by Swanson, Jay
The Shade hooked Ardin's shoulder with his foot, then kicked hard. He flipped Ardin in one motion, slamming him onto his back, banging his head with a sickening slap. The world around him jittered out of existence and back into focus as the pain shot through his skull. It caught his attention, but then the boot was on his chest. That black boot, connected to that black armor. All of that tight-fitting leather clothing and strange armor. The Shade looked like the Hunter he had impersonated; he looked like death in human form.
The blade was at Ardin's throat. The pressure of the Shade's weight forced his breath out. No room was left for its return. Ardin could feel his heart pounding. Could hear it in his ears. Could see it in the fog. See it in the fog? Ardin's eyes darted in every direction. The fog is pulsing... it's beating with my heart!
“I'm sorry I didn't finish your whole family in that forsaken valley.” The Shade pulled his sword arm up and behind him. “Mistakes can be mended.” The arm thrust back down, the blade shot straight through Ardin's throat.
Ardin choked. He coughed. And then he laughed.
The Shade's cocksure grin slowly melted to shock. He stared down at his vanquished foe. The blade drew no blood. The boy didn't die.
Ardin grinned. The Shade twisted his blade and dragged it towards Ardin's chest. Nothing happened. Ardin disappeared, sending the Shade's foot shooting to the ground and throwing him off balance as he twisted to look around. Ardin was nowhere to be seen. The Shade looked up the bridge, and back down towards the Cathedral. Then Ardin returned.
His wounds were gone. He was whole. And he felt good. “So that's what it feels like to make the jump, is it?”
The Shade adjusted his stance. He was perturbed, maybe even scared, but grew only more determined with every passing emotion. Emotions Ardin couldn't just see, but sense. Feel.
“You have no idea what you're doing.”
“Not yet.” Ardin breathed in deeply. The world around him seemed to grow closer as he did so. He exhaled, and it returned to normal. “Funny how the world seems to react to me so strongly, isn't it?”
The Shade had heard enough. He yelled and sprinted straight at Ardin, dragging his sword slightly behind him as he brought it up and across Ardin's chest. The blade flew through without leaving a mark, then the Shade followed suit. His momentum carried him through and beyond his target.
Ardin laughed and turned. “Thanks for doing all the hard work of developing the skills, though; they're practically automatic responses. But I guess you know that well enough.”
Panic crept into the stony features of the Shadow King's face, desperation nestling into what space remained. “You can't...”
“You're the intruder, not me.” Ardin smiled as he set his stance. “This is my mind, not yours.” He raised his arms to the side, flexing every muscle in his body and laughing. The color returned to the world then, like watercolors flooding an empty canvas. They swirled in from nowhere and took their place as if they had never been missing. Ardin brought his arms back down to look at the Shade. “And it's here that the last remnants of your soul are extinguished. Not mine.”
“No.” The Shade threw himself forward again. He stopped, not of his own will, but of Ardin's.
Ardin Vitalis raised his hand, holding the Shade in place before he picked him up off the ground. “There's a reason one of us can make the jump and the other can't.” He smiled. “There's a reason you can't escape even the simplest grip I can conjure up. And there's a reason I am meant to live, and you were meant to die.”
Ardin grinned as the panic in the Shade's face turned to rage. It was no longer a man, it was a tool of the past. Merely a Shade. It screamed as he twisted it in the air.
“This is my world.” Ardin said. “ And this is for Levanton.”
The warmth churned forth at the slightest suggestion, his very core coming to life. He brought the heat out into his extended arm, then he raised his other. “This is for my family.” The power was building up in him so quickly. He had never been in such control. “This is for Alisia!”
A blinding white fire erupted out of every pore in Ardin's body. It swirled around him, leaping at and burning everything it could reach. He let it build, then funneled it to his arms. The Shade's eyes couldn't get any wider before they were obstructed from view by the fire. Ardin could see little more than scalding white, but he could feel the Shade disintegrating. Could feel the bits and pieces of him flake off and scatter to the wind.
The flames got hotter still. They poured out of Ardin with all of his hate and malice, with his sense of justice and all of his anger. He burned the Shade until there was nothing left. Nothing at all.
The fire subsided as quickly as it had manifested, Ardin's breath barely audible. He smiled. There wasn't a trace left. What little smoke drifted off could barely have signaled the funeral pyre of a mosquito.
Then the bridge shook.
The mountain in the distance crumbled, falling in massive chunks, rolling over itself until everything was gone into the abyss. The whole span of the bridge began to fall. It started at the far end and began working its way to Ardin.
He couldn't move. He simply stood in place until there was nothing left upon which to stand. Suddenly he too fell. He fell so fast his eyes welled up against the wind, his streaming tears drying before they could leave their trail. And the world flashed white.
Ardin sat up with a start, breathing as heavily as if he had been running. He gasped for air and found himself face to face with the most horrifying visage he had ever seen. A giant specter of death knelt in front of him, a hooded, winged warrior much like Tristram. Yet this one was dressed in faded black and gray armor. The pointed mask that covered the lower half of where his face should have been was formed to look like jagged, rotten teeth. Hooks and barbs lined every visible surface along his bulky, matted armor. From them streamed long rags of varying types and lengths. Each appeared stained with blood.
On his chest rested the skull of a wolf, and on his back hung a scythe so large that no human could possibly wield it. The cloth that made up his hood and ran under his armor was frayed, deteriorating. He looked like he might have been raised from the dead himself as he gestured with a silent finger at Ardin's chest.
Ardin's abject terror came and went with a flash. Suddenly his mind returned along with an awareness of where he was. He scurried back as fast as he could. His sword wasn't on him. Where was it?
He slammed into something. Boots. He stopped. He rolled and looked up, the warmth churning in his chest in response to his fear.
“You are awake.”
The winged warrior from his past hovered just inches off the bridge. The thick boots looked like they were ever trying to ground themselves.
“Tristram!” Ardin's relief mingled with the fear of a moment before. Confusion racked his brain.
“Forgive Ishtel; he says little and is loved less for it.”
Ardin jumped to his feet, backing to the side of the bridge that had fallen out from under him only moments before. He kept his eyes on both warriors as best he could. The giant black one righted himself. He floated too, but his shoulders were more broad, his chest more robust. Ardin's heart still pounded. His arm twitched.
“Ardin, you need to calm yourself.”
The world had its color, though the Dragon's Teeth had little color of which to speak. The Cathedral towered above him as it had what felt like days ago. The mountain shook, no longer in the distance. Rocks dislodged themselves and rumbled down its sides, crashing and breaking into smaller pieces as they dislodged their neighbors. He looked down at himself. He was dressed in a strange white armor. Where did this come from? He held his hands up to inspect them, but they didn't stay up for long. Ardin's arms both twitched this time, his head jerking to the side. It wasn't the fear, he realized. Something was horribly wrong.
“What's happen... what's happening to me?!” His legs twisted as he convulsed, nearly collapsing in a heap.
“The Last of the Sh
ades. His power is passed into your keeping, as signified by the whitening of his armor. You must control yourself, Ardin.”
Ardin was certain Tristram was still talking, but he couldn't hear it any more. The world was jumping in and out of focus. The sounds of the rumbling mountain were cutting in and out. The vibrating bridge under his feet shook him one minute and didn't affect him the next.
“Ardin!” Tristram approached him now, arm outstretched. Ardin twisted away. “Ardin, you must gain control! You must-”
Ardin twisted in place, then threw himself involuntarily towards the ground. Suddenly the world vanished entirely. He stopped. His convulsions had ceased, but so had everything else. He twisted, his body not responding the way it should. Then he realized he had no body. The sensation sent shockwaves through his consciousness. He panicked, and then the world returned.
The bridge was shaking as he fell to his knees. He grabbed for something to hold onto, anything solid. But the smooth surface of the bridge provided no such comfort. And then it was gone again, as were his hands.
The gray world around him twisted and spun. The mists he saw flowed around and into him. They chased each other in the distance, and then he saw the Brethren. The two ethereal warriors floated just feet away, waiting. They appeared brilliant in the haze, haloed by their own power as the mists swirled into them.
Ardin clamped down on his mind, working with everything he had to focus. The world returned; this time his knees were inches into the bridge itself. Where did the divots come from? The thought passed in a moment as his body convulsed again.
This time he clenched his eyes shut. He pressed into his mind, willing his body to stop, ceasing the seizing. The power of the Shadow King was destabilizing him; it was almost uncontrollable. It took a moment, and he hardly allowed himself to relax as he concentrated, but slowly, surely, he could stop focusing so hard. He exhaled, realizing only then that he had been holding his breath.
He couldn't look up yet, his balance still thrown completely by the transformation. I'm part Shade now? The jump had been far simpler in his mind; the real thing felt horrible, especially as it was involuntary. He rose to his feet, legs wobbly and head spinning, but he was done. He was set in his form for the moment. He never wanted to do that again.
“Ardin?” Tristram was only feet away. Ardin could see his ornately armored legs. The tips of his swords were coming into view now too, hanging across each other on his back. “Ardin, you must follow me. Now.”
The urgency behind the command was enough to get Ardin moving again. He didn't know where they were going, but he would follow.
The warrior stopped just short of the now-exposed Gates. The massive doors stood in place, but seemed somehow small and fragile in spite of how enormous they were. Tristram gestured to a smaller entrance on the right side of the door. It stood closed, carved in runes Ardin had never seen before.
“Enter there, Ardin. You cannot stop him from his escape, but you can buy us time.”
“Why don't...” Ardin shook his head. It cleared more than a little. “Why don't you do it yourselves? You seem to actually know what's happening.”
“It is forbidden us to enter this place, Ardin. Never are we allowed inside again.”
The mountain shook violently, causing Ardin to tip to the side. Tristram's gloved hand shot out to steady him in an instant.
“This is our one chance to gain much needed time, Ardin. Go inside; we will guide you from here.”
“What do you want me to do?” Ardin called on the warmth. He used it to wipe away the imbalance, to restore order to his fragmenting body.
“We want you to find the Tomb of the Relequim, Ardin, and we want you to seal it again.”
FIVE
“YOU...” THE TASTE OF BLOOD WAS ON HIS LIPS. Cid could barely catch his breath. “You won't make it.”
“I have a better chance than you, Cleaver.” The name had lost all of the awe and respect it once commanded. The Greatbow lowered his weapon, his contempt plain in the motion. “I'll leave you with your filthy Truans. Perhaps they can help you live long enough to see your folly.”
“They'll catch... they'll catch you in the open.” The words turned into a groan of pain as he tried to reach for the arrow lodged in his chest. The movement only made the bleeding worse.
“They'll never notice we've gone.” The Greatbow turned, clasping his long black bow to his back as he rejoined his stunned men.
Cid could read it on their faces; they had assumed he would join them. He wondered how many of them would second-guess the wisdom of their plan now. Not nearly as many as were anxious to execute it, he feared. His vision was too blurry now to see well, but he could hear them mount up. They rode off through the crowds before any of the refugees knew they had been abandoned.
The world spun as he tried to roll forward. Everywhere he moved, arrows shot through his chest anew. He got to his feet. The horn would be of no use to him now. His blood worked its way up and burned his throat. He coughed; the action made everything feel considerably worse.
He tried to take a step forward, but the shift in momentum pitched him back towards the ground. He never connected, however, as sets of rough hands caught him and held him aloft. They murmured amongst themselves as they guided him away from the Greatbow's dying fire. He tried to make out what they were saying, uncertain if they spoke a different language or if he simply couldn't hear through the pain.
They lowered him to a shoddy bench as gently as they could. There he sat, his head bowed as he tried to maintain his composure and fought to retain consciousness.
“Tish ish wery bad.” The broken words of his own language reached his ears. “Tish weel hurt much.”
It did hurt much. The searing pain of a thousand red-hot brands scorched his shoulder until he could no longer see. There was a cracking noise. He was pressed and pulled from every direction. It felt like someone had reached inside his chest and was attempting to pull his lung out from the inside. A warm gush ended the tugs, and the pain subsided into a raw pulsing.
More murmuring, but it was far more distant and quiet than it had been before. His head swam as his left side grew wet and warm. A new pain was building.
“Ish poishon.”
More murmurs, then a new voice. “Forgive my brothers. They speak their own language when they get nervous and ruin the common tongue even worse than usual.”
Cid tried to raise his head but found he had no strength to do so.
“The Greatbow's arrows are famously cruel. Their shafts contain hidden barbs, and those are laced with poison. It's not something one survives with ease.”
“Heesh bleeding much.”
“Yes.” The new voice must be moving him now; Cid could feel his weight shift on the bench as if in response to the voice's murmurs. “You have the leaves? Pack the wound until we can make a salve.”
A new pain lanced through Cid as hands shoved fresh pressure into his shoulder. Slowly, the shock was replaced by a crisp, cool sensation, like fire leaving his veins. Cid could look up finally. A slender man in brown rags stood over him as three or four of the refugees worked on him.
“We need...” Cid could barely choke past the words. “You need to go.”
“We saw and heard everything, Captain.”
“You need... go.” Why wouldn't the man understand?
“You wouldn't leave us, Captain. We won't leave you.”
And then, from the edges of the camp, the screams began.
“Good gods, they've come.” The man in brown disappeared from Cid's hazy line of sight.
Who's come? But no one responded to Cid's burning questions. The hands were wrapping his shoulder. My armor... He wanted to tell them it would make binding the wound impossible. Then he realized he wasn't wearing it any more.
“Where's the salve?” The voice of the brown man was at the edge of his ability to hear again. “Get it on the wound. Now! No. There's no time to wait, we have to get him on his feet.” The voice
lapsed into a different tongue, seeking to be better understood.
It must have worked, because the hands returned with the foulest smelling stuff Cid had whiffed in a long, long time. His vision clouded again as his eyes watered at the smell. Like fermented tar...
The hands smeared it all over his bandage. He wanted to tell them to stop; the pressure of the application scorched his wound, but then the stuff got through the linen and to his shoulder. It may have reeked like a skunk's latrine, but the sensation it brought to the touch quickly tendered forgiveness for its olfactory shortcomings. Relief swirled out from his shoulder into the rest of his body like a cool breeze. He suddenly felt like he could sleep for a dozen years.
“Don't go nodding off.” The voice of the brown man coincided with a hand shoving him upright. “Those leaves we packed into you needed more time before we salved the wound, but we don't have that time.” Cid wanted to sleep. He didn't want to listen. “Listen!” The damned voice wouldn't let him go. “The reaction between the two medicines is potent. If you fall asleep you won't wake up, possibly ever.”
Sounds good to me. Cid was strangely ready to lay it all down at this point.
“If you sleep we can't move you.”
Why would you want to move me, anyways? I'm comfortable here.
“If we don't move you, the Granhal will get you.”
Cid woke up at that. Granhal?
“They're sweeping down from the north, Captain. We have to move.”
The brown man was right, they had to move. Now. Right now. Granhal were fast. Fast and ugly and brutal. Oh God, the one thing we can't handle.
“Get my gear.” Cid wasn't sure if he was slurring or not. He worked to stand, needing less help than he had a moment before.
“It's all here, Captain.” The brown man gestured to his gear. At further inspection, even the man's skin was brown, a deep leathery tan that made his olive complexion that much darker.
