The Lady's Man

by Greg Curtis

  It was Mayfall!

  Even the best part of a league away and little more than a smudge in the distance Yorik knew that. He knew it and immediately reached for his sword thinking to stab him through the heart the moment he came near enough. But his hand found no sword hilt, and that reminded him of the plan. Of how he had to fight the thane. It wouldn't be with sword in hand. It would be with the words in his mouth. So instead of drawing his weapon he stood and found a clear spot to stand, knowing that his defence would be in running and hiding and his attack only in his words.

  Mayfall came toward him, or rather the box, walking quickly. Actually he wasn't really walking at all. His body moved as though he was walking, but he covered far more ground with every step than a man could. In truth he was walking as fast as a horse could gallop. Yorik's mouth went dry as he saw that. Whatever it was it was powerful magic. It also reminded him how Mayfall had simply flung him against the stone wall of the ancient temple before with barely a thought. Whether he was Mayfall or the Nameless, he was unbelievably powerful. Yorik dearly wanted his sword just then. Even though he knew it would be useless he felt naked without it.

  Mayfall crossed the distance between them incredibly quickly, while Yorik stood there waiting for him, and checked that he had clear paths to escape. And all the while he studied his enemy, trying desperately to tell if it was truly the Nameless. But everything about him said Mayfall. The angular lines and planes of his gaunt face, the way he moved as if he ruled the world, the superior smirk. It might all be some sort of incomprehensible magic at work, but there was nothing to say that the man heading his way was anything other than the foul wizard who had murdered his family.

  At least Yorik managed to control his rage. He tempered it with all the words the others had given him; with the vows he had been reminded of that he had sworn as a paladin, with the image of Mayfall's death so clear in his memories, and with just a little fear as he knew how dangerous the wizard was. The fact that he had no weapons on him helped as well. He wanted to kill him again, to run him through with his sword, but he couldn't.

  Finally Mayfall arrived in front of Yorik and then stared at the little wooden box, realising that this was the source of whatever had been calling to him. Then he looked around suspiciously as he studied the area closely. Clearly he thought that this was some sort of trap. More evidence perhaps that he really was Mayfall, but also proof that he couldn't penetrate Yorik's spell of invisibility. That mattered.

  Then, when he was done searching for enemies and finding none, he walked up to the box, picked it up in his hand and crushed it.

  That was not something the wizard could have done. The box was made of solid hardwood. It was heavy. And it would take a lot of strength to crush it. Far more than a man could have. And seeing that finally gave Yorik something to tell him that the man in front of him was not Mayfall. That he wasn't at all human. He was grateful for it.

  With the box crushed and the dust and pieces falling to the grass by his feet, Mayfall turned and looked to head back off in the direction he had come from, and it was in that moment that Yorik knew the time had come.

  “Going somewhere thane?”

  Mayfall spun around, turning too quickly to be the wizard whose face he wore, and started searching for him. Looking to where his voice had come from. And while he looked Yorik moved quickly. Best he thought not to be there any more.

  “Who's there?”

  The wizard yelled it out at where he'd been almost nervously, and in doing so confused Yorik some more. Mayfall would be nervous but he would also recognise Yorik's voice. So which was he? Dead wizard or Nameless?

  “Don't you know me thane? Mayfall would.”

  Even as he said it Yorik moved, adding a little bit of haste to his feet as he guessed what would happen next. He was right to hurry as a heartbeat later a bolt of lightning smashed down just where he had been. Maybe he should have used a spell to cast his voice, but he was trying to conserve his magic.

  “I am Mayfall!”

  The wizard looked both angry and nervous as he shouted it at where Yorik had been standing. He looked exactly like Mayfall. But Mayfall wouldn't be concerned about being told he wasn't himself.

  “Then why so nervous?” Yorik dodged to the other side as another blast of lightning smashed down where he had been. And then he concentrated on adding more speed to his feet. Much more speed.

  “Mayfall wouldn't care.”

  This time it was a whole series of bolts that smashed into the ground, and the dead grass sizzled and smoked behind him as he ran. Mayfall was starting to put much more power into his attacks. But that only encouraged Yorik. He knew that as strange as it seemed, his words were hurting him in some way. He liked that. The thought gave him hope.

  “How dare you!”

  “Still don't know who I am then?”

  This time Yorik really sprinted as he yelled it at him, suddenly glad of the ranger armour he'd been given. It might be too tight, it might not be as protective as it should be, but it was light and fast and that was exactly what he needed. He managed to completely circle the wizard even while he was still blasting the ground with his lightning.

  “You're dead!”

  “Really? Actually it's Mayfall who died.”

  Yorik had to remember to change directions just in case the thane grew wise to the direction he was running, and again was glad he did. This creature – and he was finally beginning to accept that it wasn't Mayfall – had some basic cunning. He was beginning to strike all around, whereever Yorik's voice had come from.

  “And yet I live!”

  “But you're not Mayfall.”

  “I am!”

  “In truth?” Yorik dodged the blast of lightning that struck at him. Had he still been standing where he had been a heartbeat earlier he would now be nothing more than a blackened husk, spelled armour and all. Not much could have withstood such a blast. The ground hadn't survived, and where it had been was a small puddle of molten rock and black char. He was getting very close and his blasts were growing in power.

  “Then answer me this. Tell me who your mother was.”

  It was an unusual thing to ask at any time, but in the heat of battle it was far more so. It even stopped Mayfall for a moment as he tried to make sense of it. But only for the space of a heartbeat. Then the thane let his rage consume him and struck again, sending half a dozen more lightning blasts to strike him. Or at where he had been.

  All of them missed, but only by a little and only because Yorik was moving too fast. The magic was still flowing through him. But he knew that it would not last. Even with the wizard's spells and the Lady's magic flowing within him he knew he was vulnerable. He could only hold so much of the Lady's power within him. And when it ran low the thane would have him. He had to have undone the thane before that happened. It was time to start taking chances. To use the spells he hadn't been quite so good at mastering.

  “You can't tell me of her can you?” Yorik spun, sent his voice ahead of him and ran with all the speed he could find in the other direction as he yelled it at the dark wizard. The sylph was right he realised. So were Myral and Annalisse. This battle had always had to be one of doubt. He had to make the thane discover doubt.

  “I know my mother!” The thane's voice was thunder as he raged, and the ground shook with terror. But Yorik celebrated as he heard the rage. Because he knew the rage was a lie. It was merely a cover for his fear.

  “Prove it! Tell me her name!”

  Yorik screamed his question at the thane, but he did it by shaping the distant air with his spells not his voice. He knew what would happen next, and a heartbeat later he watched an entire lake of fire appear where he had cast the question from and knew it had been the right thing to do. Mayfall was beginning to realise he was too fast for him. So he was allowing for his speed by increasing the scale of his attacks.

  “Deceiver!” Mayfall screamed it at him and Yorik celebrated a little. The thane could not hear him. H
e could not listen. He was afraid to hear the truth.

  “All men know their mothers. They know their touch, their names, their hearts. But not you. Why is that?”

  This time when Mayfall struck at where he thought he was Yorik gambled on being unpredictable. On being in the one place Mayfall would never expect him to be. He ran straight for the thane hoping that he would never expect it.

  He didn't. Huge rocks started falling from the sky, smashing into the ground everywhere, striking every place where he could be standing. Every place except that one. And as Yorik stood just behind the thane, close enough that he could simply draw his sword and strike him through the heart, he knew he was safe. Unless he'd actually had had a sword and tried to do that.

  “I speak the truth. You cannot remember your mother. But then you have no mother. Mayfall had a mother. But he is gone.”

  This time he let his voice come from further away, outside the zone of destruction, hoping that the thane would assume that he had survived by running further away.

  His hope came true and he watched as the thane screamed his wordless fury and sent a stream of burning hot fire blasting towards the sound. A river of fire a quarter of a league long and as wide as a village. Yorik waited until it was gone and the blackened land had quietened a little before striking back.

  “Why do you hate me?”

  Yorik sent his voice once more from the same place, hoping that the thane would assume he was still there. That he had somehow survived. Mayfall would have known better. He would have guessed the trick. But the sylph was right. This thing was not Mayfall. He did not have the dark wizard's cunning – only his hatred. And so he sent another even larger and hotter blast of fire at where he thought Yorik was.

  “Mayfall hated me – because he feared me. But he feared what was inside him much more.”

  Since the ruse seemed to be working Yorik used it again. And this time he was treated to the sight of shards of sharpened ice slicing down from the skies as the thane screamed like a child in a tantrum. The land screamed too as each shard tore into it.

  “What was it that was inside Mayfall that terrified him so?”

  This time Yorik had to drop to his hands and knees as the thane produced a ring of incandescence. He was only just in time as the ring expanded out from the creature in all directions and far faster than an arrow could fly. And everything it touched as it spread out was immediately cut in half and incinerated by the impossibly bright inferno. It was a powerful magic and had it touched him Yorik knew his armour could not have protected him. Not even his own armour had he been wearing it. But it had missed him and that gave Yorik yet another chance.

  Another chance to break the creature's mind. Yorik knew he was getting to him. The increasing speed at which the thane's attacks were coming and their violence could only mean that he was shaken.

  “Mayfall would know what had terrified him.”

  This time he gave the thane a target to aim at as he let his voice come from behind a small, distant rock. It was really too small to hide behind, but he was quickly realising the thane didn’t have sufficient intelligence to understand that.

  A moment later something dark and black came streaking down out of the sky to incinerate the rock in black fire. Yorik didn't know what it was, but he was glad he was nowhere near the rock as it, the ground around it, and the very air above it turned to darkness and fire.

  “Really? You thought that would harm me? Mayfall would know better.”

  Sensing his chance Yorik let his voice come from out of the middle of that orange and black inferno.

  It worked! The thane had no idea he wasn't in the midst of it. After all nothing could be seen inside it. So he started bringing down lightning strikes into the inferno, determined to destroy everything inside it. And all the while Yorik kept working on his mind.

  “But you're not Mayfall. He's dead and gone. Torn apart by the demon he summoned. Remember?”

  “He was lying on the ground, slowly dying, bleeding to death, basilisk poison burning him alive, when the demon drove its claws deep into his eyes.”

  The thane screamed with fury, unable to understand how he could still be alive in the middle of the nightmare it had created but still convinced he was. And it was then that Yorik truly knew the sylph had been right. That sound – it was not the sound any sort of man could make. It wasn't the sound any sort of creature could make. It was something very different. It was the sound of rocks tearing themselves apart in a thunderstorm while a hurricane roared. It was something primal and raw.

  “You remember that don't you? You have his memories after all. So tell me. As he lay there dying in agony and terror, what did Mayfall fear? What had terrified him for two long years?”

  More lightning blasts and black fire pummelled the ground where his voice had come from and the sky above seemed to darken.

  “Because it wasn't me. And it wasn't the demon either. It wasn't even death.”

  Fire burst from the ground. A white hot inferno of flame that leapt a hundred feet or more into the air. The heat was so great that it felt like it was cooking him inside his spelled armour, even though he was lying on the ground a hundred and fifty paces away and sheltered behind the thane itself. But he could deal with that.

  “He was frightened of you!”

  Yorik levelled his charge at the thane and watched unsurprised as the flames leapt even higher into the air.

  “You were inside him, eating him from the inside out, and he was terrified of you.”

  “No!”

  Finally an answer. A denial. Even if it wasn't really a word so much as a sound. The sound of metal scraping on metal, good steel being torn apart, and rock being pulverised. The thane's own fear, or rather the fear bestowed on him by Mayfall's memories, was starting to control him.

  “Yes! When he summoned you, the Nameless, he thought he could control you. But he never could. And that fear lived in him from that moment on. The fear that you would consume him. Not just kill him, but eat him alive. That you would unmake him.”

  “No!”

  This time his scream was even louder than before, and somewhere within that inferno in front of them Yorik could see a dark shape growing. The land was rising up.

  “Yes! You ate him and you ate his memories and his fear. You let them become you. And now they are all that you are. They control you.”

  “No!”

  The volcano – and Yorik knew then that that was what it was – was rising up. Tearing its way up, out of the ground and forcing its way through the inferno all around, its top was already burning orange. The land was shaking violently all around, crying out its fury and terror.

  “Yes! Look inside yourself. You know it's true. You are the Nameless. Not some pathetic little human wizard. You aren't afraid of anything. It's only the memories of a dead wizard that tell you you should be afraid. A wizard you ate.”

  “Liar!”

  “No. I speak the truth. You are the lie.”

  “Deceiver!”

  “And the fear you feel is the fear of the wizard you ate. The fear of yourself!”

  “No!”

  “Look inside yourself. Just look. If I'm lying you'll see Mayfall there. And if I'm telling the truth you'll know the fear isn't yours. Either way you win. So look!”

  But the fear Yorik was feeling was growing. The volcano deep within that cloud of black fire had started spewing lava. In fact rivers of it were flowing down its sides, forming an orange lake around it, and soon he knew that lake would cover the land; all of it. And Yorik had no protection against that. The magic he'd studied was for hiding and running. For tricking the thane and for not getting hit. He couldn't fly. Yorik started backing away, hoping that the thane didn't realise what he was doing.

  “No!”

  “So you admit you're not Mayfall. Because he wouldn't give into that fear. He after all took the Nameless into himself no matter how he feared it. But you're afraid and surrendering to your fear.”
>
  It was sophistry at best and most likely a lie, but he knew that the memory that was Mayfall had had a weakness; pride. Everything he had done had been for power, but the power was as much for the sake of pride as anything else. Even when he'd been running he'd had to show off how powerful he was. And if the thane had anything of the dead wizard in him he surely had that.

  “I am Mayfall!”

  “Coward! Mayfall wouldn't run away from himself. Look!”

  Already Yorik was fifty paces behind the thane and backing away further, while the lake of lava was starting to pool around Mayfall's feet. But the thane didn't even seem to notice it. He didn't cry out or burst into flame. Meanwhile the volcano was growing in size quickly. Already it was standing at least two hundred feet tall and sending ever more lava streaming down its sides. Soon he knew the lake of lava it was pouring out over the land would push him so far back that he wouldn't be able to send his voice all the way back. Then the thane would guess where he was.