by Ron Glick
Was this the cost one assumed by letting an exiled dwarf into your life? Lives fell at his feet as surely as if he were slaying them on a battlefield. And all because they had trusted Bracken to see them safe...
A hand fell upon Bracken's broad back, followed shortly by a warm body pressed against him. An arm snaked under his chin, through his thick, coarse beard, and the dwarf instinctively brought his chin down to hold the arm in place. His eyes burned, and warmth trickled down from them. On some level, he knew he felt tears upon his cheeks, but a strange, displaced part of his consciousness denied it since there was no wind to cool the moisture on his cheeks.
“Bracken,” Brea's voice was soft in his ears. He thought she would say more, but she let his name express in those two syllables the entire weight of what she might have said. And somehow, that was enough.
Bracken took hold of the priestess' arm, holding it tightly to his chest for a moment before releasing it. He raised his head, looked around at the crowd milling about. In his grief, he had been oblivious to anything else going on around him. Now he could not shut out the clamor of the horde surrounding him.
Through the clamor, Bracken could hear bits of conversations - talk of how the Old Gods had shown their displeasure, of how the divine woman was not meant for any man, of how Nathaniel Goodsmith had been a sinner. Rage built anew in Bracken's heart as he heard the disrespect, the sheer ignorance of the masses.
The dwarf's hand found the haft of his axe and pulled it clear of where it had sunk into the ground with barely an effort. He shrugged aside Brea's hold, his muscles trembling with suppressed emotion, his chest expanding as his muscles pulled taut across his frame.
“Say i' 'gain,” growled the dwarf. “Go 'head. Say Nate were a sin'er 'r some ot'er lie. Yew'll be th' first ta have yer hea' gone fr'm yer shoul'ers.”
People nearby fell silent, all eyes riveting upon the short, stout man rising in their midst. People further out in the crowd had not heard his words, but those who had began to hush others close to them. There was no mistaking the menace in the dwarf's words, or the tremendously large weapon he held at the ready, clasped between his two massive fists.
“Bracken,” came Brea's voice to his ears. “Please, this won't help.”
While most of the crowd began to shuffle back and away, one man stood his ground. His face registered the look of someone who felt himself infallible, his opinion vindicated by his own self-worth. The grey at his temples belied the clear foolishness the man displayed in Bracken's eyes, and he glowered at the human who decided he could stand against a dwarf's wrath. He could not tell whether the man had noticed that others had backed away or not, but Bracken's focus on him nevertheless prompted the man to speak.
“You cannot stand against the will of the Gods,” the man said. “How else do you explain what happened here? The Gods have struck down the widower, and that can only mean one thing. He--”
“His name,” snarled the dwarf, enunciating slowly, “was Nate Goodsmith.”
The man balked a moment, but stiffened his back nevertheless, clearly intending to demonstrate his own validity in what he had said. “His name does not matter. He's gone now.”
Bracken could not remember swinging the axe. All he remembered was the blinding red glare everything took the shade of. He saw the blade slice through the man's chest, felt the splash of blood on his face. But they were all distant feelings, his sense of self buried below the berserker rage which had consumed him in an instant. He saw the actions of his body at a distance, but he had no emotion for what he saw. He only accepted what was being done, did nothing to hold his fury in check. It was a separate force that dwelled in his body, and he had no connection to it. It served its purpose, and he cared not for what that primal force did.
The axe came back across his field of vision in an arc, swinging upward at the man's neck. He could see the man clutching at his middle, disbelief and fear in his eyes.
Good, he heard his voice say. He'll a' leas' die knowin' 'e was wrong.
The axe's swing came to an abrupt halt, the force of the collision reverberating through his frame. The red was so thick around the peripheral of his vision now that he could not see what the blade of the axe had struck. All he could see was the man, falling backwards with a stunned expression on his face.
And then the false God, Avery, was in the center of his vision.
“Do not force me to add your death to this day's toll, dwarf,” said the would-be God.
New fury built up in Bracken's chest. He felt the muscles of his jaw work, felt as though he would scream his rage at the man, but all that came forth was a roar. On some level, Bracken's disembodied awareness knew he was beyond comprehension, incapable of speech. But again, he simply did not care. His berserker self was in control of his body, and nothing of what that part of him did mattered to him at all.
Rough arms gripped him then, and the dwarf began to thrash, to throw away the bodies of those who sought to drag him down. He could not see who held him, but it was plain there was more than one person involved. Still, in spite of the force leveled against him, Bracken shrugged his massive shoulders and found himself free again.
Avery's face drew closer, the wind against Bracken's face registering that he was rushing at the man. He could not feel his body, but he knew at a basic level of understanding that he was the one moving toward his opponent, not the other way around. The other man's weapon rose to guard as the dwarf's axe swung into view in front of him, clashing resoundedly against the dark steel of the sword. A flash erupted from the point of impact, and Bracken felt his body thrown back and away.
A guttural sound tore at the dwarf's throat as he rose again to charge, but now someone new was standing in front of him.
Brea! The part of Bracken's mind that understood such things struggled with the urge to cleave the woman in twain and the knowledge that this was a woman he had sworn to protect, who he had accepted into his close-knit circle of... what? Friends? Companions? Co-conspirators?
The slight effort to commit logic to the problem weakened the berserker's hold over the dwarf's body, but not enough to stay his weapon. Bracken's self felt his muscles raise the axe, drawing it back to his arms' full extension, preparing to swing with all his might at the woman standing in his path.
Only then did Bracken see what his red-tinted gaze had not yet registered. Brea was glowing. Her entire body was suffused with a light that only grew brighter as he became aware of the illumination. In an instant, she was as bright as a star, the dwarf's eyes flinching at the pain that penetrated his orbs.
“Be true to yourself, Bracken Hillfire,” said the former priestess. “In the name of divine truth, see yourself for what you are and halt.”
Bracken felt his muscles tighten, held in place by some unknown force.
“Now.”
The priestess' words were like a concussive force against the dwarf's frame.
“I command you.”
With those final words, Bracken's vision shattered, the red haze gone from his eyes. He saw his fury for what it was - grief, denial of all he had lost, deflection from doing the right thing that he should have done years gone now. In an isolated moment of time, Bracken could see the truth behind the part of himself he had called his berserker persona - it was, in truth, a part of himself, a part which had broken away the day he had been betrayed by his own blood. It was the part of his soul he had tried to bury, to deny. Because it represented the shard of his soul that knew that justice had been denied, and it was the rage that rightly should have driven him to seek justice.
Justice denied had become rage unbridled. All because Bracken had sought to deny the simplest of truths to himself: that he had an unfulfilled duty to himself, to his father, to his family, to his people. He should never have run. He should have stayed. And it was that guilt over his own weakness of character that had manifested itself as rage against the rest of the world.
For the second time that day, Bracken fell t
o his knees. He felt the weight of the axe fall away as his hand opened, all resistance now gone from his body.
Nate was gone. But in his absence, Bracken had found new purpose. He now knew where his path lay.
I have to return home. It is the only thing I have left in this life...
Distantly, Bracken could hear Brea arguing with others, defending the dwarf's actions. “He just lost his friend. Can you blame him for his grief?”
The dwarf knew that the priestess' arguments would prevail. He knew the man had not died from the blow he had struck. He knew a mortal wound well enough, and he had not struck one - Avery had stopped him from landing that. Brea could even heal the man - she had demonstrated that talent already. By the time she was finished, there would be no one left to blame him for anything.
Except for himself.
Chapter 8
The ground underneath was the only solid thing that could be felt. The air touching his skin felt both scalding hot and chillingly cold. The pressure behind his eyes made them feel they would burst if he only dared open his lids to try to take in his surroundings. He just lay where he was, shivering, clutching at his body, while wanting nothing more than to rip away anything touching his skin. At the moment, Nathaniel Goodsmith's entire existence persisted as a massive collection of contradictions, and it was all he could do to not scream in agony - for his throat felt on the brim of shredding already.
One moment, he had been standing in front of that girl - Alisia. She had Three, and he had swung to try to knock the blade from her hand. Instead, he had found himself held in a struggle suspended within a moment in time, his body committing every ounce of strength to push past the power of the other sword, knowing that the other blade did the same against his own.
Go save your own mother! And leave me to saving my own!
The girl's words had resonated with import, power borrowed from Three itself. Nathaniel had come to understand power on an instinctive level, and those words had power. Yet before he could react, the man had found all resistance to his sword gone and his own body plummeting forward from the sudden removal of the resistance that had held him in place.
The man had struck the earth hard, crushing the air from his lungs. He had not even a moment to recover before his body betrayed him, reacting to all of the agony thrust at him through all of his senses.
Nathaniel forced an eye open, but he could see nothing. Either it was incredibly dark, or he was now blind.
Or perhaps there was nothing to see because he was literally... nowhere?
A sudden thought gripped his mind. Am I dead? Did the girl kill me? Is this where a faithless soul goes?
Fear did not help him in his struggle to overcome the anguish he was already enduring. In fact, it seemed to magnify everything tenfold. What had been before barely tolerable was now unbearable. The scream he had been trying to hold in tried to burst forth of its own will, only his throat was already too constricted to let sound escape.
As bad as it all was, it all redoubled in a moment when pressure fell upon his shoulder. Instinctively, he recognized that barely any force had been used, but the slightest touch now felt like a thousand daggers piercing every inch of his skin from a million directions.
“Shhh,” came a voice, the light wind upon his cheek showing it had been whispered in his ear. “You are alive. And whatever this is, it will pass.”
A warmth began to suffuse Nathaniel's skin. At first, it was impossible to tell where it came from as his entire body reacted to it. But after a moment, as the incalescence began to soothe where it reached, he recognized that it had come from where the light pressure - a hand? - had first made contact with his shoulder.
The man then recognized something else - sound. Or, to be more precise, chanting. And even more specific, he recognized the chanting.
Nathaniel's eyes burst open as he rolled himself onto his back, his vision taking in what his mind had told him was impossible. And yet...
“I'm dead,” the man croaked. “And you're here, too.”
The woman looked back to the young man with a radiant smile. She was perhaps a decade his elder, but she wore her age well. Her golden-orange hair hung loosely about her shoulders, while her simple clothing belied the stature her presence seemed to radiate. If someone had told Nathaniel that he was looking upon the well-bred features of someone born to royalty, he would have been hard pressed to doubt those words.
The woman's smile grew broader in a sign of genuine amusement. “No, you are still in the land of the living. Of that, I assure you.”
“That's not possible,” Nathaniel managed. Delicately he reached out to touch the woman's face, but she intercepted his hand and took it between her own. “Mother?”
“You are still very chilled,” the woman said, taking Nathaniel's hand and putting the back of it to her cheek, ironically very nearly the action she had stopped by taking his hand in the first place. “Delusions are common for people recovering from illness. And you were clearly very ill.”
“No. I mean...” Nathaniel stopped, trying to collect his thoughts. “You're not Maribel Goodsmith?”
The woman visibly started at the name, but her physical actions did not betray her. She lowered Nathaniel's hand and placed it into her lap, continuing to hold it in the warmth of her own. “I am, truly. Do you know of me in some way?”
The man sat up, reaching to cup the woman's face with his left hand. This time, she did not stop him, only letting her smile sink deeper into her features. “It's me. It's Nathan!”
The woman blinked, a clear sign that she did not recognize what the man wanted her to see. “I am sorry, Nathan. I do not know you. The only Nathan I know is my own son--”
“Yes!” Nathaniel pulled his other hand free and used it with his other to pull the woman's face closer. Hot tears began to fall down his face. “That's me! Mother, it's me! It's Nathaniel!”
Maribel's eyes reflected a mixture of concern and confusion. Still, though, there was absolutely no fear nor alarm. “You are mistaken, sir. My son is most of thirteen summers. He will be fourteen in only a short time past two moons' cycle. You could not possibly be he.” The woman placed her own hands upon the outside of Nathaniel's own. “It is the fever. You are confused, that is all. It is clear you know of myself and my son, but for some reason you have come to believe you are my son. Be at peace. This too shall pass.”
“Mother--”
“Please,” said the woman, gently pulling free of Nathaniel's hold while taking his hands into her own. “I do not fault you for believing as you do. But for me, please hold your words until you have more time to recover. Then, when your true self returns, you will see the folly of what you say and we will be able to share your true purpose for seeking me out.”
“But I didn't--”
Maribel reached a finger out to place it lightly upon the man's lips. “Shhh. If you must believe you are my son, then listen to your mater and be still until you have had time to rest and recover. Can you do this for me?”
Conflicting emotions raged in Nathaniel's heart, but his joy at this unexpected blessing overpowered the rest. He would do anything for this woman, and if silence was what she wished, then he would give it to her gladly.
Nathaniel nodded his head, smiling himself at the glow within his own heart. His mother was here! He did not know how this was possible, but she was right here and he was with her. Nothing else mattered for the moment.
Maribel rose from her kneeling position and offered her hand to Nathaniel. “Now, I believe the best course is to see you to shelter. And I have a good friend who can help with that.”
The man took the offered hand, though he used very little of the slight woman's strength to rise. Whatever affliction had crippled him was quickly fading, and he felt much like his own self now. But the opportunity to hold her hand made his heart beat loudly in his chest, and he would not have declined the offer for anything in the world.
“I imagine you will want your weapon
, as well,” Maribel noted, nodding her head towards the ground. The look on her face however betrayed her distaste for the sword. “Though I assure you, you will not need it here in Oaken Wood.”
Nathaniel felt a momentary sense of of self-consciousness. Of course he had brought Two with him. He had left First behind and brought Two with him when he had left that morning. But the idea of explaining to his mother - who had always been such a strong advocate for peace - that her son carried around a sword made him feel like he was three and he had been caught teasing the goat with a stick.
As he stood, Nathaniel took in his surroundings. For all intents and purposes, the two stood on the edge of Oaken Wood. The buildings still existed - if perhaps a little less weather worn - as did the one dusty road leading through town. In the distance he could see other people milling about, though this far away, he could not make out who they might be. Clearly, they were souls who had also passed at some point in Oaken Wood's history, for why else would they choose to haunt this facsimile of the small town from the land of the living?
The crowds of people who had massed upon the town's road when Nathaniel had fought the girl, Alisia, were of course absent. This was a place for souls that had left the land of the living, after all, and those people would not also be here. Only those who had also passed the mortal veil would be here.
This realization brought another thought to Nathaniel's mind: he was now deceased, but he was in his twenty-fifth year, not his thirteenth. He could not help but wonder how this world which existed around his mother - that somehow gave her the freedom to “live” through the days before she had actually died - would continue to exist once the son whom she claimed would not be able to be found? How would the woman be able to explain her son-as-she-knew-him's absence? And would it make it easier or more difficult to convince her of his true identity?
The man leaned down and picked up the sword, quickly sheathing it in the scabbard he wore across his back. “Of course not,” he said quickly. As he said the words though, the memory of his mother's fate came to mind, and his hand squeezed involuntarily on the haft before releasing it. His mother did not know what evils lurked in her future, or her past as it was to Nathaniel himself. But even if she had, would she condone violence in her own defense?