by K M McGuire
“But we shall not linger on such formalities,” Kintza stated, erecting himself again. “I have been entrapped in the unending space, pulled from time for far too long.” His wings pulled out from his side, and a flickering cascade of orchid polygons trickled from out of his armaments. The forms set in place, and a wash of static bolts trembled across the materializing shapes, constructing oddly majestic wings, swirling with spilt purples and flecks of stars that shifted in each polygon at their own discretion. “Moments have bled into one another. The first and last were just the same. The Ones Beyond have punished me to be without the structure of time! No tapping of the foot could hasten the snare, nor could the endless gleaning of thought command the timelessness into some sense of passing. I have been eager to stretch my wings from the torture of the realm that forever compounds! Ah, a touch of reality has such a taste. I nearly forgot its self-indulgent air!”
“Yes, the realm of destitution is numbing,” Eigan said passively, and Kintza cocked his head sharply at the response.
“What trifles do you believe I speak?” Kintza grumbled indignantly at Eigan. “To have such an affront to me, the Prince of Pantomath? Does your plan outweigh mine, which has been brewing in my sight for centuries before your time? Do not sway your thoughts from believing that I alone bore these visions of progress for this bountiful army to be shaped around you! I gave the whispers of the Azucrepyhs to you menial sentients to become closer to what we, the Keepers, are! Do not lessen what suffering I attest to—what I and the Mother have gone through to bring you closer to ascension!”
“I had not meant to offend,” Eigan responded his smile widening. Still, there was something strange about his confidence. “I had only wished to push forward on the plans that the king set far beyond you! But, as you said, let’s not linger on formalities.”
Kintza held his gaze, as the crowd excitedly murmured like summer crickets. The wind blew past Voden, licking at his exposed skin, sapping the warmth from his bones. “Then I expect you have my sacrament?”
Eigan turned slowly to the autonomous Andar, his smile became lizard-like. “Of course,” he said slyly. “I do hope you will find pleasure in it being presented slightly different than you anticipated. You are, after all, fresh to this world, and I would imagine you need to acclimate to this realm.” He snapped his fingers, and the air filled with an odd humming noise that surrounded the stadium. Metallic legs pulled the giant spider-like discs up on the parapets, and a sudden beam of dazzling light pelted the ground, gleaming off the brazen feathers of Kintza. The circles of light popped up all around them, forcing the shadows to cower under their feet. “After all, Kintza, you can see how much inspiration we garnered from you. We constructed these Stalkers in your honor.” The crowd began whistling and cheering, the square emblazoned with light that made it seem like day. Eigan laughed maniacally, lifting his arms into the air. “We prepared for your arrival with machines of war, ready to siege the cities of the world! And now that you are here, what could be more glorious than a battle in your honor?”
“Voden!” Yael screamed, as the guards began to yank her and Vec away from him. “No, NO! Let me be! Voden!”
Voden felt the blood drain from his limbs, “Yael! I-wait, you let me be! NO! Let me go!” He yanked at the half-men holding his arms, as they began dragging him closer to Eigan, while Yael and Vec were dragged behind the remains of the Well. “You can’t take me from HER!”
“But we can,” came the voice at his ear. Voden turned sharply. He was met by the hungry smile filling Eigan’s face. Even his eyes seeped with a mania, salivating putrid success. “For what is fate for, other than to be fulfilled?” Eigan looked at Kintza. “The boy who is the cause for all of this! Our unsung hero!” he exclaimed. At that, the crowd howled and roared their pleasure, the jeers and clamoring pounds of feet forced him to swallow his trepidation.
Voden peered at the massive owl, his heart cracking against his trembling ribs. He tried to gulp down the fear again, but it came back worse each time he pushed it away. I can’t do this, he thought. The overwhelming realization drowned him with his own tears. Kintza’s head tilted as he scanned Voden’s features. The lidless, vacant eyes somehow churned thoughts that crumbled Voden inside the darkened orbs, absorbing him into the abyss. He was to face the owl. Somehow, he knew that, but he could not fathom what caused the thought.
“Pitted against our own creation,” Eigan continued. Voden looked at him in confusion, though Eigan only smiled wickedly.
At this, Kintza seemed amused. “I had not expected theatrics. How could I resist such an offer?” Kintza replied. His wings folded in, the polygons shuttering out of existence. The guards released Voden and his shackles. They moved to the ring of Azuchons formed around Eigan, Voden, and Andar. He jumped at the sound of a thud hitting the ground next to him. A decorated spear drove into the dirt, having been thrown by one of the Azuchons riding in one of the Stalkers. Kintza moved in front of the black monolith, and shuffled himself down, roosting with anticipation. “It will be refreshing for some bloody entertainment! There is little that invigorates one so profoundly. Show me what the boy can do.”
“Good,” Eigan said. He then moved back to where Andar was standing. Voden’s friend now stared him down, his red eye cold and endlessly glaring at him. “Now, my dear boy,” he said as he placed his hand on Andar’s autonomous shoulder. “Whom do you serve?”
Please, don’t say it, Voden gritted his teeth. Andar still held his gaze then twitched his head suddenly as though to look at Eigan but deciding against it. “I serve Eigan, the harbinger of the Azucrepyh’s, and the Incomplete One, Zigralime.” His voice was distant, a ghost of what it had been. He had become an umbra designed to mock what he once was.
“Come on, Andar! This isn’t you!” Voden yelled, hoping to reverse the curse set on his friend. He had lost much more than he could deal with, and seeing his best friend a mere husk, an insult to what he used to be, pushed Voden into an emotional state his mind struggled to support. But it was him. It was Andar: His beloved friend. Every fond memory was stitched there in front of him, even if fractured by the golden augmentations. He was still in there. “Andar, how can you be serious? You aren’t one of them!”
“Andar,” Eigan said, glancing slyly at Kintza, giving him a smirk. “He is no longer a friend, is he? He is against all that your master stands for. What will you do about it?”
Voden could not bear those moments held in the silence. He hoped to be wrong, he hoped something could change this fate. “Why,” Andar began in an oddly cool, clairvoyant fashion. He looked longingly at Eigan. “I must kill him.”
Eigan had never held a smile so proudly than the one that came with Andar’s response. It was the same response that broke Voden into a shroud of doom for any hope to lift him free of this.
There must be some other way. I can’t do this. I’m not cut out for this!
Voden felt his mind racing through ideas, anything to save his friend. Eigan stepped out of the circle without another word. Spotlights beat down on Voden’s head, sweat nervously tickling his face. It was strange to be so disturbed by something so small as sweat, yet it profoundly broke his focus. He looked at the man across from him, once his brother, and he could not part with that thought. He feared the completion of accepting the horror. But Andar, or the half-man taking the likeness of Andar, gave it no more thought.
The silver polygons lit up across Andar’s arm, burning the radiant blue light from their shapes, as they trickled down and clinked into the long blade.
“Andar!” Voden cried, holding up his hands in protest. He felt the tears leaking from his eyes. He couldn’t care about that. Andar had given him so much. Perhaps there was a chance. “I-I can’t do this. I’ve known you like a brother! Don’t do this! You can’t expect me to fight you!”
“It will be quite a shame,” Andar said, walking slowly towards Voden. “But to die is the cruelty of life! Each is composed of nothing! It’s just less satisf
ying to take a coward’s life than a hero’s.” He stopped and stretched a smile, cocking his head as he stared at Voden. His smile reminded Voden of Eigan, recognizing him as a puppet to the vile priest. “All is quieted in the grave anyway, so why resist my blade?” He circled around Voden, tightening closer to him. “Pick up that spear, and be a man for once! You can’t hide behind your indifference tonight, unless you really have given up that much! If that be the case, you’ve been dead for so long! How fitting I be the one to tell you! I could only imagine the sheer stupidity that spawns in Yael’s brain to even consider you better than myself!”
Voden shook vehemently. He felt his hand vibrate against the shaft of the golden spear. No, he didn’t want to take it. There must be some other solution. Andar snorted a laugh, jeering at Voden’s weakness. “Don’t worry about having to say goodbye,” Andar said, his sword in both hands. “I can do it for both of us.”
Voden was surprised by the speed at which Andar charged him. It hardly gave Voden a second to think before the tip of the sword was at his throat. Andar, with daunting precision, grazed Voden’s skin, drawing a straight red line across his neck.
“Don’t make me beg for you to fight,” Andar said, tucking himself along the sword to whisper to Voden. He heard a metallic whirling buzzing inside Andar’s chest. The red eye flipped back and forth, studying Voden. His organic eye, however, never moved, as though it could not meet Voden’s face. For a second, Voden thought he saw a flicker of his friend, still inside it. Andar disengaged, gesturing to the spear planted in the dirt.
“Fight me!” Andar yelled. Voden felt a jolt of fear and looked at his friend—the body that once represented him—and then at the rod planted firmly in the ground. “This couldn’t be more ideal for you! To take out the one person who has outdone you every step of your life! You have always been my shadow, always neglected for my accomplishments! Now’s your chance! Prove yourself to those among us, which of us is the better!”
Suddenly, Voden began to realize the strange affirmations that Azuchon made. At first, he felt pained by how truthful Andar spoke, but no, that was never Andar’s motivation. He thought maybe it could have been that he had held this lie his whole life. Still, Voden could not accept that as true. And as he thought more about it, the more he became aware it was never the sentiment Andar had portrayed. Not once. If he had ever believed this, evidence would have bubbled up years ago. Voden thought of all that he and his friend had been through, and he began to accept that what stood before him was the lie.
It was not his friend who provoked him. His friend had died fighting this devouring spiritual beast that Eigan hoped to manifest. But even Andar could not overcome it.
Fear can stand behind me as courage conquers.
Voden looked at the spear and clenched his hand around the shaft. He pinched his eyes tight and sighed, acknowledging the affirmation. He realized overcoming fear wasn’t always beating it. Overcoming it was to not allow for it to reap the final gasp of air you had to offer the world.
This is not all I am to be, he thought, staring past the darkness of the sky, so let what I am about to do no longer be in vain.
Confidence radiated behind his tears. He gripped the spear with both hands and plucked it from the dirt, twirling it a bit to get a feel for its balance.
Good enough, he thought. The golden spearhead looked like a beautiful feather, one that could have fallen off an angel’s wing or plucked from Kintza’s chest. He spun it as the crowd became more excited. He stopped the spear, pointing it at Andar, feet spread shoulder-width apart.
“I will do what I must,” he said, trying to keep his nerves from revealing his anxious heart. “I will avenge his name.”
The face that was once Andar’s curled into another smile. The half-man said nothing, losing all semblance of Andar’s features, as the smile perverted the face. The speckling of dried blood did not help make him look any less fiendish with his teeth only separating the dark inside. The golden plate on his chest flashed from the light above where the red cube swirled behind Andar’s chest. “Then, shall the best be left standing.”
“The best has already been replaced,” Voden responded.
The half-man ignored his words and slid forward, swinging his sword towards Voden’s midsection, which Voden caught just below the head of his spear. He yanked up and spun it in an arch, jamming the sword and spear at the ground, the tip furrowing the earth. Voden twisted the spear to drive it harder in the ground, which he used to vault himself, kicking Andar hard in the stomach. The hit, though hard, barely registered in Andar’s expression. Voden spotted the anxiety stealing the blood from Yael and Vec’s face. Andar recuperated quickly and swung again, catching Voden off guard, the blade just missing him as he strafed backward. He pulled the spear from the ground and swung it defensively, which Andar ducked under. Voden drew the spear closer to him as he spun, gaining control of his position. But Andar had already anticipated the sudden shift. Voden tried to arrange himself to block the attack, but it was a feint, as Andar brought the sword down and across, catching Voden’s arm and sliding viciously back.
The blade cut the layers of skin, rippling pain jolting up his arm. Voden’s howl of agony was echoed by cheers of bloodlust from the crowd. The flesh was shocked white a moment but soon began weeping deep pools of red. An unsolicited curse fell off Voden’s tongue, as a kick from Andar threw him back to the ground. Andar laughed at Voden wheezing, twirling his sword as he waited for Voden to stand. He scurried to his feet, looking at the blood dripping from his arm. It wasn’t fatal, but it wasn’t anything to be thankful for either. He struggled to catch his breath, and he knew he was in over his head.
“It’s funny,” Andar said, watching Voden as though he had hardly worked for his advances, “the only thing you gained that I wasn’t able to…” His eyes lingered on Yael. He didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t need to.
Voden felt his blood boil at his words. “You’re not worth her!” Voden said, as he swung the spear at Andar, who smacked the tip away, deepening his smirk. Voden cast wild jabs and swings, but Andar continued to brush them aside as if they were dust on his shirt. Voden’s anger grew, and each flurry made his mind grow more brash. Andar struggled to block and parry the attack but found a quick second to throw another swipe, taking Voden off guard. He swept his sword around the spear, swinging the shaft under his arm. He grabbed it and yanked it forward, shouldering Voden in the chest. It was like hitting stone at the end of a long fall. He felt his stomach churn, and he crumbled to the ground again, heaving in dismay.
“Obviously, neither are you,” Andar jeered.
He twirled his sword around and began to bring it down on Voden’s head. With only a second to spare, Voden’s eyes spun in a surging panic, searching for an escape from the falling verdict of death. A brazen shaft lay nearby. He was unsure as to why Andar had dropped the spear so close to him. He snatched at it and pulled it close like a greedy beggar. He tilted the tip up, pressing the head into Andar’s stomach. He grimaced as it slipped between Andar’s ribs and turned his head to distill the thought. He took the end of the shaft, holding it firmly in place, as Andar’s momentum forced the tip to puncture his abdomen. Voden then pushed the shaft up, arching it as he quickly stood, and thrust down, jamming the spear into the dirt, leaving Andar to hang just above the ground. A glob of blackened tar shot out of his mouth, but not a sound of pain came with it.
Andar began to laugh, twitching as he hung on the spear, like an inebriated man hiccupping. He grabbed the spear below his body and yanked it from the ground, pulling it through as he stood with unrelenting vigor, dripping strings of black masses from the wound. His laugh became drenched in broken, jittering stutters that shook Voden’s subconscious from its unnatural composure. The wash of discomfort stole the remaining vitality of his hope with each cackle. Maroon black puss fell from his intestines, causing Voden to fight the urge to retch, and all he could see was the look in Andar’s eyes, organic and cr
afted, staring back at him unfazed.
“You know you’ll have to do better than that.” He let the black tar drip without a glance, plopping to the ground with a nauseating sound, throwing the spear back at Voden. It bounced carelessly on the cobble, strewn with chunks of voided innards. Andar trudged towards him, head cocked with malevolence, corrupting what he once was.
Andar took a swing, which Voden dodged with a roll, grabbing the spear just in time to block the back swing. He avoided the thoughts of the warm liquid squeezing between his fingers and parried, but something had awoken in this new look of Andar’s, something much darker and sinister. It ignited the red in his bionic eye to a heightened intensity, something that was now ready to kill Voden. The fear swept with each strike, and relief washed over Voden as he blocked each attack, but it was incessant.
Andar whipped his body from one side to the other, swiping calculated strikes that Voden struggled to keep at bay. Voden began forgetting everything, realizing he was at the whim of Andar, when he happened to catch a glimpse of Vec and Yael. On edge, he could see they were calling out for him. For once, he felt someone believed in him. And he remembered how much the real Andar would have as well. It was then he started thinking that maybe the good that had once been Andar was holding this autonomous version at bay, just enough for Voden to realize Andar had always believed in him. Perhaps choice was the most arcane ability that bent the course of the world.
He took each blow with swelling parries and launched an occasional attack when he could. Andar’s gold-plated chest flashed in the light. The tiny cube began to spin faster, as though it too was thinking up another advantage. Tendons of black goo whipped around the glowing crystal. It was then, at that moment, Voden found exactly what he needed to bring this fight to an end. He swung the end of the spear around, cracking Andar in the side of the skull, throwing him off balance. As he spun, Voden forced the tip forward, ramming the point through the glass portal that protected the Azucrepyh. The ruby cube cracked and crumbled like a castle of sand hit by the tide of the ocean, sprinkling out of the portal. Voden looked at Andar, his organic eye falling into an expression of shock, as jolting jerks twitched along the whole of his body.