by Greg Curtis
“Andalia. A small village maybe ten leagues south of Hammeral.”
Of course he had never heard of the village before. He was only working on what the Lady had told him as she guided them home. And its name didn't really matter anyway. It was the end of their journey. That was what mattered.
They cantered the last third of a league to the elders waiting for them, the acornia even after all their days of being ridden hard still impossibly strong. Then again, maybe they guessed that the journey was nearly over. If anything they seemed even more eager for the run than before.
Yorik was eager too, especially when he recognised some of those waiting. Annalisse was there standing in the middle of the group and he was happy to see her. She was irascible and critical and probably still annoyed with him for one thing or another, yet seeing her ahead he was suddenly glad to know she lived. And maybe that was in part because he knew that if she lived than others from Hammeral lived. She would surely have given them advance warning.
Standing beside her was Father Rubrecht and the sight of the priest lifted Yorik's flagging spirits. A familiar face. At least someone from his chapter was alive. The times couldn't have been easy for the cleric though. He looked to have lost some weight since Yorik had last seen him, and his robe was torn and dirty, something he would never normally have abided.
Beside him stood Commander Latray of the West Brookland chapter of the Order. The last time Yorik had seen him had been in the Ender's Fall chapter when Ascollia and Genivere had walked in with him to deliver their message. He looked older than before, his face more deeply lined than Yorik remembered, even though it had surely only been a few months back. But maybe that was just tiredness. For Yorik though his aged look was less of a shock than the fact that he was standing beside Father Rubrecht in place of Commander Elron. That worried him. Where was the commander?
There were other paladins standing there as well, but not of the Order of the Lady. He saw the shining silver armour of the Silver Order, the sword and shield of Lyrin the Just, and even the red of the Order of Kyla – something he was sure had never before been seen in elven lands. The only order missing was the Iron Hand, and that he could guess was because they were under attack. But even if they hadn't been, they wouldn't have been there. Defending the weak was never their calling. Neither was fighting battles they couldn't win.
The others were elves, most of whom Yorik couldn't place though he thought he recognised a couple of their faces. But their white hair and the fact that they were waiting for them told him that they were elders. The Lady had said they would be met and she would never have suggested that they be met by just anyone when their mission was so important. A couple of the elves he was sure were from Hammeral. He'd seen their faces in the Council Chamber there even if they hadn't been introduced. A building that now like the rest of the city was a burnt out ruin. At least it was more evidence that others had survived.
Beside the receiving party stood a patrol of rangers. They were already mounted up and looked as though they were prepared to ride.
“Elders.” Yorik greeted them as he brought his steed to a halt and dismounted. He even managed a small nod.
“Enough child! There is no time for pointless manners.”
Annalisse spoke up before anyone else could speak, and then walked over to him and started poking and squeezing him as though he were a fruit being checked for ripeness.
“You're too thin, and still sore. Do your injuries still trouble you?”
Yorik would have said that they would have troubled him a lot less if she stopped poking and prodding him, but he was too slow and she had already moved on to his companion.
“And you old fool. Have you not been tending to him properly? Has he not been eating well?”
“Have you not met the boy before woman? He has the stubbornness of a mule – and the wit of one as well.” The wizard smiled at Annalisse and then embraced her. “He does not have the thought to eat properly. But at least he knows enough to train. He has taken to his lessens well.”
Yorik hoped he was right about that. He was sure that his mastery of the shapes was as good as it was going to get. And that he could use them as he needed to. But his anger and pain were another matter. They were his enemy. Not the creature wearing the face of Mayfall. But remembering that was difficult. Especially when Myral kept throwing the illusion of Mayfall in his face whenever he wasn't expecting it.
“I hope so.” Commander Latray suddenly spoke up. “But there is only one who can speak the truth on this.”
“Yorik, son of Heric.” The commander looked straight at him, his face one of complete seriousness. “We need to stop this thane. The destruction he has caused is already terrible. The number of dead are beyond counting and there is no end in sight. We have been told that the only way we can stop him is to place you in his path.”
“But this will require everything from you. All that you have and all that you are. It will need for you to finally put aside your vengeance and become once more a paladin of the Order of the Lady. You must serve life and love only. You must be completely true to the vows you swore so long ago. And you must know in your very bones that the instant you give in to your anger you will break those vows. In doing so you will betray us all.”
“Are you ready for that? Are you capable?”
“Yes.”
Yorik held his stare and gave him the answer he needed and knew it for the truth. Not because he actually knew it for the truth but because he knew it had to be. If he knew nothing else he knew he had to be the paladin he had once been. For too long he had been something else. Something he wasn't proud of.
“Good.” Commander Latray crossed the few paces between them and clapped him firmly on the shoulder.
“Your vow is sworn and the compact once more is made here in front of these witnesses. You are held to it. Now these rangers will escort you to the camp. And for this part of the journey at least you may rest.”
Apparently they were serious about the rest part. Because when Yorik looked around, it was to see that a wagon had been prepared for them. Straw mattresses were already laid out in the back, and he guessed that they knew just how tired he was. Maybe they even guessed how sore he was from all the riding.
“You will remain at the camp overnight, to heal and recover your strength, and in the morning you will face the thane. All our hopes will stand with you.”
“Thank you Commander.”
Yorik nodded his acceptance of his mission knowing that for the moment he was still a paladin. It was surprising how much that meant to him, even then. Perhaps that was wrong, but it didn't feel wrong to him. It felt very right. For too long he had failed to live up to his vows, but now it was finally time to do so. To become a paladin once more.
“Ride with the Lady.”
The Commander gave the formal farewell he would give to any paladin being sent off on a mission, and then turned on his heels to walk back to the others, his duty done.
After that it was time to go. Yorik hadn't realised that he would have to leave so soon. He didn't know where the camp was or where he would have to face the thane – though he could guess the last. But he knew that he had been dismissed. He bowed politely to the assembled and turned on his heels.
As he walked over to the wagon Yorik found himself flanked by Myral and Annalisse. He wondered if they were coming with him or just seeing him off.
Thirty beats of a heart later and they were standing in front of the wagon, and Annalisse was looking serious. He guessed she too had something to say.
“A warning before you leave. One for you above all others Yorik. You are trying to put all thoughts of anger behind you.”
Annalisse seemed concerned for some reason. She didn't seem to understand that he had moved beyond anger. Mostly. That the only thought in Yorik's soul was the desire to end this. Whether he was responsible for the thane's arrival in the world or not he could not allow any more people to be hurt. That had to be his
only consideration. Life and love.
“I am. I've been training to control my emotion.” And he had been. Working as hard as he could so that whenever Myral threw the image of the dark wizard at him he didn't react. But it wasn't easy. He controlled the rage, but he still wanted desperately to kill him. To run him through again and again and again.
“No. I don't think you understand.” She stared at him, hands on her hips, lips pursed in concentration, studying him closely. “And you will fail if you do not.”
“The anger is still strong within you. Hidden, forced down by guilt and shame and horror, buried under long nights of training and covered over with desperation. But it has not gone away. In fact it is stronger than ever. And when you see him, when you see the thane it will be hard for you to control it.”
“I will control it.”
“You will try to control it. But you will only succeed as long as you remember one thing above all else: He is not Mayfall. Mayfall is dead. He rots in the underworlds. The demons sup on his soul. What you see as Mayfall is no more him than any of the illusions that Myral showed you. He may look like him. He may act like him. But Mayfall is gone.”
“I know that Elder. Myral has explained that to me.”
“Piffle! Ignore the old fool's words! He is a man and a wizard both. Neither of which is what you need right now. They think too much and feel too little. You need to hear it from a woman. You need to feel it.”
The old fool for his part didn't seem too surprised or offended by her words. He was already on the wagon and sitting on one of the piles of straw, testing it out for softness. Obviously he planned on coming with him – and resting along the way.
“You killed him. You watched him die. And no matter what else you see you have to remember that. Cling to it. Not the memory, not the knowledge. The feeling. Remember what you felt as you saw him die. Tell me of that moment. Tell me of what you saw and what you felt.”
“But -.”
“Tell me!”
“It was dark.” But Yorik didn't mean the time of day. She had to understand that. He meant the emotions that had been coursing through him. The darkness of his heart.
“I know just as I know you hate that thought. But it is human and it is the truth, and that is what you must cling to. So tell me of his passing. Of how you killed him. Of what you felt when you watched him die. Tell me everything.”
“I hurt him first. He was out of magic, drained and hiding and I shot him with an arrow. And then with another and another.”
The words came out of him, slowly at first. Not just because they were a confession, but because they shamed him. He had acted like an animal. Like something far worse than that. And all semblance of the man he was had gone from him. But Annalisse demanded the truth and he had to give it to her. So little by little he told her the truth of that day. And when he'd finished she surprised him.
“So you stopped? Why?”
“Because I knew that there was no more to gain by hurting him. My hatred had died.” Or at least it had until Mayfall had returned from the dead.
“No, there was another reason.” Annalisse's eyes bored straight into him. “You knew he was dying. Yes?”
“Yes.” Yorik admitted the truth of her words.
“So you knew then that there was no hope for him?”
“Yes.” And she was right. He had known he was doomed. Doomed to die in agony.
“And then you tried to end his suffering quickly?”
“Yes.” Yorik nodded.
“Because again you knew there was no hope?”
“Yes.”
“And then you saw the demon drive its talons deep into his eyes and he went limp?”
“Yes.” Yorik nodded again.
“Then you watched him die?”
“I thought so, but I didn't know for certain, and I was busy. And when the demon had been vanquished he was gone.” It was that disappearance that left him with doubt. The wizard had vanished.
“Of course he was gone. When he died the Nameless took the last of him. Body and soul. It consumed everything that he was, just as he had always feared, and he couldn't resist at the end. That was why you were able to defeat him. Because by the time you battled he was already so close to the end that he was spending too much effort trying to contain the Nameless to worry about you.”
“But none of that matters. The only thing that does is that you watched him die. Bit by bit you killed him. And well before the end you knew that there was nothing he could do to remain in this world. There was no survival possible. Even before the demon finished the job. Isn't that so?”
“Yes.”
“And that is the knowledge you must cling to. The memory. The certainty of his death. Because he is dead. When you see the thane you must remind yourself of Mayfall's demise. Of the arrows within his broken body. Of the basilisk venom burning through him. Of the demon plunging its talons deep into his eyes. Concentrate on those things and you will know that the thane is not him. It is just an echo.”
“I will do that.”
And he would, because Yorik knew she was right. No matter how many times he was told that Mayfall was dead, a part of him kept thinking that he was alive. That he had somehow survived. He had seen him standing before him. But when he thought on what he had done to the man, of what he had seen, he also knew that there was no way he could have survived. He knew he had killed him. No one could have survived.
“Good. See to it that you do. Because if you cannot, if you allow the thane to fool you as it fools itself, you will lose. We will all lose.”
“And you old fool.” She turned her attention to Myral who was already making himself comfortable on the straw. “Keep reminding him every time he doubts”.
The wizard just laughed, already thinking about sleep. It was probably a little humiliating to be carried around in a wagon, but the wizard was just as tired as he was.
“And Captain, see to it that these two eat well and are not disturbed as they sleep. They need it.”
“I shall Elder.”
Surprised, Yorik turned as he recognised the voice, and saw Captain Avenall standing there, preparing to mount up. It had been a long time since he had seen him, and when he had he recalled he had been rude to him as he would normally never be. He had called him slow.
“Captain, I was short with you when last we met, and I would give my apologies for that if I might.”
“For which I thank you, but there is no need. Destroy this thane and I will be more than pleased. My rangers too.”
“Now climb on board so that we can be off.”
Yorik did as he was asked and even managed to stretch out on the hay, though it felt like an ignoble thing to do. He should be riding. But at the same time he knew the others were right. He was tired and he needed his rest. After all, in the morning he would be fighting for not just his life but for the lives of millions of others. He could not allow himself to lose.
Chapter Thirty Eight.
“Now remember, under no circumstances can you afford to strike at the thane. Annalisse was completely right about that.”
Myral repeated his warning for about the thousandth time that morning and Yorik wondered why he wasn't yet tired of saying it. He was tired of listening to it. But at least while he'd been listening he'd been thinking. And he'd come up with a plan.
“I know, which is why I have decided not to carry any weapons with me. You will hold them for me please.”
To prove his words Yorik picked up the pile of belts and blades that were sitting on the ground beside his old armour and handed them to the wizard while all around people gasped.
It was madness. But Yorik didn't even whisper his protest to himself and he didn't let his doubts stop him from doing what was necessary. So he handed over his great sword to the wizard along with all his other weapons. He hated doing it. He hated the thought of being unarmed. But the others were right. His weapons were useless and even with them in hand he was as good as un
armed. But worse they would slow him down. He was lighter and faster without them. But most dangerous of all, he might be tempted to use them. He would be tempted. That could not happen. This was the best way he had of making sure that didn't happen. Words had to be his weapons, and magic and trickery his shield. It wasn’t the traditional armour of a paladin but he would adapt. Besides of all the weapons he had carried only the great sword was truly his. The rest had been picked up in Hammeral when they had passed through it. They were the Order's weapons, plucked from his fallen brothers. They should go back to the Order where they might do some good.