by Swanson, Jay
“How will I bring you back?” He didn't want to let go, but she took a step back from him anyways.
“Call for me.” His heart began to crack as she faded away. “You'll know how.”
And with no other words, she was gone. The emptiness in his very core told him exactly how he would choose. It broke his heart to say goodbye to his family, to think that he would never see them again, but it would kill him to say goodbye to her.
He didn't have time to waste. Having Alisia leave brought him back to the reality of his situation all too quickly. He didn't even know how long he had to do this. He let his imagination go to work, starting with the thickest walls he could imagine, building a sphere around himself so that soon he floated in the center of a giant globe. The walls themselves were plain, and that was good enough for now. He needed to make an entrance.
Mazes formed in his mind and came into existence beyond the globe, stretching for as far as his ability could reach. The entrance to the maze he opened in a mountain range that he drew from the mists of the plain. He hid the entrance under a large stone. Not the most creative of entrances, but he could modify it later. He would, in fact, modify it regularly in case any intruder began working to break his way in. Maintain the landscape's appearance to the outside observer, but keep the elements in motion; he didn't know why, but the necessity of it was well settled in his mind.
The maze itself he hid in a jungle of his own creation, modeled after the one that had surrounded White Shores. It was, he reasoned, one of the more confusing terrains he had ever seen, and should the entrance be found, the maze should be impossible. The strange uniformity to the tropical topography made it an illusion of its own, and the undergrowth slowed any progress exponentially. The walls and twists and turns of the maze he disguised as trees and ferns, lacing the dead ends with thorns to slow the progress of anyone unlucky enough to find themselves there. Whether this could actually work or simply proved he was going insane, he didn't know. But then again, building physical things like walls to keep someone out of his mind was along the same line of madness if he was.
He wove the maze around and around the walls, memorizing the path that would lead him to the entrance to his mind, building timed alterations to keep the path in constant flux in a pattern only he would know. He smiled. This was actually a lot of fun. When he was finally done with the maze, he returned to the globe, where he had left a hole small enough to fit through if you crawled. This he covered with vines and moss, then sealed it with a false wall that would only open on his command.
Alisia's warning about not locking himself out of his own mind rang in the back of his memory, and he forced himself to focus on memorizing what he had created. Better to be locked out, he figured, than have the Relequim inside.
He completely lost track of time; the feel of pure creation sucked him in and gave him a high unlike anything he had felt in ages. Now came the fun part: making a home for himself. A place to bring Alisia. He began a foundation, then realized he would need to fill in the sphere to make sense of it. He wiped the foundation away, dissatisfied with its blocky commonness. In a way he liked the broad, open sphere.
He spent some time detailing the walls, carving faux arches and tapestries in the stone while his thoughts wandered. Then he had it! He would create a floating castle, one with no up or down, but one that grew from the center outwards in every direction. He began with the towers, then realized he hadn't left himself any room to build save down.
After a few false starts, he had the skeleton of a castle blooming like some strange, gray, bulbous flower.
“Ardin!” The world which he was creating reverberated with Tristram's booming voice. “Awake, Ardin!”
Ardin let his consciousness slip back to what he previously would have referred to as reality. Somehow the gritty nature of the world made it feel far less real than the dream he had let himself slip into.
“What is it?” Ardin searched the gray world below, saddened to find it all the more real with every passing moment.
“I fear we are too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Below!” Tristram gestured with his free hand, pointing towards the base of a group of high hills.
Ardin realized that the world wasn't so much gray as it was brown. In fact, he could see low vegetation from here, trees among the hills, even. And then he saw the bodies. The ground ahead was littered with broken men and women, scattered and killed as they had been fleeing.
And then he saw the monsters.
They looked like huge men in dark armor, horns sprouting from their helms and carrying larger axes than he had ever seen. And he realized what was going on.
“Cid?” He looked up at Tristram, whose stare fixated on the swarming cluster ahead. “Is Cid down there?!”
“Yes, though for his life I can only hope.”
Ardin looked back to the ground, augmenting his vision as he drew upon the warmth. There were hundreds of the things, possibly a couple thousand. They were pressing in towards something, someone. A man in brown swung his staff, manipulating the Atmosphere in ways unlike anything Ardin had ever seen before.
And Cid was there too, leaping into the air. But before he could land his final blow, an ax caught him in the side and flung him to the ground.
“CID!” Ardin twisted in Tristram's grip, pulling away and letting himself fall.
“Ardin!”
But Ardin didn't need anyone's help to fly, not now. He needed to fall.
Ardin put his hands behind himself, letting out a burst of energy so powerful that he launched himself well ahead of Tristram instantaneously. The world came flying at him at blistering speed, the wind whipping at his new white cape so hard that he felt it might strangle and decapitate him. He didn't care. He pressed into the force of it and willed himself to go faster.
A new kind of mist joined the old as an ear-shattering crack let itself loose. His eyes were watering, so he shielded his face with a thought. The black things were looking up now, stopping to see what was coming. He was coming, white death on the wind.
Ardin braced his bones with the warmth and threw out ethereal cushions to keep from killing himself. He hit the ground with such force that the monsters he landed among flew back at the impact. The dust settled in the crater of his making, and Ardin drew his cloak up with him as he stood.
The black beasts didn't hesitate. They looked like horrors from the nightmares of the damned, but his fear for Cid overcame all others. Ardin drew his sword off his back, slamming an invisible hammer into the face of the first monster and catching the second on Caspian's steel. He spun the beast around, bringing the blade around in time to catch an incoming ax. Another shockwave emanated from him with a thought, splitting the monster in half and knocking three more on their backs.
Ardin roared, his rage mingling with the fear of losing his friend. The snarl stayed on his lips, his teeth bared as he welcomed the attack. Monster after monster leaped down into the crater with him. Each found itself split by his sword or his mind; he didn't care which. They would all die here with him if necessary.
The world twitched then twisted sideways. He shook his head, Not now... then the world vanished. He twirled in the mists before jumping back in. An ax caught him in the shoulder, and as he flew to the side the world vanished again. Cid!
Ardin jumped back into the physical, his legs buckling as he fought to regain control. A boot came flying at his chest with a roar, catching him full-on and sending him onto his back. He shouted against the pain, his body flickering in portions as if uncertain where it should exist, and then another ax came down on his head.
He made the jump, wanting to scream but unable to do so in his ethereal state. And then the world appeared again. The monsters were lunging at him, hundreds of them, and as time slowed, his rage hit its peak. He couldn't afford this; Cid couldn't die because of him. He grit his teeth, and he yelled.
Ardin twisted, blasting fire in a condensed stream acro
ss the entire crater to clear its rim, throwing dozens of the nightmares back into their brothers. He ran up and out of it then, looking for Cid, to stand over him, the world still spinning but his body under control for now. The old man was on his side, ax still buried in the other. Blood pooled rapidly beneath him. Ardin howled to see it, matching the clamor of his newfound enemies.
A horn blasted among them, rattling his strange new armor, sending fire through his veins. He turned to face them, watched them circle, waiting for his guard to go down.
“Well, come on then,” Ardin growled. “COME AND FIND YOUR FATE!”
He didn't wait for them to answer. He launched himself forward, blasting into them with a whirlwind of invisible power. Some were torn apart, but most were simply knocked about. He landed among them, taking note of the effectiveness of each attack. He twisted in place, sending a shockwave out with his sword and slicing through an entire circle of them.
That should do the trick, he thought as he spun again. They backed away. Then one of them stepped forward.
The thing bowed down as it faced him, letting out the longest, most gut-wrenching howl he had ever heard. And then he knew why. The warnings were going off in his head, the enchantments he had set about himself doing their part. But the destabilizing nature of the Shadow and the uncertainty of Cid's fate combined to form a potent distraction. Now this thing's scream served as the only tell to their ploy. He was being struck from behind.
The ax connected with his back, splitting his cloak and armor like cheese in the powerful hands of the monster that wielded it. But it simply kept going, and it never so much as scratched him.
Ardin whipped around, bringing his sword up under its chin and shoving it into its skull before it could recover from the swing. The rush of the close call left him stunned for a moment. I should be dead. He twitched involuntarily as the monster dropped to the ground and grit his teeth to fight another lapse of his form.
The monsters rushed him then. Every one of them came bounding in with their axes and maces held high. He spun to block and parry, sending out more shockwaves and fire, but finding them coming back for more. Each time he killed a few, each time the wounded returned. He shouted in frustration. Cid was dying only feet away from him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Another impact rocked the ground, sending monsters flying in every direction.
“Granhal of the enemy!” Tristram stood and drew the swords off of his back. “Into oblivion I send you!”
He twirled so fast that Ardin could barely see him, cutting and hitting and ripping his way through the Granhal in a brilliant flurry of blades and wings. Ardin took heart and picked up his own pace. He swung his blade then spread his arms to his sides, calling up the warmth to augment his strength and stabilize his form. Let's see how you like a real fire.
The ground beneath him spiked in temperature, and suddenly flames shot out all around him. He drew them up, twisting them into a whirlwind three times the size of the one he had made before, and ten times as hot. The sensation of the power flowing through him brought a grin to his face, but little more. He sought out the Fisherman and his brown-clad companion in his mind, covering them as he had once covered Rain.
The Granhal were closing on him again, unafraid of a little fire. Then he threw his arms up.
The entire area was swept up in flame, twisting and swirling around him as a column of blazing heat shot into the sky. The Granhal around him for fifty feet were sucked into the air by its violent hunger, incinerated as they were thrown hundreds of feet in the air.
The fire disappeared from the ground to the sky, and Ardin let his protection over Cid waver. Little fell back to earth save ashes and dust.
Tristram hammered the last few Granhal to death with his fists, barely bothering to use the swords that each clutched so tightly. Ardin didn't bother to watch. He rushed over to Cid and dropped by his side, his fears only growing as his friend's true state registered in his mind.
“Cid!” He placed his hands near the wound, rolling the old man tenderly onto his back and willing the warmth into his fingertips. “Hold on, Cid! I can heal you!”
The warmth came at his bidding but entered Cid's body and returned to him unaltered. Unused.
“Oh God...” Ardin looked at all of the wounds, all of the blood, and realized that Cid was truly dying. “Oh God, no! No Cid, NO!”
But the old man did not respond. In the gentle breeze that carried the ashes of his enemies from the earth, Cid the Cleaver's soul rose up for one final dance in death.
ELEVEN
THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NAMELESS MOUNTAIN PASSED WITH AGONY FOR RAIN RENAULT. The event had galvanized her brother's constituents, bringing those who owed the realm fealty definitively under his control. Even Sir Hembrody, Branston's father, was sufficiently cowed by the impact of the Relequim's escape. The layer of dust and ash that covered their world now served as a somber reminder in and of itself. There was no time left for bickering; all rivalries and grudges had been put aside. At least for the moment.
Rendin Renault, King of Islenda and all the united West, sat on his throne in the Citadel for hours on end. The high, magic chandeliers and lanterns in the vaulted ceilings may not have died down, but the candles and torches around the base of the tall walls were changed with regularity.
There was much to be set to rest, he assured his sister, before he could lay down his scepter and pick up his sword. He needed a kingdom to return to, not just to protect.
Rain grew restless, however, and the longer her brother tarried the more intense her desire to go on without him became. They should send a party to recover her men, perhaps even move the army in that direction. It was pointless waiting here. There had been no sign of Ardin, no assurance that he hadn't been killed on the mountain. The idea haunted her dreams, that the young man who represented all of her hopes could have been annihilated by the enemy he was prophesied to save them from. Her soul was anxious, her heart grating against her rib cage and on the verge of exploding.
There would be no great peace after all, no ushering in of a new age, no return to the golden era. All of her childhood dreams of Islenda's prosperity, of the health of the land, all of it was beyond her grasp now. Somewhere within her, hope refused to die, but the sorrow of losing Ardin left her certain that her hopes belonged to a fool.
Nearly a week passed before her brother summoned her to court to stand beside him. He had let her avoid his councils until now, but once summoned, she knew she must join the throng in the main hall of the Citadel. She took a more direct route than usual, her hopes that they would ride out soon now higher than they had been in days. The hall was full of mostly men in armor, clad in the various colors of their houses and alliances. Most of it was for show. The Renaults had almost completely assimilated each house under their own flag over the generations. But her forefathers had been wise to let them keep hold of their own heritage. It gave them something more to fight for, her father had told her once, something of their own for which to die.
Rain made her way to her brother's raised throne by way of the outside walkway, a path obstructed by tapestries to allow messengers to come and go unobserved during council and court judgments. She had used them many times as a girl to sneak up on her father and watch him dispense justice without his knowledge. Or at least, she had been allowed to believe he was unaware of her presence. Now instead of her father, her brother waited for her. She decided to wear armor, light steel plate over thin green chain. This was no time to appear delicate and ladylike. Now was the time to present strength.
The din of the room was low, but infused with a tension she could not mistake. Everyone expected her brother to give the order; they were marching today.
So many strangers... How unsettling to feel foreign in her own home. She looked for her own men out of habit, only for the gut-wrenching memories to set in. She saw Sir Beldin among the men below her brother's throne; it made her glad to see him a
t least. He had been kind when he had escorted her to the mouth of Albentine. Many of the men seemed familiar, but it had been a long time since she had been in the company of any of them.
Rendin smiled as she came through the layers of tapestry to stand beside his throne. He needs a queen, she realized as she looked up at him. He needs someone strong to be his eyes and hands.
He stood slowly from his seat, hiding the trembling in his knees with grace. The armor he wore was as light as her own, she knew, but designed to look as thick as the metal plate of any man in the room. It gave him the appearance of maintaining a mystical strength; even the long green cape clasped around his epaulettes weighed little more than a child's blanket, but the illusion had its desired effect.
The men in the hall fell silent as their king stood to address them. “My brothers, there are few words that I find truly necessary today. Every man among us is aware that our ancient enemy is abroad – escaped not even a week past. We have little time and less choice in our course of action. We cannot expect aid, though that remains ever our hope.”
He raised the scepter of his fathers, the long, silver rod topped with the crowned head of a wolf. The silence in the long, vaulted hall was complete now.
“We stand united, as the last bastion for the freedom of men! If we fail, mankind will fall under the sway of the Demon. Darkness will reign not only in the East, but shall consume the West and eventually the world.
“My brothers! Stand with me as one!” He laid the scepter in Rain's hands and drew the sword of his office from his waist. The enchanted steel glimmered an array of colors as it caught the light. Hundreds of swords joined his in the air as the room filled with the clamor of steel on leather. “Pledge your very lives to this cause, that the Relequim be destroyed before 'ere we come home!”
In unison the men of the room uttered their own time-honored chant. “To the King in the Teeth we commend our own souls, swords we commit and from coffers our gold, to destroy his enemies wherever they lie, and to fight to the death for to death we have died.”
