by Steven Drake
“Damned trickster!” Geoffray howled. “Damn your trickery! That was no good luck charm, it was a magic sword!”
“So it was. Perhaps you should have paid more attention before the fight began, and you might have noticed that.”
“You cheat! You have no honor!”
“Honor,” Darien scoffed. “There is no such thing. There is only victory and defeat. You do whatever is necessary to win, or you die at the hands of someone who will. What you call honor is nothing but the dream of weak men, who imagine some set of rules will protect them when they cannot protect themselves. You were defeated by your own idiotic ideals before you ever set foot in this arena. Now get out of my sight.” Darien turned and started to walk towards the gate where he had entered the arena. He did not expect to get far, and was proved correct. The blinded and weakened Geoffray, out of pride, or embarrassment, or perhaps some hope that the Executioner would end his misery, launched a final attack. Darien whirled to see Geoffray advancing, using mage sight to attack in the right general direction, but with greatly diminished speed. He was gripping the sword with one hand, sweeping in wide angles in front of him. His other hand held a ball of light, much like Jerris’ star spheres, but less than half as powerful. He’s looking for me to do something to give away my position then he’ll aim that light ball at me. Darien channeled his shadow magic into the aetherblade, and a shadow appeared in the shape of a blade. The sound of churning darkness energy attracted the attention of the knight, who charged a final time, hurling the light ball ahead of him. Darien swung the aetherblade, and the darkness consumed the light like it was no more than a bothersome firefly. Then as Geoffray got close, Darien cut his aetherblade across the heavy sword of the knight. The sword bent where the shadow contacted it, contorting in half, then it broke entirely, and twisted into two warped masses of metal, which flew a dozen yards away into the air, and clattered on the stone of the arena. With a wide leg sweep, Darien floored the knight, who fell backwards. A clanging din echoed through the empty arena as the armored knight landed on his back. Darien took the helm off the now utterly defeated knight and cast it across the arena. He held his aetherblade within inches of Geoffray’s neck, close enough for his enemy to feel that power so near the skin.
“Yield!” Darien commanded again. “Or I will make it worse. I’m not going to kill you, but I can inflict injuries that will leave you crippled and worthless for the rest of your days, a shell of a man dependent on the charity of others. I could cut off your limbs and burn the wounds shut so fast you wouldn’t even have time to bleed.” Geoffray lay frozen upon the ground, not daring to move, but not yet ready to surrender his pride, so Darien continued. “You wanted to fight the Executioner, the vicious criminal, the cursed elf, the godless monster, the nearest you could ever get to fighting the Demon King himself. Now that you’ve gotten to experience what it truly is to fight a monster, do you really want to push further into the darkness? I could show you levels of pain you didn’t know existed, but unlike the real monsters, I would take no pleasure in it. Allow me to stop now, and your healers can probably save your sight. Nothing need be permanently damaged but your pride, and I never intended to let you leave with that intact.” Darien withdrew the blade, taking a few steps back, but this time watching his enemy closely.
Geoffray clambered to his knees with clenched fists. The Executioner could tell that the proud man wanted to fight, but first the Shield Knight had to fight the fear, the terror of those threats spoken a moment before. Finally, the man broke, as Darien knew he would. Fear always won out in the end. Eyes swelled with tears that mixed with blood from wounds, pride broke against fear, and the Grand Marshal of the Golden Shield fell to the ground and wept, utterly broken. Darien was suddenly and painfully reminded that once, over six years ago, he had wept like that, crying bitter tears into the ground, begging for death from a man who, out of mercy, or cruelty, or some unknown purpose that was neither, refused to kill him. He felt a pang of guilt, and some measure of sympathy, however slight, poisoning the joy of his complete victory. The price of pride is painful indeed, Darien said to himself, as he walked away.
“I yield,” a weak and beaten voice called out as the Executioner strode away. He barely heard it.
As Darien left the floor of the arena, several soldiers ran out to tend to their injured commander, keeping a good distance away as they passed. Darien walked out the gate and down a set of steep stairs into the area where the fighters gathered to enter the arena. Here there was no gleaming, polished white, or golden domes. The entire area looked like a dungeon, and the air was thick with the usual dungeon smells. He’d barely noticed it when he had come in, so intense was his focus. Now, he noticed the grimy dirt floors, the dark soot covering walls, the smell of dried blood and the excrement of man and beast.
Darien lingered in the dungeon. Compared to the gold and white world of Trinium, this was comfortable. Darien leaned against a wall, wondering how long it would take before they sent someone to fetch him. Blood dripped from the cut on Darien’s hand and added to the grime on the floor. The pain did not even interrupt his thinking. I suppose they don’t bother to maintain their grandiosity where no one is looking, he mused. Everything above is clean, white, and polished, but down here it looks exactly like every other dungeon, including the Demon King’s. I wonder if any of them realize that.
After a few minutes, the knights passed by carrying their fallen captain. Some of them looked over with a strange mixture of anger, disdain, and horror. The light from the entrance dimmed as the sun continued setting, and finally, after some several more minutes wait, Jerris came trotting into view.
Chapter 15: The Executioner’s Presence
The experience had been unsettling for Jerris, seeing his teacher at his darkest and most cruel. The hollow emptiness in his eyes, the emotionless expression, the controlled precision of each movement, the way his aura darkened around him, as if fear could be a tangible thing. Nothing that he had experienced in training had prepared him for this. Ceres’ warning echoed in his mind. Was this the real Darien?
Still, Darien had spared Geoffray’s life. He could have killed the Shield Knight. He probably could have broken out of the city any time. He’s not entirely evil, Jerris tried to reassure himself. He’s just been through too much. He’s used to fighting this way. He always told me that combat is life and death. There’s no place for sympathy, or fear. You do what you have to, or you die. It’s always life or death for him, so he takes it seriously. He wouldn’t fight at all if he didn’t have to. Ugh, why did they send me to find him? Couldn’t they have come down here themselves? This dungeon is disgusting.
Finally, he saw Darien standing near the arena gate, leaning against a wall. “I thought you’d be here,” Jerris said as he ran up. “They’re waiting for you up above in the concourse.”
“Don’t want to dirty their feet walking through here I would imagine,” he scoffed back. “Very well, let’s go.” The two half-elves walked slowly. Darien appeared to be back to normal, at least, what Jerris thought was normal. It made him nervous, and he started to fidget. “Never seen me like that, have you?” the older half-elf asked perceptively.
“Erm… No, I guess not. I mean I’m sure you were like that when you fought Avirosa but everything happened so fast then, and then I passed out, so I didn’t really have time to think about it,” Jerris said quietly, nervously.
“No, with Avirosa I was out of practice, not at my best. I fought desperately, and was lucky to win. Without you and Rana, I probably would have lost. When I fought Geoffray just now, that was how I fought when I served the Demon King. It must have been frightening, seeing it for the first time.” Jerris didn’t answer. He was concentrating very hard on watching the slow rhythm of his feet. “I suppose it was just as well. You were bound to see it eventually, as you can’t seem to stop following me. Better you see it in me, so you can understand it when you have to face an enemy.” I suppose that’s right, Jerris thought. The
prophecy says I’m supposed to help defeat the Demon King. If that comes true, I will have to face others like Darien, and probably worse.
“It was scary, you changed into something else, something empty, cold. I could feel it.”
“Your mage sight is getting better. That effect is no accident. It’s called Shadow Haze.” Jerris looked up quizzically. Darien had never spoken of this before, nor demonstrated it. How much must he have been holding back during training? “It’s a form of subtle domination where you shift your aura to focus completely on an opponent. I told you how Shades are taught to be living weapons, to fight without emotion. We achieve this by channeling that emotional energy into our auras. All of the suffering, anger, fear, and pain that we endure during our training becomes a weapon, while we remain in complete control. Shadow Haze arouses irrational fear in anyone else present, but more specifically in our opponent. It can also be used to alter an enemy’s perception, and if an opponent is weak enough, to subtly influence their perceptions.”
“Oh, um… Were you going to show me that, in training I mean?”
“Eventually, yes. Obviously, I had no intention of teaching you to use it. You probably have the ability, but the Shadow Haze is a dark, unnatural magic, much like my shadow voids. You should be prepared to face it in combat, but it isn’t something you would want to attempt yourself.” Jerris continued to fidget. He couldn’t imagine facing something like that. To see it in his teacher, a figure he trusted implicitly, had been terrifying. To have an enemy focus it completely on him, seemed overwhelming. Am I really ready for this quest? Can I really be of any use against that? “Do you understand now why I wanted you to go back to Kadanar? I suspected something like this would happen.” Darien then froze, his eyes widened, and his face sharpened into a look of sudden realization. Damn! Jerris thought, he just remembered. “Speaking of Kadanar, why didn’t Ceres take you back there? I told her if I was captured you would probably try to follow me, and she wasn’t to let you. How, exactly, did you get away?”
Jerris couldn’t control his shaking. The shock of seeing Darien the Executioner at his most frightening was still fresh in Jerris’ mind. The younger half-elf had realized, of course, that he’d have to answer this question, but this was not the moment he would have chosen. He took a deep breath, and finally spoke. “Well… I… I used my magic. I used the shadow sight to break into her mind, just like you showed me, like I got those animals to follow me around.”
“You what?” was Darien’s incredulous response. “That’s… Jerris, influencing intelligent beings is extremely difficult, and dangerous. You shouldn’t have even attempted that.”
“I’m really, really sorry, but she wouldn’t listen, and I just wanted to help.”
Darien looked up at the black sooty ceiling, chuckling to himself. “Well, I’m impressed, actually. I can’t condemn you too much. In the Order of the Shade, that sort of initiative was usually rewarded, but I think you’ll have to settle for just not being scolded anymore.” The Shade shook his head, still amused, and Jerris relaxed. Darien was himself again. This was the real Darien. The Shade was just a tool for battle, to do what was necessary. “What exactly did you tell her to do?”
“Well, I just told her she had to go back to Kadanar, and that she had to go alone, because I was going after you.”
“I see. A simple command, what she was already supposed to be doing, with only a slight deviation. That would make it likely to hold for at least a few days. She might have even made it back. I certainly would have enjoyed seeing the look on Galen’s face when she showed up deluded by magic. Of course, he’d blame me though, wouldn’t he? I wonder where she is now?”
“Oh, well, she did show up in Trinium the other day.” Jerris proceeded to relay his encounter with Ceres in the street, and how Nielas had knocked him out and put Ceres under arrest, while Darien listened. “She’ll be all right won’t she? I didn’t want to hurt her.”
“Oh yes. The initial process of breaking the will and imposing the command is painful but it isn’t too bad unless the subject tries to resist, but Ceres does not know how to resist. As a simple soldier, taking orders comes so naturally to her. There should not be any long-term damage. You see, this is the problem with the elves’ taboo against domination magic. They have no experience dealing with it. If you could overcome her, an actual Shade could compel her to divulge every secret she knows.”
“So, you’re really not angry?”
“No, not really. I should be grateful. Whatever you said to the council before I got there must have been convincing. You still have the option of returning to Kadanar if you want. This journey will not be like our last one. We will not be running from danger, but walking willingly into it.”
“I’m ready,” Jerris declared, and student and teacher exchanged nods of commitment. “We’d better get going. They’re expecting us.”
The Grandmaster and the other officials were waiting in the concourse, just as expected. They all appeared far more somber and stoic than they had before. Jerris noted that he was not the only one that had been affected by Darien’s power. It suddenly occurred to him why they had sent him to fetch Darien. They would probably never admit it, but they were afraid too. Indeed, none of them seemed eager to say anything even now. The only words spoken were a half-hearted promise to send someone to tend to Darien’s injuries, which he waved off casually, and repeated assurances that Rana was being released. After this minimal conversation, two guards were summoned and showed the guests to their rooms.
Chapter 16: Rana’s Decision
Rana could not remember ever feeling so miserable in her life, even when her family was killed and she was forced to scrounge for bread in the streets. At that time, Maya had kept her company, while her anger had kept her strong. Now she had neither. It was only her, sitting alone in her cell, somewhere in the Hall of Judgement.
For over two weeks, she’d had nothing to do but sit in her cell, and dwell upon her confused emotions, running through the events of the past two years in her head, over and over again, from her doomed quest of vengeance upon the Executioner, to her journey to the valley, and the year since, when the very man she’d set out to kill had changed from an object of hatred to an object of… something else entirely.
Of course, none of it mattered now. She would probably remain in this cell for years, if indeed she were ever released. No one had even come to question her for several days. It had been hard, seeing Geoffray again, seeing suspicion and mistrust in those eyes, those dark brown eyes she had so easily lost herself in. After her arrest, she held out some hope, hope that she could reach out to the man who had once claimed to love her, hope that she could get past his impenetrable walls of honor and duty, but that had been a futile hope. The man looked right through her, and saw only the manipulations of the Shade. He would not accept the truth, and Rana couldn’t really blame him. It seemed absurd to even contemplate.
So there she sat, in a miserable state, wondering whether Geoffray would ever let her go, whether Darien still lived, and whether she would ever even see him again. The thought that he could be dead filled her with something almost like panic. It wasn’t his fault he is the way he is, she told herself. If Geoffray would just let me speak, if I could just talk to someone else, anyone else, maybe I could convince them to spare his life.
She had been so intent upon her latest depressing contemplations, she failed to notice that a well-dressed elderly man, nearly bald, with a long nose and round spectacles, stood outside her cell. How long he had been standing there, she could not say, but he certainly did not seem to be in any hurry to speak. Her mind was suddenly filled with excitement, as this was the first person other than Geoffray that had come to question her. Perhaps this man would listen.
She bolted to her feet, and placed her fist upon her heart, in salute. “Hello sir, have you any questions for me? Has a date for trial been set?”
The man didn’t respond immediately, furrowing his brow in c
ontemplation for a moment. “Neither, actually, do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“I am Edoard Maximilian Anor, Grandmaster of the Order of the Golden Shield.”
Rana gasped in shock. Why was the Grandmaster here? She knelt instinctively and lowered her head. “Your grace!” She had heard the name of the man, but never seen him. Edoard Anor was respected far and wide, and his steady leadership had guided the Golden Shield for over three decades. “Sir, Geoffray has been holding me here for two weeks. I have the right to a trial, and I wish to speak with you about the man who was arrested with me. He’s not your enemy, and I’m not under any spell…”
The old man held up a hand, and the young woman fell silent. “Yes, yes, I understand all that. Geoffray had no right to keep you here in secret without trial, but these are strange circumstances, and he thought he was acting in your best interests.”
“I assure you, Grandmaster, sir. I am not under the influence of any spell or enchantment of the mind.”
The Grandmaster narrowed his eyes and sighed. “I have no doubt of that, child, but there are ways for men to influence one another without magic, subtler ways, and make no mistake, the Shades know these as well. So tell me, what is the nature of your relationship to Darien the Executioner?”
“What? I mean, I suppose we’re friends.”
“Friends, is it?” he mumbled, before raising his voice and his left eyebrow to question, “You deserted the Order to chase after this man, the man who you claim slaughtered your family in your sight. You could not be bothered to complete your service before embarking on a quest of vengeance against this man, and now you call him your friend. I can understand why Geoffray had doubts about your sanity.”
“But, sir, it isn’t like that.” Rana’s mind raced, trying to think of some way to convince the Grandmaster. Darien’s life could be hanging in the balance. She took a deep breath, composing herself. “Please, sir, I beg you spare his life. I know what he has done, and I know how this must look, but he has changed, he is changing. I have seen it for myself. He could have killed me, but spared my life. He could have left me to be slaughtered by his enemies, but he protected me instead. Please… just spare his life.” Her eyes just scarcely held back tears.