by Bruce Blake
“You will pay for the things you did to her,” she shouted, swinging her sword again, first at Khirro, then Athryn.
She moved with incredible speed, her blade flickering back and forth between them fast enough they barely had time to defend themselves and recover in time to parry or dodge again.
Sweat gathered on Khirro’s brow, but not from exertion. Inside, he felt fire burn as the tyger struggled to break free. He fought it. No matter what voice spoke through her mouth, this was Elyea. He saw it in her eyes, he tasted it on her lips. He didn’t want to kill her, there had to be another way. Blow after blow he kept her steel from finding his flesh. Her skill was incredible. If they were to survive, he’d have to find a way other than by the sword.
“Why do you want to kill us? What did we do to you, Elyea?”
“I am Shariel now,” she said catching Athryn with a kick to his knee as he dodged her sword. He stumbled away. “You are responsible for all the sins against her. Don’t deny it.”
“What sins? What have I done?”
She gritted her teeth and swung hard, the impact vibrating the Mourning Sword right down to Khirro’s wounded hands.
“You raped her,” she said, striking to emphasize her words. “You tortured her. You killed her.”
“No.” Khirro danced out of range of her attack. As good as she was, he held his own, a fact that left him surprised. “I love you, Elyea.”
“I am not Elyea,” she screamed and turned her attack on Athryn, driving him back. Fire raged in Khirro’s chest but he used all his will to suppress it.
There is another way.
He focused his thoughts on the Mourning Sword, taking his attention from the fire struggling to break free. A glow began to fill the room, dim at first but growing brighter. Panic blossomed in Khirro as he thought his inattention had allowed the flames free, but the light didn’t flicker like fire. He looked at the Mourning Sword, surprised and relieved he’d accomplished what he set out to do. The black blade and red runes disappeared, replaced by bright golden light. It attracted the woman’s attention and she forced Athryn back then turned to see the source at the same time the vision spread out in the room between them.
***
“I am not Elyea.”
I turn on the magician; he’s good with a sword, but not as good as me, or as the man called Khirro. If I dispose of Athryn first, I’ll be able to give my full attention to killing Khirro. Then he’ll shut up and stop telling me he loves me. He doesn’t love me, he never has. They are empty words he speaks in an attempt to make me spare his life. Only the woman in black loves me.
I hammer my sword against the magician’s again and again. He shuffles away, barely defending himself. I see a difference in him, but I’m unsure what it is. I don’t know this man, yet I have a sense his face is changed; it bore a scar once. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that he must die.
Another thrust, another blow and his sword falters, dips toward the floor. I raise my weapon to finish him when I notice the light. Has the man called Khirro burst into flames again? He’ll be more dangerous if he has, so I face him, leaving the magician’s death for now. Light fills the room, but it comes from his sword instead of his body. I don’t spend any time wondering about it. It’s the people in the room who garner my attention.
A young girl—five-years-old, I know—lays on the floor, shivering. A man, naked, enters the room and creeps across the floor toward her but his face isn’t the face of the man called Khirro, he’s someone else. He’s her father.
Another girl, a few years older, performs a dance for a man wearing a crown. She moves gracefully around the room removing veils from her dress—her flimsy clothes hide welts and bruises covering her arms and back. Hatred builds within as she performs. She glares at the man watching, but he isn’t the man called Khirro, he has another man’s face.
Three women cower, threatened by a man with a knife as he questions them. He kills the dark-haired one and seizes the young blond. A minute passes before he kills her and the older woman. As he faces me, I see an empty eye socket and web of scars across his face. This isn’t Khirro, either.
“Stop it,” I yell, but the visions continue. I see Khirro rescue the woman, Elyea, from a giant. He saves her from a lake of corpses. Finally, I see her killed protecting him. It isn’t Khirro who wields the sword, it is another.
“Do not believe any of it.”
The voice startles me but I don’t look around for it, I know it’s in my head. It’s the voice of the woman in black.
“Do not believe his sword of lies, it does only his bidding.”
“Lies!”
I feel the magician close behind me and whirl on him before he can react. My sword rakes his stomach, a place I inexplicably know he already bears a scar. His sword drops and he sinks to his knees. I turn my back on him and face the man called Khirro. The visions are gone, along with the sword’s light.
“You’re a liar and sinner, a murderer and rapist. It’s time for you to pay.”
He shakes his head and backs away but he isn’t afraid. I feel the power in him.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Elyea. You loved me, too.”
“Shariel,” I insist and rush him.
I did love him sometime, I’ve come to realize this truth, but when and why are beyond me. I put thoughts of love, kindness, and mercy out of my mind, replacing them with visions of his blood spilling on the floor I use to coax the satisfaction of vengeance into being. I strike again and again, and he defends but doesn’t take the offensive. This disappoints me because I know I’ll wear him down soon. I’d hoped for more of a fight.
He catches my first blow with his shield, but it splits it in two. He shakes it from his arm and I make the first cut across his left arm. It’s not deep because I didn’t want it to be. The next is on his right thigh, enough to send blood running down his leg but not enough to hobble him. Not yet. Strain shows on his face and sweat runs down his cheeks.
“Elyea--” he pleads again, but I cut him off with a short cut on his cheek. He doesn’t cry out. I laugh.
“Shariel,” I growl and cut deep into his right forearm. The black and red sword clatters on the floor and a growl rumbles in his throat. I smile, ready for the challenge, as the flames start.
***
Blood trickled down Khirro’s arm and thigh, his legs went rubbery under him.
Have to keep going.
He peered over the woman’s shoulder at Athryn on the floor behind her, hands held in front of his midsection. He didn’t have much time, but still Khirro fought the inferno raging inside him, clinging to the thought that Elyea was trapped inside somewhere and she still loved him.
She told me she did.
“Elyea--,” he started, but her sword opened a cut on his cheek. She laughed. Heat filled Khirro’s body, racing through his veins, rejuvenating his muscles.
“Shariel.”
Her sword sank into the muscle of his forearm. He dropped the Mourning Sword and the fire spilled over like a volcano erupting, a growl rumbling in his throat as he finally let go. If Athryn was to live, this was the only way.
Flames engulfed the world before his eyes. Through them, the woman’s face no longer looked like Elyea’s. The flames twisted it, threw shadows dancing across it, and he knew the face he saw belonged to the second voice he’d heard speaking through her mouth. This face was beautiful, too, but the evil etched in the cut of her chin and the color of her eyes was plain. Khirro saw this like an observer watching from a safe place where he possessed no influence on what happened. His body took over, doing what needed to be done, and he allowed it.
The woman swung her sword and Khirro sprang aside. A flaming paw lashed out from where a bandaged hand had been a second before. It connected with the woman’s sword hand and her weapon spun away. Flame spread to the sleeve of her shirt.
She closed the distance between them, a dagger drawn from her belt, her actions showing no fear though a hint o
f it flickered in her eyes alongside the blaze reflected in them. Fiery claws raked her shoulder and thigh and the flaming tyger pushed forward, driving her to the floor. It climbed atop her, paws on her chest, claws digging into flesh. The tyger leaned forward until its blazing whiskers brushed her cheek.
Khirro wrestled to regain control before the inevitable happened, but through the fire he felt a claw pierce her chest and find its way between her ribs into her lung; another pressed against her heart. The woman’s body stiffened, a look of shock crossing her face, and her breath hissed through taut lips.
The flames before Khirro’s eyes dimmed and his control returned. He pushed himself up and took his hands off her chest; blood pumped from the holes left by the tyger’s claws. He leaned forward again, applying pressure to the wounds he’d caused. The woman’s face became Elyea’s again.
“No,” he whispered. “Elyea.”
Behind him, he heard Athryn speaking archaic words, using the end of his love’s life to concoct a spell. Each foreign syllable wrenched at him, twisting his insides into a knot of anger. He wanted to yell at the magician to stop, say it was wrong for him to take advantage of the loss of her life, but Elyea’s eyes moved to Khirro’s and he forgot his companion’s transgressions.
“Khirro.”
“Shhh. Don’t speak.”
“She lied to me. It wasn’t you. I’m sorry.”
He felt the blood pulsing out of her chest between his fingers, soaking the bandages wrapping his hands. Somehow, through the pain, through death pulling her from him again, she smiled. Her expression drained his strength and he sagged forward, put his cheek against hers.
“It wasn’t you. I loved you,” she whispered, then her breath ceased.
“Don’t go. Not again.” He shook his head, cheek brushing against her cheek. “Don’t go.”
He was vaguely aware of Athryn’s incantation stopping and the room—a room full of so much death—fell into silence. Soon, the magician would put his hand on Khirro’s shoulder and tell him it was time for them to go. Soon, they’d be on their way, into the country of their enemy, marching toward a future which surely held their deaths; for an instant, it seemed the future might also hold love.
But no more.
At least she can seek peace with the Gods. The thought gave him no comfort.
Athryn put his hand on Khirro’s shoulder.
Chapter Thirty
The Archon’s eyes snapped open and she sat up abruptly, pain flaring in her chest. Hanh Perdaro stirred in the bed beside her, snored lightly. She smelled the odor of his sweat and the hot air in the room pressed on her like a moist sheet; it brought nausea to her stomach.
He must have gotten up in the night and closed the shutters.
It bothered her both that he had done it, closing her in the stone prison of the room with its heavy air and rank smells, and that he had managed the act without waking her. If she knew any truth, it was that she needed to be more alert and aware than that—all the time, but especially while sleeping under the enemy’s roof. She threw the covers off angrily, unconcerned about waking the man in the bed beside her, and dangled her legs over the edge.
But she knew the heat hadn’t woken her, nor Perdaro’s smell or his snoring. She’d been dreaming of the woman, Shariel, her assassin. The dream had been more than a dream, as they always were, and she had been pulled from her sleep when the woman’s life left her body.
She has failed.
She stood and crossed to the window, the soft fur of the bearskin rug grating on the bottom of her feet more than usual, her hatred of it amplified by her mood. Her skin was thankful when it touched cool stone.
I should have the damn rug removed.
She threw open the shutters and stared out into the night. From the window in the king’s quarters on the third floor, she could see the tops of a few buildings and the inside of the fortress’ wall, nothing beyond. She knew the building faced north when the happenings of her dream lay to the west, but she stared hard into the night as if doing so would allow her to see into the distant public house and look into the face of her enemy.
When it didn’t, she put her hand on her chest and breathed deep, her chest and heart and lungs stinging with the wounds inflicted by the flaming tyger on her assassin. She felt blood oozing from the wound and onto her fingers, heard the hiss of breath escaping from the holes in her chest. Life escaped the body with the fluid and the air. The Archon closed her eyes and concentrated, willing the power to rise in her, and the pain faded.
Vanquishing the feeling of Shariel’s wounds changed neither the fact of her death nor the survival of the man and the spirit of the king within him.
Her eyes remained closed another minute as she fought the urge to build the power further, to use it to transport herself to that distant city and finish herself what the assassin started, but she knew she didn’t have the power to do it. It took too much of her to raise the dead men and keep them going for her to expend so much energy elsewhere. She must trust the man’s journey would be cut short another way, or that he would come to her and find his death at her hands.
A cold breeze gusted through the window, blowing the scent of Perdaro’s body out of her nostrils and carrying with it the briny scent of the sea and the hint of winter coming in the near future. The wind embraced her, caressed her like no man ever could, but his time it didn’t calm her or make her feel better like it so often did. Instead, it was the gust of air to fan the flames.
“He lives,” she said aloud; Perdaro snorted in his sleep. “And he still carries the king within him.”
This wasn’t what she had foreseen. In her visions, Erechania’s king and its people simply bent to her will, provided her the stepping stone she needed to launch her offensive on other kingdoms. As her army and her might pushed forward, she would eventually overthrow the southern kingdoms and learn the secrets of their dark magic no northerner had ever learned, not even Monos. She’d be the most powerful Necromancer who ever lived. No one would stop her.
Yet this man, this farmer, stood in her way.
“How is it he yet survives?”
She knew the answer. It was unexpected and unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility. Only one man could have kept the farmer alive so long, a man who professed not to involve himself in the goings-on of men. Her eyes narrowed, a shadow fell across her face.
“Darestat.”
She cursed herself for not ensuring the old wizard was truly dead as she watched clouds roll across the moon, throwing the fortress into deeper night. If the Necromancer still lived, she would have to find ways to increase her powers to defeat him. It was no longer a farmer or a fallen king against whom she fought, but the powerful magician.
And she relished the challenge.
“This is not done,” she said crossing the room to the divan.
The velvet upholstery chaffed her flesh as she reclined on the bench. She closed her eyes, focusing the power swirling within her until her mind filled with the vision of a verdant field, blue sky, and the shape of a woman reclining in the grass.
“Shariel,” she said and smiled.
Chapter Thirty-One
The flaming tyger’s claw pierces my heart and I know it’s done.
I’ve failed.
The flames flicker and die and the man called Khirro looks down on me with love and sorrow in his eyes. I want to tell him he’ll be okay, to reach up and stroke his cheek; in this moment I realize I’m Shariel no more. I’m Elyea: the woman he loved, the woman who loved him.
“Khirro.”
“Shh. Don’t speak.”
“She lied to me. It wasn’t you. I’m sorry.” He leans forward, puts his cheek against mine. It washes warmth through me not caused simply by the proximity of a warm body. This is the way he made me feel.
“It wasn’t you. I loved you.”
“Don’t go. Not again.” He shakes his head and his cheek touching mine is the last thing I experience. I breathe my
last breath and feel myself floating toward the ceiling with it.
Below me, Athryn kneels, his chanting finished. He uses my death to heal them both and the thought fills me with joy. I caused their injuries, so it’s fitting I’ll be the cause of their healing, too. I pass through the roof of the building, floating upward, and can no longer see the two men. The city of Poltghasa stretches beneath me, a sleeping beast, a place where I wreaked such havoc and caused such death.
But it wasn’t me. I see that now.
And I see the truth now, too. Khirro didn’t do those things, the woman in black manipulated me. He didn’t do anything but love me and care for me—the only man who ever truly did. He deserves my appreciation and love, not hatred and disdain, and he’ll have it forever more. It pains me I can’t show him.
I will find a way.
The city disappears, replaced by grass greener than grass should be. I roll onto my back, delighting in the feel of the dewy blades caressing my naked flesh. A cloudless sky carved of sapphire stretches forever over my head and peace fills me. If I can’t be with Khirro, this is where I want to be.
The Gods did not invent the sundial, it is a construct of man, to gauge when his life’s end approaches, so it holds no value here. Lives here have already ended. Perhaps, to a mortal, I’ve been here a few seconds when the colors begin to fade, or maybe it’s eons. No matter, I’ve seen this before, it led me from my paradise to hell on earth and I won’t let it happen again. I concentrate. The field wavers then solidifies. The sky fades, flirting with white, then returns to cerulean when I turn my attention to it.
A spot of black appears before me, small at first. It expands; before it takes shape, I know what it is. Who it is.
Anxiety intrudes on my peacefulness, nesting in the pit of my stomach. The black smudge grows to the size of a person, resolves itself into the woman in black, her cowl pulled back from what I once thought her beautiful face. The look in her eyes sends a shudder through my body.