"Thank you, Drashin. Now, if you will permit, I have the tables to check, the ale to check, and the food to check," Athlorial said while turning and walking the bar area.
Nadalize watched her walk away and said a silent prayer to the Gods to intervene and protect Athlorial and her heart against what she feared would certainly transpire, for she had already observed Eriboth's inquisitive glance seeking to collide with this new beauty. It was indeed going to be a long night.
As it began, and her guests entered, first with families who were looking for a hot meal for their children between stops running a whole myriad of possible errands, and then fading to the more rowdy patrons of the evening, things possessed innocuously enough. Eriboth sat at the corner of her bar with his leather-bound book open, inkwell and quill at the ready. He was intentionally focused on his writing, either poetry, or some details of his latest adventure and seemed not to take notice of much of his surroundings including the growing energy within. At just about the time the sun had dipped its now orange fingers below the level of the roof of the building across the street creating a natural dimming effect inside, the tavern filled up to its capacity with people, all in anticipation of Athlorial's performance. All that is, except Eriboth who was still intentionally writing in his leather-bound book.
Nadalize began to feel a glimmer of hope because over the previous hours, he did not seem to take notice of the young woman, or any of the other woman now enjoying the atmosphere of her establishment. He seemed quite oblivious to the rising din and commotion as Nadalize's patrons all tried to get a better vantage point to watch and listen to Athlorial. Because of the attention she received, Nadalize had a small stage built for her, in part to keep her separate from the crowd. When the lute player began, the crowd slowly started its decent into silence, and by the time Athlorial had stepped on the small riser, no sound could be heard except for the lute and her slight humming as she prepared. As the humming grew, Eriboth yet continued to write.
When she was prepared, Athlorial turned to the lute player and slightly inclined her head who started to play a sad lamentation. Accompanying his stringed chords perfectly, she added the words of two journeys; one ending in sadness and grief, and the other in hope and possibilities. They were words familiar to many, but belonged to one.
The Reason We Break
Sundered from within am I
As my soul is incomplete
I cannot deny the pain I feel
As I writhe beneath your feet
Why have you destroyed me
And all that I endeavor
Was this your goal, to rift my soul
My sentence is forever
Looking up to you I see beyond
What mortal minds may hold
I see my hope, my truth, my love, my life
My redemption has been foretold
The blissful peace of air unbound
I sense in my ruined being
But I hasten to disbelieve
The frightening vision I'm seeing
I see my damaged soul as healed
Mended by your abounding grace
You have wiped my hands of blood
And dried my tear wrought face
You have done what could not be
By the power of your hand
You have broken me to set me free
And now I understand.
As soon the notes began flowing from her perfectly formed accompaniment, Eriboth lifted his head and turned it to attend her singing. As he completed his realignment, he slightly tilted head to the right and raised his left eyebrow, as he did instinctively whenever he was curious regarding a specific situation. When she had finished the first verse, he turned the rest of his body to fully face her and raised his ale tankard slowly to his lips wherein he paused for a moment, and then proceeded to sip, never taking his eyes off her, nor allowing his ears to seek another focus for their attention. He was currently drinking ale from the Dwarven region of Blishdrine, dark in its color and a perfect reflection of his mood. Nadalize could see the brooding within him. The same brooding she had witnessed only on two other occasions. Though he was the embodiment of personal connection for those who talked to him, he had confided in her, during a very uncharacteristically vulnerable moment, that he, while nearly every woman naturally connected with him, had never truly had cause to reciprocate said connection.
He continued to listen to the young woman, whom he had never seen here before, sing a very heartfelt song that spoke directly to his soul. Perhaps she was aware of this song's genesis, although he doubted it. But just perhaps, she was aware that he, Eriboth, was the author of the words, and that he was seated at the bar, slowly becoming lost within her rendition. When he wrote, he did not hear the words, he heard their pain. He heard their joy. And he heard their vibrations resonate deeply within him where only he existed. Such was the moment of purity compelling him to write that he would not be settled until he did so. During these episodes of prismatic expression, where he would see all the colors of emotions laid bare before him, he would be clearly inspired to a greater purpose. Although he was only very rarely made aware of the specific nature of said higher purpose before it presented itself, he would always know there was a deeper meaning behind what he wrote and a deeper intent. Nevertheless, he was quite sure that the purpose of writing the poem this young woman was currently singing was crafted and formed for this moment, and this moment alone.
She sang with such conviction that he was unable to remove his eyes from the visual and auditory entrapment. Yet furthermore, he was being forced to admit to himself that he was spellbound by whatever, if any, mystical powers she was employing. As the author of the words which were now gracefully leaving her full and alluring lips, he was well acquainted with their meaning and influence, but he never expected them to be recited with such power and personal conviction beyond what he was able to employ. On many occasions he had been requested to recite one or several of his poems, yet this was the very first time he had the opportunity to listen to one of them recited in an altogether different expression. He watched, and he waited. When she had completed her recital and began the task of filtering through the guests in an effort to return to her duties as serving girl, he slowly stood and effortlessly progressed through the standing throng with his intent fully upon her. Nadalize, realizing she was powerless to stop the unfolding visage, did what any mother would have done. She found her way through the crowd in a desperate and futile attempt to thwart Eriboth and his transfixed gaze.
"You cannot!" she stated as she stood now directly in front of him, between he and his intent.
"Nadalize, you and I have been friends for very many years now. When have you ever known me as unable to do anything once my will has been set?" he replied with compassion for her cause within his response.
"Eriboth! You cannot! This young woman cannot fall for you! She is too tender, too young, and been through too much pain to have her heart hurt again!"
"My intent is not to harm or hurt, only to free," as he said this, Nadalize bent her head and closed her eyes.
Responding in a whisper that which only Eriboth could hear within the tear she shed, but not in the voice it carried, she said, "It never is."
He continued to watch and be aware of where the young woman was though he was focused upon the conversation he was having with Nadalize. He saw her move through the gathering crowd with smiles and nods and thankfulness, though he knew her demeanor existed as a humble shield against her uncomfortable and guarded self. He attempted to circulate around Nadalize, but the short woman signaled for her peace keepers who responded quickly. Standing behind her and still between Eriboth and Athlorial, they placed their hands upon the hilts of their swords.
"Gentlemen, there is but one weapon that can defeat me in battle. Yet because I am six months still living after facing the most proficient wielder of said weapon Avendia has yet seen, I would wager that neither of you po
ssess said weapon nor the skill with it to prevent me from my current path. Yet, should you not remove your hands from your swords, I will remove them from your wrists," he said as he stood squaring his shoulders against the men while looking directly at Nadalize, still aware that Athlorial had exited through the back door to apparently gain a moment of quiet before returning to the duties of a serving girl.
Resigned to his intent and conviction to see it through, Nadalize motioned for her peace keepers to remove the threat within their hands. But because they were unaccustomed to doing so, they both hesitated and looked toward each other. Nadalize could sense the misplaced confidence building within them and ended it by saying, "Listen! You do not know whom you threaten. In all my years I have never met one so utterly truthful as he," gesturing toward Eriboth, she continued, "and if he says he will remove your hands from your wrists, you had best believe him or he will remove your head from your shoulders!" As Eriboth still looked directly at Nadalize with no malice in his empathetic eyes, he saw two men follow Athlorial through the back door of the tavern.
As her peace keepers removed their hands thus ending their threat, she gestured that they return to their duties of protecting her tavern. "Thank you, my friend. Now if you would be so kind as to excuse me, I find myself needing a little freshness to my breath before I resume my intent."
Nadalize, completely unaware of Athlorial's location yet inherently aware of her pending doom at the heart and soul of Eriboth nodded her head, but not before she spoke one final sentence, "Do as you must, my dear Eriboth, as you always will, but you play a dangerous game with the lives of those left in your wake."
Gently kissing her forehead he answered her, "Nadalize, you are the one woman who seems to be immune to me. But know this, she is not a pawn in a game, instead with her song, she has written a new set of rules by which I MUST play." And he must play. He had to know how this young woman, whom he had never collided with before, could convey the exact emotions he was feeling when he wrote that poem years ago.
As a poet and warrior, he was accustomed to walking a path defined by his steps as the sole propagation of his intent. His was a combination of both creation and destruction. Creation because of the emotions he created in his poetry and destruction for the lives he had ended. He had killed so many, so freely. And he had loved in equal portion to his destruction. Or rather, he had been loved in equal portion, but he had long admitted to himself that he had never loved in return and possibly never would. He had never been truly seen for what he was. So many women claimed to have seen him, but their preconceptions of who he was, based upon what his growing legend had portrayed, had given him a perceived identity falling vastly short of what he knew he was.
And what was he now? He struggled with this question in growing severity with the passing years. He was not elf, though he was accepted into their culture and treated as the blood brother to the King. He was man, though he was not dictated to by the same constraints of their physical existence. Mortality, as defined by the race of men, held no sway over his life, therefore, he had no mortal identifiers of limits to time. Yet, at the center of his growing complexity, was the realization that he was something different, more, as if his life was separate for a reason. No, not a separate purpose, a separate identity. What was he?
That vexing question was the very reason for his writing this evening. And though his focus was unshakeable by any previous means once his will had been set, this young woman was able to do so in the only way she, or anyone possibly could have. Her emotions, while singing his words, echoed his. And in the deep confines of his identity, he had to find out if this woman, this singer, this serving girl was finally the one who could see past his words, past his sword, and past his walls created by his legend into the very face of all he had been, all he currently was, and all he could become. Set upon that, he would not be deterred, not even by his longtime and closest friend.
Had she not delayed him by the futile attempt of enlisting the help of her peace keepers, he would have been the one to follow her through the back exit of the tavern. Yet, in the time she had spent talking to him, two more men had joined the initial two who followed her. Yet he did not blame Nadalize with any animosity because she was simply behaving in alignment with her intent, which was to protect this young, and obviously, damaged woman. He did find it interesting that she had never mentioned her to him before, though certainly the opportunity had risen within the hours of their discussions about all topics from family to death to life. He even knew about the life she had lost before it had even lived, or at least lived and drawn breath from the air shared by all. Yet she had not mentioned her before.
As he exited the tavern, he looked both ways down the alley, yet all he saw with the dim light emanating from the dual moons, their colors a mixture of orange and pale yellow. He did not see her, or the four men who had followed her. Pausing for a moment to engage his warrior instincts, he was met with an auditory assault bursting through the silence.
He turned his head in the direction of the horrible scream and moved. Rounding the corner, he saw a vision hitting him viscerally. There she was, the beautiful young woman who had only moments ago sparked a flowing connection rising within his intent, pinned under a beast who was obviously struggling to have his way with her. She was kicking, clawing and doing her best to resist, yet she was slowly being subdued by his superior strength. He had a moment’s pause as he considered how effective she would be had she the proper training. The other three men, completely enraptured with the vicious scene they had created, did not notice his presence until he spoke.
Calmly yet carrying a forceful conveyance of a solidified threat, he almost whispered, "Prepare, no quarter is offered."
At once, the three men still standing drew their swords and stepped quickly toward him. The fourth sprang up as quickly has he could, but not before smashing Athlorial across her face rendering her unconscious. Eriboth dropped into a conscious martial stance, yet detached and subconsciously flowed as their advance closed the distance. The three men were beheaded in a singularly fluid movement as he evaded their feeble attempts to end his untimely interruption to their pleasure. Before the fourth man was able to fasten his belt, Eriboth had dismissed his companions with little attention and effort. Yet instead of advancing toward his next opponent, he stood, waited, and spoke, "Yours will not be quick. You will feel the pain she has felt and know the same fear she knew. You will be as helpless as she. But unlike her, you will die."
The man, seeing his friends dead as the blood drained from their gaping necks, drew two swords and attacked in a rage driven fury. Eriboth effortlessly parried his attacks for a few seconds and then struck with a blindingly fast slash cutting the man in the left wrist causing him to drop one of his swords.
"Here, let me entice you to continue," Eriboth said as he sheathed his black bladed doom. "Now, attack me."
Seeing Eriboth unarmed, the man advanced again. Growing in confidence because he now faced someone without a brandished weapon, the man attacked, but struck only air as his sword was repeatedly avoided. The man flew into a rage and sought to bolster his current fighting skills with it, but was met, again, with the same results.
During one of the more wild strikes, instead of avoiding it and stepping away, Eriboth stepped into the man and bridged the gap between his wildly slashing sword and his concentrated and precise fists. He gripped the man at the crook of his elbow with one hand, and at the wrist with the other. Raising the man’s arm above his head, he slid the hand that first grasped his wrist up the exposed inside arm and plunged his fingers into the man's armpit. Instantly the man dropped his second sword. Eriboth stepped through, continuing the fluid movement and struck the man three times in succession, breaking three ribs, one with each separate strike, expelling the man's breath.
As the man slumped to the ground, gasping for air, Eriboth walked over to him and stared down at the man's beaten form. While someone greater than he might h
ave felt pity or remorse, he felt none. His will was set and the outcome decided. This man was going to die, but not yet.
"Get up!" said Eriboth through clenched teeth. When the man did not respond, Eriboth commanded him again, this time, more severely, "Get! Up!"
Weekly standing, the man favoring his almost useless right arm, bleeding from the wound to his left wrist, and laboring because of his broken ribs, pleaded with Eriboth to spare his life. "Please sir. I have a family. I have children and a wife." As Eriboth said nothing, the man spoke again, "Please, I am defenseless. You are greater than me. Please, have mercy!"
The man took a feeble step toward him and winced because of the pain in his ribs. Instantly Eriboth let fly a barrage of open-handed strikes, each landing with paralyzing force upon the exact spots they were intended to land. Bones, muscles, tendons were all damaged, but before the man was left to fall to the ground, he smashed the only closed fisted blow he delivered straight into the man's nose knocking him lifelessly backward and landing him heavily.
Each time he killed, each life he returned to the stars, and with each lifeless form rendered so by his skill, he felt a slight resignation to the inevitability of his existence. As if this, death, was his life and even though he did so only under the guise of vindication, he still used his talents and skills to kill. Suppressing it as he always did, he looked to where the young woman still lay, unconscious, though slowly beginning to move.
Eriboth walked over to her and picked her up in his arms. Slowly walking toward the back entrance to the tavern, he resolutely determined that the pain she now felt, and that she felt before, and that she would feel in the future would be guarded against by all that he was able to do, and all that he was able to become. She had set a new board and given him new pieces with which to play. But more importantly, she had given him a reason to connect. A connection he had written about before, but had never thought to experience. Never that is until she sang his words unto his heart, unto his intent, unto his soul.
Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1) Page 18
