by Steven Drake
Finally, after a long pause, Lucca sighed and spoke. “Though you may possess greater talent for magic than anyone born in ten generations, it is not within your power to decide your worth in the eyes of others. I think that your friends would grieve to lose you. I think that they have already grieved for you, as they believe you dead. I expect when they discover you yet live, it will comfort them. They see value that you do not. They thought your life was worth saving.” She sighed deeply and shook her head. “Obviously, you do not. You drink deeply of your guilt, like a potent wine, and you become drunk upon it. Yet it poisons you, as it ever shall, so long as you refuse to accept your burden. Even now, your thoughts are of death, of sneaking away to die alone like a wounded dog. Since you can find no peace in life, you seek to escape it.”
“Why shouldn’t I think of death?” Darien asked coldly. “I deserve it, if anyone does.”
“Fate is not concerned with what you deserve, or do not deserve. Fate serves a purpose beyond any mortal life. It places before us the challenges we must face, whether deserved or undeserved. We cannot change fate, we can only face what is before us. It is how we face those challenges, not success or failure that defines us. You cannot undo what has been done, but you can honor those sacrifices made for you. Make every day of your life something that they would find worthy. Make every choice as they would have you make it.”
Not a sound could be heard. The foggy air was perfectly still, and Darien could not find the strength to stand, nor to say anything else. The truth of Lucca’s words sunk in like a bitter potion poured forcefully down his throat.
“Then I must return to Jerris. I must finish what I started. It’s the only way to make their sacrifices mean something. If I can end the Demon King’s life, then, at least, they will have died for something.”
Lucca beat her shimmering white wings again, this time without the accompanying buffet of wind. Her face returned to its normal smile. “It is good to hear you finally embrace your destiny, but do not be too hasty. Jerris has become strong in his own right, and there are things he must do for himself. He must become the king of prophecy who will lead the world to victory. Your sister, too, must face the challenges fate has placed before her. She has always believed herself weak and helpless. She has begun to find her strength, but she must embrace it, and master it, before the prophecy comes to pass.”
“But Rana’s dead,” Darien argued. “Doesn’t that ruin your prophecy anyway?”
“Only if you believe that Rana was the only one who could fulfill it.” The faerie queen shook her head. “I have warned you before that a prophecy is not one future, but many, perhaps infinitely many. Another has surfaced who would fulfill the words of the prophecy, and there is still a fourth who may appear.”
“You mean the Fallen Star? That was the one who was unaccounted for, right?”
Lucca nodded gently before speaking. “I offer no certainty. Perhaps this person will appear sooner, perhaps later, perhaps not at all. There may be many who might fulfill the prophecy, depending on your choices, and the choices of others. I cannot say.” Then strangely, Lucca turned slightly to Darien’s right, looked off into the distance somewhere behind him, and smiled brightly, almost as if she were looking at someone else. The seeming dismissal only angered him further.
“I still hate you. If you cared at all for the people you claim to, you would disappear into your water and keep your secrets to yourselves,” Darien said with disgust. “I thought you cared for Rana. I thought you might feel some small measure of guilt, but instead you throw it back at me. I admit my guilt. I have never sought to deny that I am a violent, dangerous, killer, not even when I served the Master, but you, you watch and meddle from a distance, then claim you are powerless to change anything.”
The faerie became stern again, and the depth returned to her voice. “I do not claim to be powerless or guiltless. I have only said that I see things that you do not, in ways that you cannot. I have only claimed, and I here reaffirm, that I act always and only for the greatest good as I see it. What more can any mortal do? I weep for Rana. Her life is a tragedy, but a grand tragedy, one that will be remembered.”
Darien slammed a fist into the ground once again. His knuckles came up wet with a paste of blood, torn flesh, and bits of gravel. In some dark corner of his mind, where reason still prevailed, he understood the faerie’s wisdom, but at that moment it simply hurt too much to acknowledge. This suffering, worse than any physical hurt, this would linger, burned into his soul forever, just as surely as the death of his mother. He felt ruined, weak, powerless, and alone, just as he had then. He had vowed to gain power so that he never felt that again, but in this, as in so many other things, he had failed. Finally, he managed to stand once again. He swallowed the last of his defiance, and spoke. “So, I have to go back then. I have to finish what I started. I don’t suppose you have anything useful to tell me. I want nothing more to do with prophecy.”
“Rana’s sacrifice has shown you the path. Now you must walk it. It will be difficult, yet upon this path lies your only hope of salvation. I leave it to you to find it, in time. For now, rest. The darkness stalks you more closely than you understand, and you must gain the strength to face it again. Besides, I think you will find it more difficult to leave this place than you imagine.” Lucca chuckled merrily and stared off into the distance once again. This time Darien turned to see what Lucca might be looking at, but there was nothing but an odd boulder and the gravelly path back down the mountain.
Lucca beat her wings a final time, turned, and strode back into the fog, sparkling in the darkness, then disappeared into a ball of light that descended into the water, and faded away.
Darien stood in the darkness for several minutes, cold and tired, as tired as he could remember feeling. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on the spot and pass into oblivion, but he thought of Jerris, of Rana, of his mother, of the people who cared for him still, and the sacrifices already made for him, so he turned down the slope and began the long slow walk back to town. He felt drained, empty, and alone in a wilderness, separated by leagues upon leagues from the few people who might offer him comfort. The memory of Rana’s death, now fresh in his mind, tormented him, weakened him like a sickness upon his soul. His muscles felt weak, and his spirit felt weaker, as though he had passed through an ocean of shadow and death then come out on the other side as nothing more than a faded wraith.
He trudged back down the slope slowly, finding his steps far more difficult now. The wound ached constantly, and sent pulses of pain through him every few minutes that reverberated through his entire body. Each time this happened, Darien’s vision faded out for a moment, and he had to fight to avoid passing out entirely. As the trek continued, it grew worse, and soon he found that he had to stop with each pulse of pain and focus his mind, just to stay awake. This made the journey agonizingly slow, and sometime in the wee hours of morning, he felt his body give way, and he dropped to his knees and flopped forward onto the dusty gravel path.
Chapter 5: Curiosity
I really shouldn’t be doing this, Mirisa told herself as she followed the mysterious stranger up the trail to the springs. Kellan, Zitane, even Garok all warned her that Darien was dangerous, but she found him fascinating, like a mystery that demanded an explanation. Mirisa’s dangerous combination of uncommon curiosity and insufficient caution drew her to the stranger as a moth to a flame.
She had no idea where he was going, or why he was going, but he should not be leaving his bed. She could have just confronted him when she caught a glimpse of him stealing out of the city. She probably should have sent Garok after him, but that would not have answered any of her questions about him. If she could follow him quietly, she might get some glimpse of the power he kept hidden. She might find some of the answers to the mystery. Mirisa’s determination drove her forward. She always satisfied her curiosity. It had gotten her into trouble more than once, but it was always worth it.
She had a de
ep sense, an intuition, that Darien was more than he appeared, and that he had some importance she could not quite understand. It was not his appearance or his demeanor that intrigued her, rather, she felt the power that swirled round him.
She had always seen lights inside other people, some stronger, some weaker, some with hints of one color or another, but none like this, none this strange, this conflicted, this divided. A dark fog crept around him, mingling itself with the light, swirling around it and pressing against it. Like two snakes with bodies entwined, the light and darkness pressed constantly against one another, each vying for supremacy. Sometimes the light seemed dominant, and the dark fog would fade to almost nothing, and at other times the darkness forced back the light, reducing it to a dim candle flame. She felt compelled to understand that. She felt it was important, and that intuition pulled her after the mysterious stranger through the dark night.
She took care to be quiet, and not to let him see her. She lit no candle or torch lest he notice her, and instead relied upon her own night vision, better than most, and the soft glow of Luna the Lesser to guide her way. After about an hour, she concluded that he must be headed for the springs. He had to be, as there was nothing else of note upon in this direction. She wondered to herself if the stranger intended to have a bath. He certainly could use one, but something told her that bathing was the last thing on his mind.
Around midnight, he arrived at the edge of the reflecting pool, as it was called, and she hid herself behind a large boulder close enough to watch, but where he wouldn’t see her unless he looked directly at her. The fascinating stranger called out someone’s name to the water, and then simply waited. She could not guess what he might be expecting, but he seemed confident that it would come, whatever it was.
After perhaps an hour of waiting, something stirred. Miri felt it before she saw it, a source of great energy drawing close, somewhere out in the water. Then she saw a ball of white light rise out of the water, flash brightly, then take the form of a winged woman. A faerie! She gasped involuntarily, and clapped her hand over her mouth. She hoped he didn’t hear. She had heard stories of the legendary water spirits, but she’d never been fortunate enough to see one, and this stranger could summon them. She was beautiful in every sense of the word, majestic as a goddess, with bright white hair down to her waist that sparkled in the moonlight, and beautiful white wings like a butterfly’s, a white gown that fit her flawless form so perfectly, it seemed to be almost a part of her body. Every part of her body, and even her hair, sparkled like a many-faceted gemstone in the white glow cast by her wings. Mirisa marveled at the sight before her, trembling with excitement.
They started talking, but Miri found it impossible to catch most of what was said. It shouldn’t be so difficult to hear them just a few yards away in the quiet, still air. None the less, the words seemed garbled. The Faerie’s voice was musical, beautiful beyond anything Mirisa had ever heard, but her words sounded like gibberish or the babbling of an infant. After the faerie’s melodic speech, Darien’s words clashed harshly, a violent, growling speech, unpleasant to the ear, but filled with fiery passion that Mirisa could almost feel in the air. She watched the unintelligible conversation, trying to guess what might be happening. The only thing she could tell for certain was that Darien seemed to be very upset with this faerie, who seemed not the least bit disturbed.
The conversation continued for several minutes, with an increasingly agitated Darien nearly shouting at the faerie woman. At one point, Darien fell to his knees and rammed his fist into the ground, hard enough that the thump echoed in the confined space. Miri knew without looking that he had struck hard enough to bloody his knuckles. The faerie responded with remarkable calm. Her face grew colder, but she took no more aggressive action than beating her wings and sending air rushing across the pool.
Suddenly, without any warning, the faerie looked straight at the spot where Miri had been hiding. She froze as the faerie looked straight into her eyes. Realizing she had been seen, her heart beat fiercely against her chest as an immense force bore down, forcing her eyes open and preventing her from turning away. The sensation terrified her, yet somehow, she knew that she was in no real danger. Mirisa felt the touch of the faerie’s power, a well that extended to immense depths, old beyond the count of years. Mirisa felt like a tiny insect against that power, and she was overwhelmed in only moments. Miri felt the sensation of being pulled forward, then falling, though she never moved.
Suddenly, the world around disappeared, and she found herself staring at a strange world, looking upon a scene as if through a window. She found herself in a vibrant green world of immense trees, blooming flowers, and hanging vines. Soft, green tinted light shone down from somewhere above onto a lake of perfectly clear water. Beside the lake, a blond-haired elf man walked hand in hand with a strange woman, lithe, white haired, with lacy glittering wings, pale yellow, and a matching garment, another fairy, somewhat smaller than the one Niarie had already seen, about the size of an ordinary woman. Both of them were strikingly handsome, but by the expressions on their faces and the depth of their eyes, Miri could tell they carried the weight of many seasons between them. The elf man wore a formal white robe trimmed with gold and indigo, while the faerie woman wore a long pale yellow dress that flowed like water around her and behind her.
The two of them walked along the edge of the still water. The elf walked along the soft green turf of the shore, and the woman walked on the water itself. Suddenly, they turned toward each other, showing an obvious passion for one another, and embraced. The winged woman wrapped her yellow wings around the man, and they kissed with a deep and violent passion. Miri could almost feel the intensity of their love burning through the unreality of this vision, but she did not recognize either of them. Who were they? She felt drawn to them. She tried to speak, but no sound escaped her frozen lips.
Lightning flashed, and the scene changed. The blond-haired elf appeared again with the winged woman, standing in a doorway at the end of a hall filled with empty archways, a hallway that seemed vaguely familiar, but also frightening, as though something was wrong. Something told Mirisa the hall should have been filled with people, but it was empty.
The elf man and winged woman stood side by side, hand in hand, eyes focused, determined, clad in matching shimmering blue mail with a golden spider emblazoned on the chest. Both were filled with a light as strong as Miri had ever seen, but something about these two was different. Mirisa had seen lights in people before, indeed she saw them in almost everyone, but always within a single person. These two, however, seemed to share a single light, strongly centered in the spot where their hands met, as though they shared it between them.
Mirisa tried to think what the single light might mean, when something drew her attention. Echoing footsteps in the empty hall stirred a primal fear in Mirisa’s heart, and she turned to see a single man, clad in black, walk into the opposite end of the empty hall. The dark figure terrified Mirisa nearly as much as the nightmare creature she had sensed in the sky over a month before. The frightening man wore heavy black chain, dull and unpolished, without marking or adornment. Mirisa could not guess his age, but his dark hair was streaked with bright white, his face grizzled and worn, filled with grim purpose. He stared straight forward out of cold empty eyes filled with hatred and disgust. He advanced, confidently but slowly, down the hallway.
It took no imagination at all for Miri to realize the dark figure meant to do battle. She turned back to the doorway where the elf man stood with his faerie companion. The blond-haired elf drew what looked like a hilt without a blade, but as soon as he raised it, a blazing blade of light extended from the hilt, some kind of magic. The faerie woman raised a similar weapon, but instead of light, a torrent of spinning water formed into the blade. The frightening black clad man countered by drawing his own weapon, a jet black sword that Miri recognized at once. It looked and felt identical to the strange weapon that Darien carried, but this man was not Darien. Wa
s this really the same sword, or were there many others like it? Perhaps Darien inherited the sword from this person, or stole it. Then again, maybe this was something that would not happen until years hence, and this man was Darien, but decades older. Miri had no answer.
When the man in black drew to within ten or so yards, the blond-haired elf smiled and reached into a pocket on his belt. He drew forth a second weapon, a short sharp dagger. The blade was strangely colored, multihued as though partially covered with some substance. Miri’s focus, however, quickly diverted to red stone set upon the hilt. She felt power in the stone, strange power, both fascinating and frightening. She had seen something like that before, but where? Miri sensed that battle would begin shortly, and she wondered who would win. She felt an irrational fear grip her, a desire to reach out, to somehow intervene, but she didn’t understand why. Before anything happened, however, the scene disappeared in a flash of red.
When the world refocused, Miri found herself in a forest. A trickle of dim green light filtered down through a canopy of gnarled branches and creeping vines. A castle, all black, loomed in the background, how far away, she couldn’t tell. They stood in a clearing, perhaps a courtyard, or maybe a road. Much of the background apart from the castle seemed fuzzy and undefined. She paid little attention to that, however, because in the center of the clearing stood a living terror. Miri could describe it only as a monster, seven or eight feet tall, with massively muscled arms and legs, sharp pointed horns above its eyes, and leathery skin colored in grotesque shades of purple, red, maroon, and black. Evil power emanated from the thing before her, so much she felt stifled by it. The monster inspired a deep, primal dread, worse than the dark figure in the previous vision, worse even than the creature that had darkened the skies of Exire. She tried to run, but could not. She tried to scream, but no sound passed her lips. Then she looked to the right, and saw another someone she did not recognize, a young half-elf, tall and lean, with light blond hair the color of dry straw, bathed in powerful light that shone from what looked like a small star on top of the staff he carried. He was not alone, either. Someone else stepped up beside him, a human woman, petite, almost laughably so, but brimming with the invisible light that Miri saw in others. She had bright eyes and golden hair the color of sunlight reflected on water, and carried a white sword that glowed with a light as powerful as the staff. Suddenly, a raven-haired man strode forward just to her left, wielding a black blade. She knew in an instant it was Darien. He vibrated with power and purpose, but Mirisa somehow knew it would not be enough to destroy the monster he faced. Together, the three stood against the monster, each powerful, but none so powerful as the terrifying thing they confronted. Mirisa felt a strange sense of something missing, as though there was someone else there, just out of her field of view, or perhaps someone that should be there was missing. Either way, she could see no one else.