The WorldMight

by Cyril L. C. Bussiere

  “FOR ALYMPHIA!” he roared, authority and rage crackling at the edge of his voice.

  The king and his son soared forward, the six elites, dark and silent figures at their side. They rushed past the line of archers that slowly crept toward the enemy. In the ever darkening open space they stepped over the corpses of their fallen comrades, and weapons raised high above their heads, they stormed onward. The remaining clanswomen pounced like wild animals to meet them. Their garbs of fur and vine were drenched and hung heavily on their frames. And despite the rain their hair was thick of mud and gore. As lightning tore through the skies, the surviving Alymphians and the Sisterhood clashed amongst the dead and the dying. Arrows flashed by, more heard than seen, and every so often found their mark. Prince Hedgard could scarcely see farther than a few yards in front of him now, but it mattered not. His father’s rage was contagious and his fears and reservations were gone, replaced by an overwhelming tension that focused him squarely in the moment. A clanswoman met him in the middle of the clearing. He aimed a powerful downward blow at her skull, but she swiftly sidestepped and dodged it. His sword splashed into the mud as she thrust her spear at his now-open right flank. He twisted his upper body and with his blade knocked the spear away from his side. The clanswoman hopped backward and he was drawn after her. But when he stepped forward, his foot caught on a fallen castle guard’s arm and he tripped. The clanswoman reversed the direction of her movement and her weapon once more flashed toward him. Her spear was inches from his chest when, his arm close to his body, he swiped the spear sideways with the flat of his blade. The tip of the clanswoman’s weapon scraped against his breastplate. The force of the impact almost made him lose his grip on his weapon. He hesitated to counterattack, but before his opponent could profit from his indecision and attack him anew, an arrow lodged itself into her neck and fell her. The world seemed to pause around him. He became overly conscious of his breathing, of the rain dripping down his face and into his eyes, nostrils, and mouth. At the periphery of his vision, he saw a spear hover above the ground on its own before being thrown by invisible hands and falling an elite. Thunder rumbled above him and behind him, a scream erupted and quickly died out.

  “An archer dying,” he vaguely acknowledged.

  Then the chaos of the moment rushed back to him and he threw himself with renewed vigor against another clanswoman. As he exchanged blows with his new opponent, a couple more of the Sisterhood soldiers rushed toward him with their clubs raised high. Before they reached him, his father appeared by his side and when they neared, the king feinted left and then plunged his sword into the nearest female’s chest. Night had fallen now and they had to strain their eyes to see the oncoming blows while lightening partially blinded them each time it crisscrossed the skies above. They danced with the wild females in a swirl of madness. Intuition and reflex had taken over and side by side father and son hacked and slashed and blocked and dodged for what seemed like an eternity. The elites came and went from the narrow field of their perception. Once in a while king Rhegard shouted: “TAKE HEART!” or “FOR ALYMPHIA!” But Prince Hedgard could not tell if it was meant for the king’s men or for the king himself. The screams coming from behind them decreased in frequency. But if it was because most of the archers had been slain by the Undoers or because enough of the Sisterhood’s clanswomen had been taken down to restrict the Undoers usage of the Other World, they had no way of telling. They pushed forward until they reached the gray row of tall bushes that lined the river. One last clanswoman went down and then they stood breathless at the edge of the clearing. They looked nervously around for the next attacker, tension high in their shoulders and hands. But none came.

  Were they done? Had they done it?

  They surveyed their surroundings as best as they could and strained their senses trying to hear if some were retreating. They could not afford to let one of them live. A minute stretched. The rain seemed to let up. Nothing moved that they could see or hear. Prince Hedgard started becoming vaguely aware of an awful stench rising from the corpse-strewn ground, but his attention was somewhere else, at the limit of his perception into the thickening darkness around him.

  “Gewaltt, report,” the king eventually shouted.

  For the first time, they saw him coming. The wall of darkness to their right seemed to release him reluctantly. He walked carefully amongst the corpses, intently avoiding stepping on them.

  “Three of us, four archers left, my king,” he said once at their side.

  “Almost all the men died!” Prince Hedgard realized, horrified.

  The king let out a long growl and shook his head.

  “Master Baccus?” he asked

  “I do not know. You were spared; I assumed he survived that long. He might still live.”

  “We need to get to the Undoers,” King Rhegard said. “They will be powerless now, on their own. But we cannot let any of them escape.”

  “Yes, my king,” Gewaltt replied.

  Suddenly, there was a ruffling sound and some foliage moved a few yards from them.

  “There are more!” the king screamed.

  A renewed onslaught of tension hit Prince Hedgard and the three of them surged forward. Weapons first, they jumped into the hedge of bushes. At first it refused to let them through. Prince Hedgard pushed harder, arching himself forward, and the wall of leaves and branches reluctantly relinquished him to the other side. Gewaltt was nowhere to be seen and the king and his son found themselves on a small, half-circle opening only a few yards from the stormy waters of the river. They could not distinguish anything at first. But when the thick canopy of clouds high above shifted and let a ray of moonlight shine on the scene before them, it revealed one of the clanswomen, kneeling by the river bank, her back to them.

  Out of the corner of his eye Prince Hedgard thought he saw something rushing down the dark, turbulent waters. The idea of a large basket, a small hand sticking out of it, bubbled to the surface of his tired mind. But when he looked in that direction he saw nothing but the raging flow of the river. The king rushed toward the clanswoman, his sword raised high above his head. She turned to look at them. Her face was grim, splotched, and hollow. Her hair fell in clumps over her forehead and covered her visage partially. As the king approached, she raised her face toward them. Her eyes were deep-set and wild, but in their wavering light and the contractions of her features Prince Hedgard saw unadulterated sadness and grief. The clouds above them moved again and once more plunged them into darkness. There was a wet, fleshy thud followed by a grunt from his father and then a heavy splash.

  “One less,” the king said spitefully.

  Afterward, they silently stood where they were, trying to decipher the sounds around them. But nothing stood out over the gurgles and churns of the river. After a moment, they went back to the clearing where they met the rest of the elites. King Rhegard sent them after the last of the Sisterhood. Then they crossed the battlefield one last time, tripping and slipping over the dozens of bodies that lay there and they did theoir best to ignore what they were stepping on. At the other end of the clearing they found Master Baccus where they had left him. The temple runner was still alive, but barely. He lay in the mud motionless and his ears showed signs of abundant bleeding, as did his nose. He had exerted himself beyond what even he ever thought was possible, and it would take him three long and painful, bedridden months to get better. That night he had sacrificed more than he would ever tell anyone and in a sense he was never to recover.

  An hour later, the elites met the king and his son at the spot from which they had launched the assault. By then the storm had passed and the torrential rain had decreased to a slight drizzle. The coldness of the night and an acute weariness had settled in their bones. Around them the night was still and the forest quiet, but the struggle they had survived rang loudly in their ears as it would for many years to come. Gewaltt reported that they had tracked down and slain the handful of remaining clanswomen. On their own they had been littl
e more than pitiful game, Gewaltt recounted with an out-of-character vindictive sneer.

  Days later, once back in Alymphia, the four archers that survived the night were assigned to the king’s personal guard and sworn into secrecy; retroactively including the campaign they had been a part of on the slopes of the Great Barrier. An oath with dire consequences for those who took it and their families were they to ever break it. The death of the large number of Alymphians who had embarked on that fateful journey was explained as the tragic result of an outbreak of the Brathen of Old brought into Alymphia by a foreign tribe of nomads. They were honored as heroes who had sacrificed themselves to save Alymphia from the Pestilence. The king saw to it that their bodies, alongside every clanswoman’s, were burnt and their remains buried in a mass grave dug on the site of their demise.

  Six months later, upon order of the king, the temple runner started teaching the elites ‘the ways of the Other World’, as the king had put it. Master Baccus himself deemed that endeavor pointless; on his own there was little he could impart. But King Rhegard was intransigent on the subject and Master Baccus would not disobey his king. For, in the end, Rhegard was the one who brought justice upon the Sisterhood, the slayers of his people. A fact which rejoiced the temple runner for some time, but ultimately did nothing to appease the sense of loss that he had been carrying with him ever since he was chased to Alymphia, all those years ago.

  Chapter Twenty

  The carekeeper’s body smashed like a ragdoll against a table and in a shower of kitchen utensils, it came to a rest on the floor. The prince landed on his knees next to him and was taken by a painful coughing fit. His eyes hurt and his mouth and nose felt as if they were coated with sand. One of the barrels by the worktable contained water. The prince dragged himself to it and between two coughing fits dipped his head in the gray water. He forced his eyes and mouth open and the freshness felt blissful. Afterward he sat against the barrel, his throat tight and sore. He was rattled by more coughing, but he had made it out alive. He rested for a bit in the quietness of the small kitchen. There was no sound that he could hear coming from beyond the threshold. Once the coughing let up a bit and his eyes felt better, he turned his attention to the Father of fathers. The old man had not moved or made a sound since they erupted into the small room, but when the prince brought an ear close to his mouth he felt the weak and raspy flow of his breath on his skin.

  He felt exhausted now. He leaned back against the barrel and closed his eyes. The moist darkness of his eyelids felt wonderful. His limbs jerked lightly as the tension that had built in his nerves slowly seeped out of him. His silence still ringing with the hollow shrieks of the creatures below and his throat stinging badly with every breath he took, the prince welcomed sleep when it came for him.

  When he woke up, the boy was by the door. He had pulled one of the wooden stools from the waiting room to the kitchen’s threshold and sat motionless as he stared silently at him. The child shot an inquisitive look at the Father of fathers.

  “He’s alive,” the prince told him. “Though, I’m not sure for how much longer.”

  The boy simply nodded.

  “Is there any other monk around?” the prince asked.

  The boy remained silent but shook his head no. The prince grunted himself off the floor. His head was still light and once up he felt unsteady on his feet and his body screamed at him to sit back down. But, he had to make sure there were no monks in the vicinity. He had an inkling that given the condition of the Father of fathers the rest of the monks would be little more that empty vessels. Still, he wanted to make sure none were around. He walked past the sitting boy and ventured through the waiting room and into the dining room. Both rooms were empty and when he walked to the openings through which the mad monks had exited after their last meal, he did not hear any sound. The silence was heavy, solemn even in the large, empty space. He did not care to check if his theory about the monks was right. He stood on the stage by the long table and now that the tension that built up in him was mostly gone, he felt defeated. He had been looking for the Father of fathers for so many years and had overcome countless obstacles. And now that he had finally found him, his hopes of learning of the word were reduced to the raspy breathing of a dying man. Worst of all, if he did not find the word here he did not know where he would search for it next. Sure, there were still numerous lands he had not walked upon, many people unknown to him that might hold secrets that could help him. But in his long search for the word, the Father of fathers had been the most likely to hold the answer that he so single-mindedly sought. Defeat weighted heavily on him as he contemplated the void he would have to confront if the Father of fathers were to die. He clenched his hands into fists against the thought and the rising desperation that it elicited.

  “Is that it,” he thought bitterly, “is this where it all ends?”

  “Fear not,” a soft voice rose in his mind.

  A timid warmth flashed at his neck. It tried to ascertain itself but vanished almost instantaneously. The prince grabbed the stone under the black fabric of his shirt and closed his eyes. The face of his love materialized before him as he saw it upon touching the boy. A ball of emotion swelled in his chest. Sadness, for he missed her; disappointment at his staking so much on a holy man that turned out to be anything but what he had hoped for; fear, too, that he might never find the word and that his love was doomed to remain trapped in the beast’s mind because of his failings. The weight of it all bundled into a tight, oversized ball in his already painful throat.

  “Fear not,” the gentle voice echoed again. “Time is but the infinite succession of all that can be.”

  His love smiled to him from behind his eyelids; her green features shining peace and comfort.

  “Fear not, my love, the moment will come. Take heart in that knowledge.”

  She smiled to him again before dissipating into a series of faint pulses of light. The prince opened his eyes and punched the table before him.

  “How weak I am,” he reproached himself. “The Father of fathers is not dead yet. I might still get something out of him.”

  He stepped off from the stage.

  “And if not, I’ll turn the world upside down if I have to, but I will free her!”

  His doubts melting into resolve, he headed back to the boy and the unconscious old man.

  When the prince walked back into the kitchen, the Father of fathers let out a weak, painful cough that left a dark, sticky thread at his lips. As he did, his face broke into small, bloody lines atop his moving muscles. He moaned and for a second it seemed as if he would try to speak, maybe open his eyes, but he did not. The prince came to him, wondering what he could do. The old man looked more like a corpse than a living thing. As bad as his face was burnt, it was the least damaged part of his body. His feet and lower legs were charred and looked like coal. His mid-section displayed scabs of a redder shade and from cracks in his skin an assortment of blood and pus dripped. His upper body was a fleshy shamble of fluid-filled pustules and seared, bloody skin. His face had been burned badly when his beard and hair caught fire. It was an oozing, crusty mess and the lack of eyebrow gave the old man an alien, almost comical look. All in all, it was a miracle that he was still alive and the prince suspected that the Father of father’s dark arts had something to do with it. The prince filled an old mug with water, brought it to the old man’s lips and slowly dripped a few drops in his mouth. The Father of fathers did not reject the liquid and gave an almost imperceptible swallow.

  From then on the prince and the boy waited for him to regain consciousness or die. They settled in the small kitchen; the boy on his stool by the door, his back rigidly against the wall, the prince sitting cross-legged against a water barrel. They waited in silence as was their habit and when the night came the prince replenished himself, drawing strength and fullness as was his way.

  Once the rolling waves of his focused thoughts had repaired the vacuum that built up at his core, he let his mind wand
er over the events of the past day. Much of it was a blur he struggled to comprehend. Visions of what he had experienced and thoughts of what it might mean, swirled in his mind. His head was filled with the mad monks and their strange power; how they had affected his perceptions but also the stone’s reaction to them, the protection and knowledge it bestowed upon him when he needed it most. The stone’s failings when he had faced the Father of fathers also gripped him, as did his silent companion, the strange child and what he might be and know. What happened when he touched the boy stood out sharply in his thoughts: the madness in the child’s face, but mostly his love, who appeared to him so clearly and her voice too, so tangible at times that it felt as if it could have been his own, all proof, in his mind, that she was still alive. She came to him when he needed it most and he rejoiced quietly in the knowledge of her presence. The creatures in the tubs flashed their disturbing presence too; what were they? Were they made here, conceived from nothing by the will of the Father of fathers or were they animals or people that his dark arts had twisted into corrupted things?

  Every so often the prince would tear himself from his thoughts and drip some water into the old man’s mouth. He would carefully pay attention to his reaction, looking for signs that he might be regaining consciousness.

  When they grew hungry the boy and he ate what they could scavenge from the shelves and containers of the kitchen.

  Some three, long, and uneventful days later, the Father of fathers grunted a low and wet rumbling that seemed to take his fleshy throat by surprise. The grunt rose steadily, its vibrations getting louder by the second. Suddenly pulled out of their introspections, the boy and the prince got to their feet and came to him. The Father of fathers coughed forcefully, his charred features broke open anew and something thick and bloody-green spilled out of his mouth and onto his chin. The prince grabbed a towel that hung on a hook above one of the tables, knelt by the old man, and carefully wiped off the discharge. The Father of fathers opened his eyes. And when he did, his features wavered in pain and blood dripped from his scabby eyelids. His eyes were deeply blood-shot, and his left iris was fully dilated despite the light of the torches burning in the small room. There was fear in those eyes; anger and pain too, but mostly fear. The old man’s eyes fluttered back and forth for a while. They came to rest on the boy for a brief instant then resumed their aimless wandering. Eventually they slowed a bit as understanding dawned onto the Father of fathers and his gaze locked onto the prince.