Twixt Heaven And Hell

by Tristan Gregory

  Pollis nodded – though he had confessed privately to Darius that he did not remember hearing any of the Angel's words, so awestruck he had been at the time. It pained Darius that everyone had to take it on his word.

  "Spring approaches, but this year will be different than all others before it - "

  Darius stopped speaking abruptly. He was stalling, he knew. He'd said everything he had come to say, save this.

  "For one thing, this will be the first year Bastion has had in a long while, without the Gryphons. I have decided to disband."

  There were cries of dismay and alarm from the men, and Pollis stepped forward to speak, anger in his voice.

  "Did the Council put you to this, sir? Is this their punishment?"

  "No!" Darius said assertively. "This is my decision. The Council, truth be told, is far too busy to punish me or any of us."

  The trial had quickly fallen to pieces. All of Darius's fellows agreed that Aethel had helped them to their plan, and Darius claimed Makaelic had sanctioned it in the end. More importantly, the crisis Bastion was facing was too enormous to bother with punishing those who had brought it about, when instead they could help to bring it under control. Contact had been established with all the major forts and encampments of the border, by way of runners who were being pushed to exhaustion to bring constant news to and from the city.

  There was no news to bring, though. There had been no fighting of any kind in weeks. Pyre was certainly suffering the same disorientation as Bastion. The War had come to a complete halt. There was even talk, now, of sending emissaries of peace to meet with Traigan himself, in hopes of ending the war entirely. Darius had his doubts on that score – but if it had any hope at all, it was worth trying. Why else had he done all this, if not to end the war?

  "Magic has changed," Darius told his soldiers. The rumors had already spread throughout Bastion, but he may as well confirm it. "We wizards can barely light a candle. Eventually we may rediscover our old power – magic is not gone – but I would no longer be any use to lead you in the field. Many of you here have been fighting at my side for years. You have earned your rest. We all have."

  A man pushed his way through the crowd to stand before Darius – Emanuelle.

  "Magic or no magic," the young man said, "I would sooner follow you into battle than any man. You, Darius, will always be my captain."

  "And mine!" shouted another, and soon the rest followed suit. Blades were drawn and raised to the air in salute. Pollis took command, and with his blade over his head shouted, "I will always be a Gryphon – and you, Darius, are my captain!"

  His soldiers repeated it in a thundering shout, as if they were taking another oath of service. Darius nearly wept. There were already rumors around the city about him, dark whispers of how he had made war on the Angels and cast them out.

  People were beginning to look askance at him as if he had robbed them of something – and he wailed inside, knowing that in some way, he had.

  Here, at least, were men who knew that what he had taken he had replaced with a gift all the greater.

  “Thank you,” he said through his emotion.

  Then he found his voice again, and for the first time in months he was nearly his old self. He shouted back at his men in mock-anger, a smile on his face. "Now get out of here, all of you! You've spent enough of your days in the barracks. Leave! Drink! Sing! Trick a girl into your bed, and marry her before she comes to her senses. Go on!"

  They needed no more prompting, flooding through every door available until Darius was left alone with one man. Pollis remained behind.

  "What will you do now, sir?" the lieutenant asked.

  Darius shook his head, and breathed deeply. "I don't know yet," he answered, but he did so with a smile. He flicked his head towards the door. "Go," he said. "That is my last order."

  Pollis obeyed.

  What will you do now?

  The question struck deeper than Pollis had intended, no doubt – but only because Darius had been wondering the same thing for a long time.

  He was amazed to discover, at long last, that his one and only ability had been as a leader. A fighter. Somehow in all the tumultuous battles, despite knowing exactly what he wanted, it had never occurred to him what it would mean when he achieved it. Darius was a warrior. He had little place in peace.

  People gave him furtive glances as he trudged the path towards the Crown. He ignored them more easily now. His Gryphons – he would always think of them as that – knew his heart. They knew the truth. From them it would spread. Eventually, there would be a time when Bastion did not curse his name.

  What will you do now?

  He was not welcome amongst the wizards, not yet. Though the others had managed to find some place for themselves – especially Ethion, whose talents with administration were more important than ever, now – Darius had become the pariah for the group. He had not acted alone, but he alone would shoulder the condemnation. Would he also be alone in facing the regret?

  He thought often, now, of the things Aethel had said to him. Aethel, wise beyond even the gifts of an Angel, had foreseen this backlash at the Choirs' departure. He had seen that the wizards who helped Darius had not truly grasped their sacrifice. No doubt he had also seen that the people of Bastion would think first of what they had lost, not what they had gained.

  Aethel had called him friend, at the end.

  Darius found himself on the path to the tower, but decided, suddenly, not to bother. The Council wanted nothing to do with him now. They still felt somehow betrayed, as if Darius had aided the Enemy in his actions. A scowl grew upon his face. The Enemy had been using the Demons more and more to scourge Bastion. Darius had pulled their teeth!

  Already inside the walls of the Crown, Darius turned aside from the path. Eventually he found himself before the still-ruinous remains of Balkan's home. He had not been here since the night it had burned.

  Steeling himself, Darius stepped onto the snow-covered ash, entering the hulk that held his greatest sorrows.

  Snow masked the worst of it – the blackened stones were unseen beneath the pure, sparkling powder. Darius shouldered aside a beam and ducked beneath the fallen ceiling. He discovered that the collapsed wall had sheltered a corner of the house.

  Beneath the slanted stone was a wicker basket, untouched by fire and shielded from the snow. Crawling towards it, Darius found within bundles of yarn – and two sets of knitting needles, one large, one small. Attached to the smaller pair was still a length of yarn, at the end of which was a jumble of knotted thread, knitted and tied into the shape of a young girl in a green dress.

  A strangled cry burst from Darius's throat. At first he tried to hold back his tears – and then realized that there was no need. He knelt there in the crumbling remnants of Balkan's house, clutching the creation of a child who would never create another, would never laugh or run again. Darius wept as he had wept only once before, and for the same reason. His insides churned and ached as his misery swallowed him, and – perversely – he found himself remembering an old saying.

  To be in the presence of an Angel is to be comforted...

  ...but now, there would be no more Angels.

  - The End -

  About the Author

  Tristan Gregory is an Ann Arbor based writer, martial arts instructor, and computer programmer. In addition to his novels, he writes the casual fantasy series The Wandering Tale as well as other science fiction and fantasy.

  If you want to hear more about the world of TWIXT HEAVEN AND HELL, be sure to stop by Tristan's blog at: tristanrambles.blogspot.com for deleted chapters and short stories.

  Tristan can be found on Twitter as @GregoryWrites

  An Excerpt From THE SWORDSMAN OF CARN NEBETH

  Story #1 of The Wandering Tale

  Pa says I’m a dreamer, always with my eye on the horizon – and coincidentally, not paying much attention to what I’m doing. Now that’s not true. I can use a hoe or weed or plow just fine, eve
n when I am thinking about other things. How much can that sort of work really occupy a man’s mind? Even by the age of seven, I’d been doing fieldwork so long I didn’t much need to think about it. So, I did look to the horizon, and wondered what might be over it.

  That’s why I was the first to see him. I know now that it’s a foolish notion, but for the longest time I thought that gave me a special connection with him, a kinship. Foolish or no, I was the first to see him and anyone in town would tell you the same – except maybe Hyde Potter, but that louse would lie about having five fingers on each hand if he thought you’d believe him.

  My Pa owns the fields directly to the north of the road (or at least works ‘em… we never did worry much about who owned what in Carn Nebeth) which is why I was looking down the long dirt path at that moment. At first he was just a tiny, distant speck. I gave it little thought, turning my attention for a moment to a particularly stubborn root that didn’t belong in our field. After my hard-won victory over the invading plant, I let my arms keep up their work and looked up again, intending to return to whatever daydream had been growing in my head.

  But the speck was larger. Only a little bit, hardly any at all. But I’d always been one to notice details where others missed them, and I knew that when something in the distance is smaller and then gets bigger, it means that it’s coming towards you. No one from would be coming back from a trip to the city (we called it that, though now I know it is little more than a backwards country town) because no one had left in a good while. With the enthusiasm any child from Carn Nebeth will show when something new! is happening, I turned to my Pa and said excitedly: “There’s someone on the road!”

  So set in his routine was my Pa that he replied ‘Nonsense, boy,’ before he even looked. He knew that no one was due back from the city just as well as I did, and who else would be coming to Carn Nebeth but someone who already lived there?

  I would not be dissuaded. “There is, Pa! Look!”

  Finally he raised his head and squinted into the distance. A change came over his weathered face – bewilderment, probably. Without even apologizing for not believing me, he called to Havel across the road, who had a reputation for sharp eyes.

  “Havel! Look up the road!”

  The tall, thin man did, leaning on the hoe that he resembled so much. Picking at his teeth with his tongue, he considered the view for a good long moment before replying. “Huh. Well, lookit that.”

  “Who in blazes is it, do you think?”

  Havel considered for a moment. “Bandit?”

  Havel’s eyes were sharp, but his wits weren’t anything to marvel at. There had been rumors of thieves on the roads (to be expected, some of the old men said, what with the war ended and all), but none had been seen here – Carn Nebeth had nothing to steal, and was a long ways from anyplace that did.

  “Only one? In broad daylight?” Pa replied.

  Havel shrugged, his eyes still locked on the approaching figure. Pa turned to me. “Run and get Mr. Shein, William. Quickly now.”

  Derrek Shein’s plot was back of ours, and he was in a thick copse of trees on the very far end of it so when I got there I was out of breath. I got through that my Pa wanted him, though. He left his axe in the log he had been cutting – the wood was dry, so it wouldn’t harm the bit – and came right away.

  By that time the man on the road was obviously that. Pa told me to go back to work while he greeted the fellow, so I did – close enough to watch and to listen to everything they said.

  Pa pretended to work for a few moments as well, though he stood near to the two other men in a patch of the field that I’d turned just that morning. He stopped even pretending, though, when Havel spoke next.

  “Curse me...” said the man, “Curse me if there is not a sword on that man’s back.”

  ***

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