while Mikha’el examines the shards that used to hold the Black Armor.

  “No, Alastor,” he speaks softly, “what have you done?”

  Amy hears Mikha’el, coming up behind the winged one, she too seeing the shards.

  “He did not... ?”

  Mikha’el leans against the wall, gathering the shards into a pile with his foot.

  “Why, friend? This is not how it was supposed to be.”

  Lisa storms out of the armory back up to the Cloud Hall, her friends following after. Lisa takes up Charlotte’s Defiance, slinging it over her shoulder, wearing it as Alastor would. She tries to leave, but Mikha’el stops her.

  “Get out of my way!” the Queen demands.

  “You intend to follow after him?” Mikha’el asks authoritatively.

  “Yes!”

  “How do you plan on doing that? Running?”

  “If I have to!”

  “That will not be necessary,” Amy says.

  She has reverted to her creature form, wings open.

  ~-~~-~

  Alastor’s heart pounds wildly, the speed with which the horse runs bordering on nauseating. Except, the heartbeat of the armor drowns out his own.

  “Do not let the darkness consume you, Son,” a small, strong voice whispers. “It is for you to dominate, not it of you.”

  The voice sobers Alastor. It is not one that he has ever heard.

  “First a heartbeat, now a voice. Have I finally gone insane?” he asks.

  “No, child. This is not mania.”

  “Why have I never heard of the armor speaking, or of being alive for that matter, then?”

  “Because until recently, I have been silent for the most part, waiting through the centuries for you, child. Those whom I have spoken to knew their place.”

  “You called me Son.”

  “I did, Alastor, but that is of no consequence at this time.”

  “Then why speak?”

  “Know this: live or die, how today ends cannot be changed. What you do, you have been groomed to do.”

  “Eoin was wrong?”

  “No, just short of sight, like so many of my grandsons.”

  “Then all the choices I have made were nothing but illusions?”

  “No, dearest Son. You are nothing if not the sum of the paths you have chosen. Always remember that you are who you made yourself.”

  The voice goes silent. Elizabetha goes silent. Alastor is left with only the heartbeat, and a newly cleared mind. The darkness of the curse slithers like a serpent, but Alastor keeps it away.

  “Dominate it,” he speaks softly to himself.

  When Alastor takes notice of his surroundings, he ascertains himself being closer to Essain than expected. Rain falls in heavy sheets while lightning arcs across the sky like white veins, the thunder sharp and swift. This is Alastor’s weather.

  The stallion feeds on, finds its strength from, the Knight. It fears not the land, pushing through swelling flood water, plowing through briar patches, and gliding over rocky ground with uniform ease. Over hill and through forest, the Knight finally comes into Essain’s boundary, the walls of the city coming ever closer. A grave sound pierces through the Knight’s helmet; the thunder is nothing to it, the heartbeat of the armor dim as the flapping of bird wings.

  From Essain, war.

  The Knight comes onto the road to Essain, spurring the stallion for more speed. As the gate comes into view, Alastor is given an atrocious sight; a river of blood-tinged rain water pours from the city. Flames roar like monsters from the homes and shops. Smoke rises like a serpent from its lair. He leaps from the animal, the armor retracting from it as he does so, and runs headlong into Essain.

  The militia has come out of hiding and fights their former brothers, the turncoat army. The Necromancer’s army of dishonored bolsters their numbers. The militia faces sure destruction, but they are rallied together nonetheless, fighting with such fierceness as none have ever had before, bravely facing certain death.

  Alastor holds out his right hand, calling on the armor to form a sword, a claymore like he used to wield. Pleased with his armor, the Knight runs to the closest battle he can find, which takes no searching whatsoever. The Knight comes across a lone militiaman about to be executed by a group of turncoats. They are completely oblivious to the Knight. The armored one moves as a shadow, impaling the soldier whom was readying to murder the militiaman. The turncoats give a shout of fear, taken surprise by the Knight. They angle their swords on him, but the armor reacts, lashing out with bladed tendrils. The turncoats lay dead before they are even aware of it; the Knight lets the body of the impaled soldier fall from his sword. The militiaman looks at this armored savior, breathless.

  “What has happened here?”Alastor asks, his voice suddenly noble and fierce and all together not his own.

  The militiaman stands, not afraid of the Knight. Not any more at least.

  “Essain was told that Our Lady Lisa was dead, and that she killed her own father. We, the militia and the city itself, decided as a whole that Hector was just as trustworthy as Samael, so we rebelled rather than endure his rule.”

  Alastor looks hard at the man, trying to see if there is anything hidden in his words. There is nothing but truth in them he decides.

  “Lisa lives,” the Knight says.

  The militiaman smiles, spirit lifted by the words, but he suppresses this as soon as he does.

  “Is this the truth?”

  “It is. Tell the rest of your militia to spread the word. I am sure that Lady Lisa will want her kingdom back.”

  The militiaman readies to run off, but he stops himself, swinging back to Alastor.

  “Knight, will you be aiding us again?”

  At that moment, the creatures raised by Lucius all become aware of the Knight, murder filling their dead eyes, and to him they run, shamble and crawl.

  “I have business in the castle, which will draw most of the enemy to me. Do what you can against your traitorous army.”

  The militiaman does as ordered, going to find his fellow city defenders before the damned creatures descend upon the Knight. The armor comes to life again, aiding Alastor as he cuts through the creatures who now block his way to the castle. With each creature felled, another worms up from the ground to replace it.

  It does not take long for the Essain main road to be up heaved completely.

  The perpetual numbers do little to make the Kni
ght care. To unleash his full fury and strength brings an almost maniacal joy, and with no guilt or fear, Alastor embraces this whole heartedly.

  ~-~~-~

  Amy, carrying Lisa, and Mikha’el fly faster than either has ever flown before. With the rain pelting them in the face like rocks, they have to keep their eyes half closed, making the flight all the more treacherous. Lisa is Amy’s only burden, while Mikha’el has taken it upon himself to carry their weapons. The lightning starts to exhibit signs of being controlled, or even perhaps is itself sentient, as the strikes grow more frequent and closer to the trio.

  “Is it me, or does it seem like the lightning is trying to hit us?” Lisa asks Amy.

  Amy does not answer, focused completely on flying. Soaring over a patch of trees, lightning manages to split the trunks, sparking fires even in the rain. Amy flies closer to Mikha’el, brow furrowed.

  “Blood is being shed,” is all she says.

  Essain lays just before them. Lisa can hear the nerve wracking sound of metal on metal, her fears have been consummated. Passing over the walls, they spot Alastor fighting in the midst of a glut of creatures. Amy lands, setting Lisa down, followed by Mikha’el. They start to run after Alastor, but a battle between militia and turncoats spills out from a side street. Mikha’el gives his companions their weapons and the three join the fray.

  Amy remembers her form and reverts to her human shape so as to avoid being mistaken for an enemy.

  Detested by the mere sight of the traitors to Gawain, Mikha’el, using his twin swords, takes to fighting the turncoats without mercy, using his blades and wings to separate them from the militia. Not so much to help the defenders, rather he wants the betrayer army to himself. The militia watch in shock as Mikha’el moves and battles in his inhuman way. One militia member turns to see Lisa standing beside him, sword drawn.

  “Lady Lisa!” he exclaims. “You are alive!”

  “Very much so,” she answers. “Why would you think otherwise?”

  “Hector announced to the kingdom that after you supposedly killed Gawain, you ran off in fear. He claimed to have caught and killed you.”

  Lisa’s eyes fill with tears, but her heart with anger and hate.