The Marechal Chronicles: Volume VI, The Crucible: A Dark Fantasy Tale

by Aimelie Aames

  The scarred man shook violently from one end to the other as unseen demons flayed the flesh from his bones.

  “You see, you won’t die from it. Not for several days, at least, I have been assured. Although that won’t stop you from begging me to finish you long beforehand.”

  Again, the assassin nudged the fallen man with the toe of his boot. Just then, in a chorus of voices that rose in horror, a sound unshaped by their missing tongues, the archers, each to a one, screamed a wordless cry that ended just as abruptly as it began.

  “And now the last grain of sand has fallen,” he said while pointing in the direction of the hourglass on the table.

  “Which means I can shout to the heavens that no, it wasn’t Alexandre who has slain this slimy Eel. It was me and I would do it again, twice over, if I could.”

  He paused, listening.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked, then waited a moment before continuing, “Neither do I, which is to say that where one poison is good, two poisons are better.”

  He chuckled then continued speaking, obviously delighted with his own ingenuity.

  “The Eel’s hidden protectors joined us in a toast at the same moment a shepherd’s bell sounded. The hour glass was turned and its sands began counting all that remained of the mute archers’ lives. Fortunately for them, and to the contrary for you, the poison they swallowed gives nothing of itself away until the very last, precisely measured second when life flees the body just as surely as it does under the executioner’s axe.

  “The Eel himself, however, was already dead. A puppet to which I held the strings, of course, until no longer necessary.”

  He shook his head sadly, his mouth downturned in mock sympathy.

  “Now. I know the torment that besets you is excruciating, so let us end it sooner rather than later.

  “Tell me where I can find the girl.”

  The assassin swept away from him and began to pace as he continued speaking.

  “Don’t answer too quickly. Consider carefully, Alexandre, for this is no time for foolish acts that smack of gallant protection for the woman who rejected you and left you in drunken sorrow.”

  The scarred man fought within himself, the pain a savage beast that came again and again to rake him with ragged invisible claws, shredding his flesh from within, threatening to tear apart his sanity.

  Why does the pain not abate?

  Never before had it taken so long for his body to repair itself, to shrug off whatever hurt befell the man who could not die.

  He struggled to master himself, counting on the fact that soon his health would return and his vengeance with it.

  Alexandre drew a ragged breath.

  “I am the Marechal de Barristide, a man of law,” he shouted, but the sound issuing from his lips was little more than a whisper.

  “I am charged with discovering the truth behind a series of murders that I have followed to this very town.”

  He choked upon his words as the pain reared its hideous head and bit into his soul again.

  “Since my coming here, no further murders have been reported, no more skinning of dead men.”

  Please, he pleaded with whatever power it was that had saved him after every battle he had ever fought. Take this pain from me and give me back the strength to kill, if only this one last time.

  “Once, the goblins had nearly brought the war to a close so long ago — they had organized and discovered the means of hiding themselves as spies while wearing the skins of men.”

  The Marechal’s voice grew steadier, yet the pain wracked him still. His was a litany that he had longed to recite in the presence of the vermin then before him. It was the only strength he had left to him.

  “You cannot know this,” Klees said, more to himself than to his adversary.

  “I can and I do. I was there,” the Marechal replied. “I saw as I cleaved a nobleman and his wife with my blade and was witness as their skins fell away to reveal the evil beasts hidden within.

  “I killed and I killed and when I returned to my army, I discovered that the woman I had loved had met her own death in my absence.

  “Since then, the guilt of not being at her side when she needed me most has been a festering wound in my too few memories.”

  Without understanding just how he managed it, he rolled over, his hand taking hold of the pommel of his main-gauche.

  “All of it … then and now … is too much of a coincidence to be believed.”

  He stopped, forcing his vision to focus, then fixed his eyes on those of Modest Klees, who stopped pacing at once.

  "Who are you? Who is it that now wears the skin of a dead man once known as the Eel's Dagger?"

  Modest Klees' eyes looked quickly from right to left, then he chuckled.

  "Very well. My family would say that I am a foolish wanderer, a troublemaker. Me, I would say that I am far too creative for my own good and that my own people are … so … dreadfully boring.

  "Over more years than I can count, I have wandered until I have seen it all. And then the boredom that has ever dogged my heels found me at last. At that point there was nothing I could do but seek an antidote.”

  The sound of his own voice recounting his own history proved reassuring to the assassin, who continued speaking with increasing enthusiasm.

  “I'd heard of a war of monsters and men, and I thought that it might prove to be an interesting diversion.

  “And it was. It really was. I walked amongst the beasts, then I taught them a thing or two. Soon enough, I was directing them, giving them orders and all was well once more, even though mankind's own future appeared to be quite grim.

  “But my old friend and worst enemy — boredom — came knocking once more and the day came when I lost interest in the goblins and their war. Staying with them would have meant endless decision making … why, I daresay it could well have become a goblin bureaucracy with me at its head.”

  Klees shook his head.

  “That would have been a fate worse than death itself, and so I left them to it, which, of course, meant that they botched the whole thing soon thereafter.

  “I went home then and stayed there for some time. Certain of my people thought it best to lock me away and it did take me some time to undo that little predicament and once undone, I came back to this world.

  “I traveled as before, and as before, I grew bored until I thought of a new game to play. Instead of going in for such extravagance, as with an entire war and civilizations at stake, I decided to be craftier, more original and a little less ambitious in scope. I daresay, from my point of view, I had learned self-discipline after so long and discovered how to take comfort in the little things in life.”

  His discourse flowed on as his face grew more animated with the telling.

  “Thus I decided to seduce young women and fill them with my deadly seed. They returned to their homes and soon enough all hell was unleashed before my fire, the ever-faithful flame, came back to me.

  “My seduction depended on my best resemblance to human men, so I killed likely subjects, slipped their skins off slippery quick, and wore them for fun and pleasure.

  “So it went on until that last time.

  “The last time when my power did not do as expected.”

  His jovial manner shifted sickeningly to a hateful mien.

  “Now she has it and I want it back, for I am trapped in this horrid form and I want out.”

  "Trapped, are you?" whispered the swordsman.

  "Yes, yes … what does it matter?” the assassin replied. “In the end, I will have my way. You will be dead, the girl will be dead, and I will be free again to wander about sowing mischief helter-skelter and to hell with those who can't see the amusement in it."

  Alexandre took his turn to speak, and it was with agony and irony evinced in each syllable.

  “You see what you do as a simple distraction? For you it is nothing more than, say, a pleasantry?

  “You play with the lives of good men
and women. You are no god. On the contrary, you are a fool.”

  The pain did not abate. The Marechal did not care. All that he knew was that the object of so many years of desire for vengeance was finally before him.

  His body quaked in a great shudder, then he drew his arms under him and pushed himself upright.

  Klees took a startled step backward.

  "But this cannot be!"

  "It is, though," the Marechal replied as he shifted to get his legs under him, then stood up.

  "No," the Eel's henchman said, his voice small and quiet.

  The swordsman swayed as obvious pain wracked him.

  "You should have believed me when I told you that I fought in the Goblin War."

  He took a lumbering step toward the man looking back at him with horrified surprise.

  "You should have believed me when I told you that no blade can harm me."

  "You should have listened when I told you that no one can hurt me."

  Another step was taken. The swordsman swayed precariously, then regained his balance as he continued speaking.

  "You should have realized that you are no exception. You are not as special as you believe yourself to be.

  "You are not as invulnerable as you think you are. And I am about to show you what I mean."

  Agony slowed his movements, excruciating pain took away his grace, but this did not stop the Marechal from bounding forward as he lifted both his sword and his main gauche, then plunge them into the body of the fear-stricken man before him.

  "Feel how they bite. That is the kind of pain you have inflicted on others."

  The Marechal took a staggering step backward as he pulled his short sword free of Klees' chest while leaving the other blade where it was — skewering his foe and pinning him in place with its point deeply buried in a wooden beam just behind Klees.

  Then he struck out with his short sword in four broad sweeping cuts, the blade licking forward and back again like a great serpent's tongue.

  "It hurts, does it not?"

  The scarred swordsman tried to sheathe the main gauche, but instead of finding its scabbard, the weapon clattered to the floor.

  He leaned close to the man before him, then seized either side of his face, there where his blade had scored him from top to bottom and from side to side.

  The Marechal gritted his teeth and he ripped his hands downward, the skin of a man tearing apart and away in his grip.

  A mottled grey and black visage stared back at him, and the Marechal's first thought was of coals in a hearth, nearly spent.

  "Pity me then, strange man," the creature said. "She has drawn almost all my power away. I am at your mercy, for I have played for my last hope and now it is over."

  The swordsman shook his head, a grimace belying the agony gripping him to his very bones.

  "Not over. Not yet,” he gasped. “First, I will flay you bare. Then I will set to the rest of you with my blades until whatever animates you is bled away and I am assured that you will never trouble anyone ever again."

  His hands shaking, the Marechal pulled his sword free of the creature's chest, unpinning it from the wooden beam behind it.

  The thing that had hidden behind the face of Modest Klees slumped to the floor then gripped the swordsman by the ankles as it craned its head back to look up at him with smeary, chalk-colored eyes.

  "I beg you. Mercy."

  The Marechal responded with a single word as he raised his blade.

  "No."

  Suddenly the very floor beneath Alexandre’s feet trembled.

  Then the heavy pair of doors to the hall blew inward like the loose pages of a book.

  A sound like thunder shook the entire building, and a being with fire coruscating around it swept toward both of them.

  "Mesrin!" an echoing voice intoned.

  The being at the Marechal's feet gasped.

  "I am saved," a sound like laughter escaped it. "You are lost."

  Then the Marechal was stumbling away from the creature, his sword raised as he turned about, doing his best to face them both.

  The newcomer glanced toward the swordsman, then back at the creature he had named Mesrin.

  “Your time in this world has come to an end. Lest has asked that I not harm you. From what I have seen, these humans are far more perilous than I had imagined. From what I see of you now, it is doubly apparent.”

  The ashen creature whose fire did not burn like that of his counterpart nodded frantically.

  “Fine. I am done with this place. But first, you must aid me, Raffiran. My power has been stolen by a human. Together, we can find her and get it back.”

  Mesrin pointed a blackened finger toward the swordsman.

  “For now, burn this fool to the ground.”

  Instead of erupting into an inferno that would have brought the entire building down, the newcomer’s flames abated then went out.

  It stood there, a golden-skinned manlike figure that crossed its arms, considering.

  The Marechal did not move. He could not fathom how his sword might combat the thing that had come to impose itself between him and his long sought adversary.

  “Human. What does my kin represent for you?”

  The Marechal did not hesitate.

  “He is a criminal. He deserves death a thousand times over for what he has wrought among my kind.”

  “And what is he, for you?” intoned the newcomer.

  The Marechal did not hesitate.

  “He is the villain I have hunted for so many years, I have lost count. I require a reckoning for his crimes.”

  “And Mesrin, what have you done to him?” the golden being asked without looking away from the swordsman before him.

  “Oh, it’s just poison,” Mesrin replied with a dismissive voice. “A draught known as Lierre’s Wrath. Extremely painful with no known antidote. This human will suffer for a few days before his inevitable death.”

  The reply from the golden being echoed like a condemnation.

  “Then you have sunk lower than I would have believed possible, brother to my wife,” he said, the sneer in his tone perfectly clear.

  He turned to the swordsman.

  “I could level this place and you with it. But know this. Mesrin will be removed from your world and shall never trouble it again. Furthermore, to punish him and to ensure that he does not escape from us ever again, I will make no attempt to recuperate his power from whoever has it now.

  “Does this seem just to you?”

  The Marechal wanted to say no, he wanted to see the creature named Mesrin brought to its knees, then cut down until absolutely nothing was left.

  “It appears I have little choice.”

  “You speak truly. You do not.”

  The golden-skinned being approached the Marechal while the other collapsed to the floor, whimpering for forgiveness.

  “The pain you feel is written clearly upon you. Shall I end it? If you so desire, I will destroy you and call it mercy.”

  The Marechal shook his head weakly.

  “No. I only require your word that you will do as you say. Take this vile creature with you and never let him return.”

  “Very well. As High General of the Estril race, I so vow.”

  Then it turned away from him, its flame wrapping its body anew as it approached its fellow.

  “I thank you,” the Marechal whispered, watching as it came to the being cringing on the floor.

  “Enough, Mesrin. My oath is given. It is time to quit this place. I have had enough of humans.”

  It bent down and swept the burnt out, protesting creature into its arms, then a golden line formed before it that opened wide into a blaze of golden light.

  “I beg you, Raffiran. I beg you.”

  “Silence!”

  “Wait … wait!” Mesrin pleaded.

  “What is it?”

  And with something like glee in his voice, he asked, “Do you know you have paint on your face?”

  If th
ere was answer to that question, the Marechal did not hear it. The two of them disappeared into the opening, which slammed shut just as abruptly as it had come.

  Then silence fell like a sodden blanket and the Marechal fell with it, the last of his strength ebbing away.

  Mercy. Let me heal. Take this poison from my veins.

  But pain wracked him anew and tears came unbidden to the swordsman’s eyes.

  Mercy.

  He did not realize his eyes were closed until he felt someone lift him from the floor.

  It was done carefully, tenderly, and the agony that rode the Marechal took all resistance away from him.

  He felt himself being carried while the arrows in his legs were gently pulled from his flesh.

  Without warning, his surroundings changed. The sounds of a vast wilderland came to his ears. The scent of a deep forest filled his nose.

  With a supreme effort, the Marechal forced his eyes open enough to see one thing.

  “Blue.”

  The demon tracker that had accompanied him during his search for Melisse looked down at him, then its lips lifted in its usual hideous fanged grin.

  Then the Marechal knew no more as pain swept him into a tempest of unrelenting torment. This time he had no means of fighting against it nor against the unlooked for mercy of a lizard demon’s embrace.

  Chapter Fifteen — The Tower

  The ground shook.

  Gusts of wind rose and birds exploded into the night sky before turning in midair. They beat their wings frantically, pivoting violently without taking time to form an orderly flock before winging away as quickly as they could.

  Melisse backed away as verdant plants slumped before her, their leaves drying instantly, the color veering instantly from green to dead brown.

  Tree trunks shuddered where they stood, then burst with the sound of shrieking heartwood tearing apart.

  The darkened wasteland surrounding the fallen tower of the alchemist appeared to have taken on a life of its own, and all that it wanted was to devour everything in sight.