by Jay Swanson
“And what foolishness would you think my son prone to?” Yoren lowered the ax into his other hand behind the neck of the horse. “You realize they're going to kill my boy... they're going to kill Chakra. Why would you want to help them do that if you were his friends?”
“We...” Even Pegg couldn't think of a response to that.
“He went to the woods doctor,” Thruss offered up from behind them.
“Shut up, Tubbs!” Aims hissed back at him.
“We have to find him and bring him somewhere safe so that he won't get hurt!”
Yoren stared at Thruss for a moment, then each of them in turn before nodding. “Of course you do. Which is why I came to show you the way.”
“Yo– what?” Aims turned back to Chakra's father.
“What you don't seem to understand, boys, is that the road to the broken castle only appears under the light of both moons.” He jerked his head to the side as he turned his horse about. “We'll have to make our way there as best we can without a road for now.”
Aims and Pegg exchanged questioning glances before Pegg shrugged and began to follow. Thruss seemed happy enough to have Chakra's father join them, but Aims remained skeptical as he nudged his horse forward. I wouldn't want my father coming after me if I was being brash, he thought. But then my father doesn’t love me like Chakra’s does him.
They plodded on through the trees for almost an hour before anyone dared break the silence. Of course it was Thruss that finally did. “How do you know where we're going?”
“The stones are still here.” Yoren gestured towards the ground. “You can't see them easily, but they're there. When night falls the trees will part and you'll see it clearly then.”
“The trees will part?” Thruss apparently wasn't sure if there was a joke in this, nor if it was on him.
“Old magic,” Yoren said over his shoulder. “There used to be a lot more in this part of the Empire, back even before this province was called a kingdom itself. Whole cities carved from mountains, men who could make fire from thin air or fly to the peaks from the valleys. Things like this road are all that remains.”
“Why would Chakra do this?” Pegg asked no one in particular, the weight of his friend weighing heavily on his mind. “He knows the woods doctor is evil. Everyone does.”
They rode in silence for a while longer before Yoren finally spoke up. “Do any of you boys remember Chakra's mother?”
Pegg looked back at Aims, his uncertainty of how to respond reflecting in his furrowed brow. “No,” he said tentatively as he looked back towards Yoren. “Not really, sir.”
Everyone knew the story of Chakra's mother. How she had been in a traveling group that had been set upon by thieves in the forest, and how one of the thieves had taken a liking to her. When he had made a clumsy effort to seduce her and she refused, he stabbed her in the stomach up to the hilt of his knife in an impotent rage.
“The black flux takes two days to kill a full-grown man in good health,” Yoren was already talking before Aims had fully focused back on him. “Even less to kill a woman. When Chakra's mother was murdered she didn't die immediately, though you're all too young to remember. Her wound bled her into a weakness from which she couldn't fight the rot that entered her belly. She died after four days of agony.”
Pegg and Aims exchanged glances again. Chakra had never told them any of this.
“Do you know what I did?” Yoren asked with a flat edge to his voice.
“They say...” Even Thruss wasn't sure if he should say anything for once. “They say you disappeared into the forest for a week... from grief... to mourn.”
“No, boys.” Yoren shook his head and lowered it as if to study the back of his horse's bobbing head. “I was gone a year.”
That was a shock to all of them.
“I hunted down those thieves. They had disbanded shortly after stabbing my wife, spreading out to all corners of the Kingdom and starting new lives, some as if they had never once been outlaws.” He looked over his shoulder briefly before he faced forward again. “I hunted them down, each and every one of them, and I killed the lot of them. Some fought. Others died in their sleep. But they all wound up as dead as the rest in the end.”
Aims couldn't help but swallow as his mouth turned dry.
“I would have done anything to save my wife, boys, yet that was impossible, so I struck out and avenged her death to the last man. I didn't know who had been the one, who had actually held the knife, and I didn't care. I held each and every one of them responsible as though he had been it.” He turned to look at them then, the glint in his eyes only deepening the steady calm of his demeanor. “My son has a chance to save his beloved. A chance I never did. And though it is a foolish choice, I cannot begrudge him for it. I will not.”
- - -
Chakra's sleep was instantaneous and, initially, dreamless. His body was so exhausted that even his subconscious capitulated to the overwhelming need for rest. But the dreams did come, faint and distant, ever-changing in a haze that remained just out of the reach of realization. Stresses and anxieties, fears and anger all came and went, ebbing and flowing over him like an ethereal stream on the banks of his soul.
Images of his mother came and went. His memory of her face was blurred now, her features just out of reach. She died when he was so young. She had barely lived when the rot took her. Sadness crept in as those details faded farther away. A rot inside her.
Then Melina was there, smiling and laughing. The red sash wrapped around her neck and raven hair stood in brilliant contrast to the gray world around her. Her laughter faded suddenly. She reached for him now, calling out to him. Her fear was apparent now, growing and drawing his own even more rapidly to the surface as she faded into the darkness.
And then he was riding. Mighty black armor sealed around him, protecting him and guiding him. In his hand he held a torch, blazing bright against a black forest made darker still by the vacuum of the night sky. Under him ran the pulsing strength of the dark horse, whose fury and might raged in reflection of his own.
Under the arches of craggy branches they rode, faster and faster until suddenly they were in the clear. A long swath of broken stone lay bare to either side for hundreds of yards, facing a broad gap that was only joined by a solitary bridge of broken black stone. Across the bridge stood a magnificent black castle, covered in the vines and weeds of a century's growth and neglect. No lights burned here save the torch in his hand. He knew that solitary fire was the only source of life remaining among the soaring mountains.
Beyond the castle he could hear the pounding crash of waves. Caught between mountains and the rising chaos of the sea, in another even taller tower, he knew his love awaited. She was alive, but only just.
He slowed the dark horse across the bridge, lowering himself smoothly from the saddle without once taking his gaze from the ramparts. The black mask that covered his face left his eyes clear to see, though the sound of his breathing resonated off the metal and echoed harshly in his ears. He drew the sword from his belt, long and cruel and as brilliant as polished obsidian in the moonlight. He tested its weight subconsciously, his eyes still studying the gateway to the castle and the ramparts above.
The door swung open easily enough, the creak of the rotten wood swinging on rusted hinges drawing no response from the overgrown yard within. He continued down the path, using the torch to see, wondering what hell it would draw to him. Nothing appeared or made its presence known, but he knew he was not alone. An ancient evil resided here. A mighty power that threatened to imprison his love and separate them forever.
He pushed on the doors at the top of the stairs with his sword hand, the deep red stain of the wood reflecting dully against the presence of the torch. The moon continued its ascent from behind the mountains, but the light from its thin crescent revealed nothing more than the intricacies of the interweaving vines that grew everywhere stone rose above the ground.
He entered the passageway running crosswis
e beyond the door. Massive tapestries hung along the wall in regular intervals, unraveling from the bottom, colors faded in spite of the pervasive darkness. There must have been dozens on his left and his right, but the hall disappeared quickly beyond the reach of his torch.
He could hear them scratching against the stone now, sensed them above him, knew they would drop at any moment. He made it across the short distance to the next set of doors and opened them. He wondered if the monsters’ curiosity was getting the better of them, or if the sight of fire in their den kept them at bay. This chamber was also short, but square and ringed with doors. The far door was the one he wanted. He knew it with supernatural clarity.
The first monsters dropped then, others rushing him from the side. He spun the blade like a baton, so great was his strength, whipping it up into the face of the first gray-skinned monster and bringing it back down into the shoulder of the next on his left. They were spindly, wretched creatures with webbing under their arms and vicious, small mouths lined with sharp teeth. They hissed and flapped and flew at him to attack.
Whistling came the blade, slitting through each in turn as he sliced and hammered them into oblivion. More were coming from deep within the castle. He could feel it. He needed to press on. Through the far doors he went, discovering the most magnificent hall he had ever seen. Broad stairs ran up its center to a high platform on which thrones must once have rested.
Along the sides of the room the trickle of water could be heard dully running among an intricate decorative irrigation that made the entire incline look as though it were home to a dozen creeks and waterfalls. Above the water and along the walls hung more broad tapestries of reds and orange, depicting warriors and beasts, castles and dragons. He knew it all as much as he saw it. He stepped forward as the monsters threw themselves at him from the vaulted ceiling.
He spun, bringing his sword up in an arc to catch the first emaciated figure before it ever reached him, and split its stunted face open at the chin. More were dropping now as an acrid smell like tar reached his nostrils. His torch didn't smell like this, he realized, and in a flash he knew what he was to do.
He spun again. One of the gray, bat-like monsters reached out for him as it launched itself from the stairs ahead. He lopped its arms off before shouldering it over and past him. He threw the torch then, directly into the liquid running along the stairs, and began to run for the top of the platform. The monsters raged and hissed and howled as they saw the torch plunge into the black liquid. They launched themselves at him from every direction as the fire reappeared on the surface and began to spread rapidly.
The monsters attacked from everywhere, but the fire was driving them back where it spread, and soon the entire system of creeks comprised a blazing patchwork inferno. He had both hands on the hilt of his sword now, swinging and hacking and killing with ease as the monsters dropped and jumped and clawed and bit. His armor shielded him from the claws, and his sword slit through each and every one it touched like they were paper birds.
He gained the platform as the tapestries caught fire and the temperature in the hall began to spike. He ran into a passage hidden just beyond where the thrones belonged. He ran down the dark hallway attached to it, the blaze of his fire illuminating the way from behind. He dashed up a spiral stair until suddenly the moon blazed from above, no longer a sliver of light but nearly full. Its waxing matched his hopes.
He was at the top of the keep, at its back edge and facing the ocean. Beyond him was a bridge that ran high above the water to a massive outcropping of stone. From that stone rose a broad tower that stood twice as high as the keep, and at its top he knew his love awaited.
He rushed forward, jumping down onto the bridge and running for the far side. The stones behind him began to crack from the radiating heat of his fire. Life, growing and burning away the dead husk of this place.
Ahead stood a door, a door that opened wide as he approached. From it emerged a massive armored figure much greater than he. Spikes crowned its helm, glimmering in the moonlight as it swung its ax free from its back.
He was so close. His love was just beyond this final challenge, this last contender. A burst of fresh energy flamed through him like the fire in the castle and he threw himself at the monstrous warrior. The monster spun in response, bringing the ax around and down on his head. He dodged to the side and shot his sword out to catch it in the chest, but the ax handle tipped up quickly and deflected his blow.
The monster kicked out, catching him in the side and regaining space between them. It roared and hauled on the ax until it spun in a circle. The ax whistled each time it flew past his head, but he knew that it held no real danger for him, none of this did. Nothing would stop him.
Nothing could stop him.
He brought his sword up in a quick stroke of his own, connecting with the ax as it passed again and knocked it in the air. The warrior blurted a sound of surprise, then gurgled against the pressure of his sword as it penetrated its throat. He pulled down on the blade and kicked the monster in the stomach, sending it a few steps back before he thrust his blade into its heart.
The monster dropped to its knees. It twitched there for an instant before it fell over and slid off of his sword, dead on the ground. He didn't hesitate, didn't take a moment to enjoy his victory or gloat over his enemy. Time was short. He rushed up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time until suddenly he burst through the trap door at the top and into the moonlight. There, standing among the ramparts in a dress of billowing black, he found his love.
“Melina.” Her name tumbled from his lips as if some distant memory.
She turned, the red of her sash just visible in her black hair. Her bare feet like splotches of lye between the dark merlons, her hands resting upon them. She smiled, and stepped from the edge to join him on the roof of the tower. They came together in a rush.
“I love you,” he whispered as he held her tight. “I love you so much.”
“I always hoped you'd come...”
He hugged her close, when a concussion ripped through the night behind her. The castle erupted into a thundercloud of fire, causing Chakra's pulse to quicken involuntarily. As the explosion grew, he felt her disappear suddenly. Time slowed and jittered around them as Melina flashed back and forth, from the edge of the tower back into his arms and out again countless times. Then the fire was gone and the castle whole. The silence of the night was only broken by the crash of the sea and the snap of the breeze. Melina was back among the merlons ringing the tower's edge.
At first she looked at him in fear, as if she didn't know him. No. As if she knew exactly what he was, and her fear was replaced with resolution. A depth of sorrow warped her eyes into the saddest expression he had ever seen.
His heart leaped to see her as if he hadn't just been holding her, but broke with the certainty of what was then to happen. He stepped forward. His hand reached out for her as if to close the gap in a single gesture, before she took one final step back and over the edge.
- - -
“MELINA!” Chakra sat up with a start, the cold sweat burning his eyes instantly as he worked to control his breathing. Why...
The sun was already setting, and his stomach contracted against a rumble as he worked to get to his knees. The wounds along his arms and legs were beginning to heal, but were still stiff and sore, protesting loudly against any movement he made. They were healing better than he would expect though. He practically ripped open the sack he had brought along. Chakra grabbed the water skin at the bottom, draining half of it before he regained control of himself and sat back against the boulder under which he had slept.
Alternating images of Melina in his arms and falling from the tower flashed in his mind so quickly he thought he might retch. Why would I dream that? He rubbed his temples as the images persisted. The thought of Melina with him again and that of her jumping both twisted his stomach into knots for different reasons. He missed her so badly, and it hadn’t even been a day.
> He sighed heavily as he looked up at the waning evening. His thirst for the safety of the light was akin to the dehydration threatening to bring about a headache. He ate what he could, which turned out to be far more than he expected, then set to attaching the new armor to his leg. The greave came up all the way to cover his hip, securing easily to his belt and around his thighs. The cuisse was attached to the greave by a hinge at the knee, the shin drawing to a sharp point at the top into a protective shell over the kneecap.
Chakra flexed his leg and moved it around, finding the armor stiffer and more cumbersome than the other pieces. That’s strange, he thought. But still, it’s better than nothing.
He sighed heavily again as he finished buckling the armor on and his thoughts turned to Melina. There wasn't any time to spare. The different endings to his dream built a new anxiety in him. He knew which one he wanted to make happen. It was time to go.
The path was easy enough to find, not twenty feet from where he had thrown himself down to sleep, but just as he turned down it the topaz and its brothers came to life. Except for the one on his leg.
Oh no… He waved his arm over the new armor on his leg, cursing as it elicited no reaction. He looked down the path leading to the cliff. He knew he had to head that way. He had found a false piece of armor.
A cliff? His apprehension returned in force. I have to fight something on a cliff? Images of the snout breaking from the ground flashed in his mind. He shook those thoughts free and moved along the path.
Chakra stopped at the open clearing on the path and inspected it for a moment. The topaz on his arm made no warnings, but he still felt uncertain. Come on, he thought as the sun continued to set. I’m running out of time.
Nothing appeared to stop him as he crossed, and soon he was approaching the cliff. The blue tint of the gems in his armor seemed to cover the walls as he drew closer. And then nothing. Nothing attacked. Nothing spoke.