Brotherhood Saga 03: Death

by Kody Boye

  We share something though.

  What, though? He couldn’t say love, for he didn’t truly know whether or not he was in such a thing or if Virgin did, for a fact, care for him, nor could he say that their similar lineage was a bonding point between them, for they rarely talked about it. To anyone looking upon the situation, they could have been anything but similar—a champion and a thief walking hand-in-hand down the ever-changing road of life.

  “I know,” Odin finally said, stopping in the middle of the road to better compose himself for the conversation likely to follow. “I’m sorry, Virgin.”

  “For what?”

  “For acting needy.”

  “You’re nothing of the sort, Odin. If anything, you’re the least destitute person I’ve ever met.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “I do.”

  Odin said nothing. Instead, he turned his head to look upon the situation before them.

  Few people within the streets stopped to acknowledge them, much less turn. Unlike in human settlements, towns and villages, there were few women standing alongside the road chatting with friends or engaging in dialogue with husbands, no men handling animals or rousing their children in from long days of play. What unsettled him the most—and, possibly, most importantly—was the scarcity of children. He saw no Elven child seated within the middle of the street playing marbles with his friends, no little girl running after a kitten, crying with glee as she captured it within her outstretched hands and showed it to the world with pride, no little boy swinging a sword in the middle of the street to fight in his fantasies a monster that tried to slay his friends and family. There seemed to be none of that here, this normality he had become so used to, and for that he couldn’t help but stare at the few Elves he did see, for they seemed a sight that did not exist within these strange, empty streets.

  It’s so much different, he thought, than our world.

  Could he honestly say that this place—this city of greatness—was not his world? He was, after all, two parts Elf, even if one of those were tainted, vile and rude, so he couldn’t argue with the fact that this place, among others, should have counted among his many homes. Felnon, Ornala, Lesliana—all were, in a way, bound to him, the first in youth, the second in age, the third blood. He could not deny the fact that he was now, with strength and resolution, standing upon the ground where part of him had come from once upon a time, in a land far away and a time too far off to tell.

  A pair of arms slipped around his shoulders.

  Odin turned his head to look into Virgin’s eyes. “You ok?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Virgin said. “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good. Let’s get back to the inn and kill a few hours before we have to come back to the tailor shop.”

  Odin stood before what was perhaps one of the most ornate mirrors he had ever seen looking upon his ensemble. A golden cape at his back, a pair of white gloves upon his hands, his long-sleeved shirt buttoned, secured, framed upon his broad chest and his pants and boots shining in colors of bronze—he had never felt more confident in his appearance than at that moment, when the tailor finished securing his hair into a fine braid and adjusting the bangs at the side of his head.

  “You look… amazing,” Virgin said, stepping up behind him to look at Odin’s reflection.

  “Thank you,” Odin said, almost shy with jealousy.

  “It is quite the outfit if I do say so myself,” the tailor said, counting the money secured within his palm. “I never made it with the intent of ever having a Yamda wear it, but I have to say, it really does suit you.”

  “It does,” Virgin agreed, clapping Odin’s upper arms before taking a few steps back.

  “Is there anything else I can do to thank you?” Odin asked, turning his attention on the tailor who stood no more than a few feet away. “I really can’t thank you enough.”

  “There is no need to thank me any more than you already have. Seeing it on you is thanks enough.” The Elf slid the gold into his pocket and gestured them toward the entrance of the shop. “I hate to say it, friends, but I must close for the night. Good luck at your meeting, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Odin said.

  The door closed firmly behind them.

  “Guess this is it then,” Odin said, training his eyes on the distant silhouette of the castle.

  “Might I have your arm, sir Odin?” Virgin asked.

  “You may,” Odin said.

  He slid his arm between Virgin’s elbow and chest and started forward, all the while wondering just what it was they would encounter come time they entered the castle.

  It could, in a few simple words, be described as magical. Torches burning along the corridor walls, the halls flushed with green tapestry and covered in rugs of the same color, those bearing upon their surfaces an insignia resembling something of a creature carrying a city upon its head, the few windows along the western scope of the ornately-created castle gilded and made in stained glass—they marched up the southern expanse of the corridor with two sets of guards in rows of three both behind and in front of them in preparation for what could have been one of the most important moments of their lives. As commoners, they were instructed to do whatever it was they were told without question, and as refined guests they were told to be honored, so when they turned into a side hall with little word of warning, Odin simply followed suit and kept his silence as Virgin held his head high and proud in the face of such noble persecution.

  This place, Odin thought.

  He could truthfully and honestly say that this castle was far more beautiful than anything humankind could have ever made, if only because it seemed with a simple conscience that shapes abstract and lacking definitive shape could, in fact, be beautiful. Ornala was, in a way, a modernization of art that would likely lead only to more and more standardized creations. Buildings would be made square, towers reduced, reshaped to rectangles, squares, the occasional triangle, structures would be cast in geometric shapes that resembled things commonplace and without diversity—humankind, it seemed, wanted to create a world completely devoid of art, which made Odin tremble in the fact of such ornate beauty around him.

  You would never find something this far north, he thought. Or west, or east.

  “Or anywhere,” he whispered.

  “You say something?” Virgin asked.

  “No,” Odin said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  With a simple shrug, the older Halfling set his hands at his side and continued following the guards down the hallway.

  For what felt like hours they marched through corridors—first straight, then rounded, then completely angular and, at points, heading up inclines and then descending down declines. There seemed no end to this convoluted mess of halls, walls and tapestries, so when they finally stopped in place for several long, undeterminable moments, Odin thought that they had finally come to the place, only to find that the guards had just stopped in order to let someone passing down the hall go forward first.

  “I hate to complain,” Odin said, “but how much longer will it be until we’re at High Mage Jarden’s office?”

  “We will be there soon,” one of the guards said, shifting his shoulders to allow the thin but obviously-protective armor to fluctuate over his upper back. “As to his ‘office,’ the High Mage does not live within an ‘office.’ It is Jarden’s own personal quarters, where you will likely be dining and meeting in his personal living room.”

  “I see,” Odin said.

  Virgin only offered a shrug in response.

  They continued through the halls for several longer periods of time. It occurred to Odin in the expanse of time it took to round one level and then another that this castle, as small as it seemed to be from the outside, was obviously much larger he had initially anticipated. Had he a common thought about it, it would have been that the interlaced hands-like structure was actually a mere illusion to the actual size it held, for though
his pursuits through Ornala’s castle had been aplenty, he had never spent this much time going from one end to the other.

  Will this ever end? he thought.

  Just when it seemed like it never would, the guards stopped in the middle of the hall, directly where, to their left, a door stood in plain and simple glory.

  “Is this it?” Virgin asked.

  “This is High Mage Jarden’s office,” the only guard who’d managed to speak the entire time said, turning in unison with his fellow Elves to face them. “Knock on the door and wait for it to open.”

  “It opens on its own?”

  None of the Elves answered.

  Stepping forward, but carefully as to not trip over his own feet, Odin raised his hand, knocked on the door, then stepped back in preparation for the moment he would meet the Neven D’Carda and thereby either succeed with his plan or fail in it.

  As one, the guards stepped away.

  Virgin frowned.

  Odin was about to open his mouth and say something when the door opened, revealing to them a long, darkened hallway with what appeared to be a single candle alight on a second door at the end of the corridor.

  “Can we,” Odin started.

  The guards said nothing.

  Virgin pressed a hand on Odin’s back and pushed him forward.

  When the door closed of its own accord and almost-absolute darkness overwhelmed them, Odin raised his hand, tilted his palm up to the air, then willed a single bead of light to float in the air before him.

  I thought it would be nullified, he thought, watching the orb float ahead of them.

  “It’s beautiful,” Virgin said.

  Odin shrugged, stepped forward to lead them down the corridor, then asked, “Why do you think this person has their personal quarters so set away like this?”

  “Some Neven D’Carda are deformed.”

  “Deformed?”

  “They don’t have an arm, a leg, that sort of thing.”

  “You said they were neither male nor female,” Odin said, turning his head to look at Virgin’s face in the semi-light braced before them. “Does that mean they’re both?”

  “I’m not of the authority to answer. If you want, you can ask ze.”

  “Ze?”

  “Neutral terminology.”

  “Oh,” Odin frowned. “So… ze and zir, then? Is that appropriate?”

  “As appropriate as you can get when speaking to something that does not identify as male or female.”

  With a short nod, Odin stepped before the door and raised his hand to knock.

  A flicker of movement caught his eye.

  He trained his attention at the very top of the door, directly beneath where the candle burned bright.

  Did I just see that, he thought, or was I seeing things?

  He could have sworn he’d just seen a pair of eyes look out at him.

  Did I, though?

  Rather than dwell on the specifics, he set his hand directly before the door, looked back at Virgin for one brief moment, then knocked three times.

  Slowly, the door cracked open.

  “Yamda Odin?” a voice asked.

  “I’m him,” Odin replied. “With my friend Yamda Virgin.”

  “Come in.”

  The door opened.

  Odin raised his eyes.

  The creature directly before them could not be described as either sex of the natural world. Characterized by a pair of high cheekbones, a pair of thin, almost-invisible lips and a nose small yet dignified upon the porcelain features of an almost sheet-white face, the most startling feature upon the Neven D’Carda’s face, save for zirs completely-bald, dome-shaped head was zirs eyes—which, for all purposes, bore no pupils or irises at all. Instead, nothing more than a pair of white sclera looked down at him from zirs awkward height of some eight-and-a-half-feet, which, combined with zirs extremely-skinny and lengthy form, made ze a sort of anomaly in forms of structure and character.

  “Yamda,” the Neven D’Carda said, extending one abnormally-long index finger out to touch his shoulder. “Welcome.”

  “Thank you,” Odin said, almost unable to tear his eyes away from the being named Jarden’s face.

  “Welcome, Yamda,” Jarden said, touching Virgin’s shoulder as he stepped forward and into the ornately-structured living room, which lay furnished in shades of white and grey. “You are Yamda Odin’s companion and partner, correct?”

  “Correct,” Virgin said, nodding his head as Jarden lifted zirs digit and shut the door with a simple wave of the hand.

  “It is an honor to have the both of you here, Yamda Odin, Yamda Virgin. Please, come—I have prepared dinner for the two of you.”

  “Thank you,” Odin said, stepping into the room.

  The Neven D’Carda led them through the wide, expansive living room and toward what appeared to be the dining room, which lay complete with two pairs of plates and utensils arranged to the left and right of the table. Lit by what appeared to be magicked rings upon the ceiling, the magic—white in color, which struck Odin a bit odd, considering he had never seen it before in anything other than his own magic—reflected off of the bland white walls and cast the room in a soft glow that both comforted and mystified him.

  “You’re not eating?” Odin frowned, turning his attention to the chair at the far end of the table, which stood empty and without an audience of food.

  “I do not eat,” Jarden said. “There is no need.”

  “Oh.”

  “I prepared your dinner with the fact that you are both Yamda in mind. There are fresh fruits, vegetables and meats from the birds lying on the outskirts of the city.”

  “Meat?” Virgin frowned.

  “I thought,” Odin started.

  “I am not against feeding half-humans meat,” Jarden interrupted, casting zirs pale white eyes in Odin’s direction. “Especially you, my bastard friend.”

  “It didn’t take you long to figure it out.”

  “I see it like a blot of blood upon your face, young one. Sit, please. There is much to discuss.”

  Odin took his seat to the left of the table and waited for Virgin to round its expanse and seat himself before turning his attention to Jarden, who maneuvered zirs wraithlike form across the room in but a few steps before seating zirself. There, ze set zirs elbows upon the table’s surface, laced zirs fingers together, then waited for the two of them to begin eating before clearing zirs throat and raising zirs dome-shaped head to watch the two of them.

  This is… odd, Odin thought.

  He didn’t expect to be eating while their host simply sat and watched.

  Directly across from him, Virgin’s soft but calculated gaze seemed to warn him against saying or doing anything.

  “How far have you come?” Jarden asked, turning zirs head to look at Odin.

  “I came from Dwaydor, sir… I mean, zir… in the country of Ornala.”

  “Do not apologize for pronunciations. I understand, and am surprised that you know gender-neutral pronouns.”

  “I was informed beforehand,” he said, giving a slight nod to Virgin.

  “I am honored you took the time to educate yourself before you have come here. Tell me, though—why are you here, so far south, in the Elven capital?”

  “My father… he… he died a few weeks ago in the war that took the Elven military north.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “Thank you, zir. I… to be perfectly honest, I came here out of blind rage because I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “What is it you seek in the south, Yamda Odin?”

  “Answers,” he said, “to what life really means, and what death intones.”

  “Those are answers that cannot be easily stated in the course of one sitting,” Jarden said, “but I am interested most in your magic. Healer Oleana said that you survived being attacked by a Nagani.”

  “Yes zir.”

  “How was this?”

  “My father’s sword,” he said
, reaching down to grasp the blade at his side.

  “May I see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The blade itself. The sheath is not needed.”

  Pushing himself away from the table, Odin stood, reached down, then drew the silver blade from its prison, precariously unsure of the fact that it had been freed out of need for speculation instead of actual defense. With ease he found almost impossible, he flipped the sword around, slid his hand along the side of the blade, then extended it hilt-first to Jarden, who took it within zirs long, bony hands and traced one long finger up the scope of the blade, examining it with eyes Odin found terrifyingly unnerving and all the more fascinating.

  “This is a beautiful blade,” the Neven D’Carda said, tilting zirs head to the side and looking at Odin from a skewed angle. “Elvish.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your blade… is it not Drow?”

  “It is.”

  Odin, too, pulled the blade that had been imparted on him nearly five years ago and extended it to Jarden, who took it in zirs hands after setting the silver sword down on the table. Like the previous blade, ze examined it carefully, even going so far as to trace the insignia on the hilt, before turning zirs attention back on Odin. “You are aware of their song,” ze said, “are you not?”

  “Are you talking about their hum?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “They’ve done it before.”

  “They are brother and sister blades, born from the same hand.”

  “I didn’t know,” Odin said.

  “From what I can tell,” Jarden said, placing zirs hands over both of the blades, “the creature that made these fell from grace long before your time. It is any wonder you hold in possession both of them. Was it not your father who gave them to you?”

  “The black one, as a gift,” Odin nodded. “The silver upon his death.”

  “Your father must have been a very old creature, young Yamda. You are honored to have been born from his blood.”

  You don’t know, he thought, reseating himself after Jarden returned both blades into his possession. You have absolutely no idea.

  In the moments of silence that followed, Odin began eating on Virgin’s subtle cue and kept his attention mostly on his food and not on that of his companion or the Neven D’Carda in their presence. While his first inclinations led him to believe that he would be far better off giving the creature who summoned them his full respect, he didn’t feel staring would get him anywhere, so he continued to pick at his food until little of it remained, only stopping to consider the glass of what was most obviously wine when he was almost done.