Chapter 18
The Promise
Thuds and shakes echoed in the core of the Shadow as Terrill floated there, looking at the three who hung inside. He hadn’t entered their memories yet, but he knew if he drew any closer, he’d find himself lost inside their tangle. Indeed, from a glance he could see Golbrucht’s strings tying all of them in their twisted form. No amount of firepower from outside the Shadow was going to untangle them, either. It was something he could only do from within here, helping them from their regrets, or finding Krysta and severing them outright. He swam towards them, feeling more like flying with how much height he was gathering.
Yet as he grew close, no memories were gathered before his eyes. Nothing showed itself to him, or provided any clue on how to pull them out. Terrill reached Atrum’s body first, looking comatose. Golbrucht was nowhere to be seen, but Terrill remained on his guard in case he had chosen to inhabit any of the bodies. He grabbed Atrum’s arm and shook it.
“Atrum!” he shouted, but it was to no avail. “Atrum, wake up!”
Still nothing. Had they sunken so far into the abyss of their memories that there was no way to pull them out? Had the same thing happened to Krysta? Terrill pushed against the body, but it didn’t move, the strings binding them far too tight. Once it had settled back into position, however, Atrum’s eyes opened, their gleaming red telling Terrill who was behind that expression.
“You cannot save him,” Golbrucht said. “Saving him would mean abandoning one of the others. You’d never do that. And they would never want you to save any one of them.”
Terrill pushed away. There had to be a way to save them and free them from what they were steeped in. He just couldn’t see it, and it was likely that Golbrucht didn’t want him to. So, he swam around, trying to not betray his frustration at his inability to find the right path. The strings were too tight, covering them and connecting them to a place Terrill could not see, deeper into the abyss of the Shadow.
To where Krysta had sunken.
No, more than that, Terrill realized. To where the Shadow, itself, must have been. “Connection…”
Terrill kicked through the air, the resistance of the shadow preventing him from making distance with any swiftness. The core rocked again, and a screech could be heard from deeper within. The Shadow was reacting.
It became difficult to see, but soon, Terrill had located it, the strands of fate that connected all three bodies in the core. They were all leading to a single spot deep within, covering up the last bit of light it had yet to snuff out. Terrill grabbed hold, finding that the strings chafed against the skin of his palms, but he continued to pull himself along. It got worse the further he dove, like an endless torrent of despair, and soon, Terrill realized that he was diving deep into all of their despairs and regrets, not just a singular one.
Because everything is connected… Terrill’s face scrunched at the realization, that which he had somehow failed to grasp, even after all this time. Every little thing in the world fostered a connection. A person to a place, a rock to a stream, a tree in the forest. At the center of it all were people, each going about their lives, their souls forming that indelible connection with one another. Learning, growing, living, and eventually rejoining the flow that made up their world.
That was fate.
Knowing what he was up against now, the very thing he was fighting to pull them out of, Terrill continued along their connection until he could see it, shivering and muttering, like a demented human being cloaked in darkness with no true will of its own.
“It hurts. Mommy, help me. The pain! The pain! Stop the burning! Play with me!” The Shadow’s mutters were disconnected, all of the souls it had absorbed resonating through its whole body. It didn’t even realize Terrill was there, but the strings of the three behind him connected themselves to it, and he knew the truth of how to save them was inside.
In the very depths of the darkness where only he was left to walk.
“Which will you choose to save?” Golbrucht’s hiss attempted to dissuade him from diving deeper, and Terrill cocked his head to the side, glaring at the Fiend in Atrum’s body. “The man who was Blessed, but served only as a puppet? The Chosen One, born only to die? The friend, who was crafted to be a vessel? Or perhaps yourself?”
The taunts awakened the Shadow, its grotesque form turning to look at Terrill with curiosity. When it recognized him, it stepped back, hissing, and Terrill could sense the fear fueling its own being: the fear of being lost and forgotten again. It was no stretch of the imagination to say this was the reason it was formed by collecting countless pieces of despair.
That also meant it feared what he could do if he dove in, and Golbrucht’s unceasing attempts to put a stop to that meant he was on the right track.
“I’ll save all of them!”
He didn’t wait and see how Golbrucht reacted to that. Terrill dove for the Shadow, who tried to run, but was bound by the Fiend’s strings, unable to go anywhere as Terrill sunk a fist into its face.
He screamed, feeling like his entire limb was on fire from the rage within the Shadow. It screamed with him, an echoing shriek that drowned out the loudest of attacks from outside. Terrill grit his teeth, but he knew his body could endure it. If it couldn’t, then he knew Floyd and the others would help break him free. For now, though, he was the only one left to remind them. He let his punch carry him forth, inside the Shadow’s purest form.
The regrets rushed him within seconds, swarming around him, begging him for help. He couldn’t see, or breathe, or make any progress. They just wanted someone to help them. Someone to save them. Terrill knew the only way how, and it was the three that formed the linchpin of that Shadow.
He shook them off, and reached for the darkness to find himself on an island. There was a storm, and a crashing sea. A light was shining, brighter than Terrill imagined, but he could not see who or what was making it. There was only the man, bloodied and bruised. He looked strikingly familiar, but Terrill could not make out his face.
The ground crumbled, energy pouring out and eclipsing the island, consuming the man who screamed. He fell into the hole created and on the other side was…another version of him. The two touched, and all became a mess of memories that puffed into smoke, forming into existence once again with someone new. This man was young, carrying a strapping pair of swords on his back. Without any words, Terrill discerned that this was Charles.
“Are you really leaving?” another young man asked of him. “You know you can stay. I’m certain there’ll be breakthroughs in Rotarin, soon. That’ll mean more jobs.”
“I don’t want to stay here any longer. I want to be free. Explore the world!”
There was that word again: free. Somehow, it was the singular way to describe what had fed into them and caused their despair.
Charles’s search for freedom soon brought him elsewhere, to exploring the Abyssal Palace and its Lifeblood. He had touched it, and in that moment, Terrill could see that he was Golbrucht’s. Already, the Fiend’s soul corroded the Lifeblood and took control of Charles. He committed atrocities and horrors, slaughtering and burning the countryside, all to prevent anyone from reaching the Lifeblood.
When, at last, he was free, the man disappeared to the east. To Sayn, where he could find peace.
“But you didn’t find peace, Charles. Just more duty. More need to atone…” Terrill breathed out. He could see the foundation of the man’s despair growing. He wanted to protect people, and became a Guardian, employed by the royal family, until he learned the truth.
“To die? You want me to let the Chosen Ones die?! What kind of barbaric ritual would sacrifice those so young?!” he raged against the king and his retainers.
“It is for the prosperity of Sayn. What is one life to the countless others?” The king of Sayn had put a hand upon him, failing to console the Guardian who had once more found himself bound and bereft of purpose. “Do not worry, Charles. The age of the Chosen One will come to an end in your lifetime. In a few years, one will be born to my sister, and when he slays the King of the Dark, Sayn will forever know peace, though he will be no more. We must trust in that.”
That wasn’t a hope that Charles clung to, but a greater despair, for in that moment, his connection tied him to Lumen, and the dark castle where his master made his plans.
Lightning flashed, or perhaps it was just the Shadow feeling the impact of attacks. Nonetheless, Terrill found himself at Golbrucht’s castle, where a baby was crying. No, two babies were crying, though one tried to flicker in and out. The only thing keeping him there was the strings by which Golbrucht had bound them. It maintained his physical form, and a constant yearning for that connection to be fulfilled.
“I do sometimes feel like my destiny is out there, always attached to being the Chosen One. A part of me that is calling out, beckoning me. Makes me wonder what I’ll find.”
Atrum’s words from that morning, the morning before their adventure began, spoke to everything that had occurred. The two babies grew, one into a boy who always had an inkling of being called, but tried to find fulfillment in a tiny town, and another into a lonely royal who spent days locked in his room. The only thing keeping Lumen sane, or from giving in to his despair all that time was Charles, the older man teaching him the way of the blade, encouraging him for the future.
Every look in the Guardian’s eyes, however, told Terrill that he could never look at Lumen without regret.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I, Charles?” Lumen had asked. The memories were becoming convoluted, each mixing and melding with the next one in a series. It became impossible to tell where one ended and another began, because they were all so steeped in their own darkness that, like the Shadow, there was no up from down. All three were directionless, pulled by the inexorable flow that was Golbrucht, who felt himself pinned by fate.
“We all will die, eventually.”
“Have you ever wanted to defy destiny?” Atrum asked, that dawn on the docks coming back into sharp relief.
“I don’t mean that, Charles. I mean that I’m… I’m supposed to die, aren’t I?” Lumen had rested his elbows on his knees, never noticing the pained look on Charles’s face. “It’s why my cousins avoid me. Why I’m kept locked up. If I don’t do anything, or make any friends, it won’t…it won’t hurt when I have to…”
“I think I understand now, why I have this moment. What I was put there for. What I was created for.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Yes…you’re going to die.”
Terrill’s heart hurt, his hand clutching to his chest. It had been unavoidable for all of them. Golbrucht had made it so. The flow of the world had made it so. It was the inexorable hand of fate that clutched them close, and at some point, they just accepted it. Accepted their roles in whatever they were made for, or chosen to do. There was no use in fighting anymore. They were alone in their struggles, and would continue to be alone.
“That’s not true!” Terrill shouted, hoping for his voice to break through the memory like it did for the others. “It’s not true! You don’t have to die! Not if you don’t want to!”
“But they do want to!” Golbrucht’s voice echoed to him. Terrill half-expected him to form right next to him, but that never happened. All he had were words left to him, all to make Terrill believe he couldn’t save them. He chose to not believe that. “Do you think you can change the mind of someone prepared to die?”
“I don’t care!” Terrill roared, battling the shadows that kept him from those in the memories. He found himself back inside Golbrucht’s castle, in the fateful fight that had left him scattered. Now, everything was making sense to him. How Charles was going to kill Lumen, but could not bring himself to do it. Why Lumen had merely collapsed, accepting of the fate that was to come.
But Atrum… Atrum had fought on. He tried to be different.
Maybe he was there because he was the Chosen One, or because he was Lumen, but he had chosen to be the exception. He refused to be Golbrucht’s vessel, even as the Fiend’s strings bound their souls together, subsuming him entirely. In time, the boy had given in, but that singular moment in which he chose to defy his destiny was the only connection Terrill needed.
“You can’t lay down and die! Lumen! Charles!” Terrill stretched, hoping to reach at least one of them. He had to. “None of you are alone, don’t you get that? Don’t just accept death because it’s what you were told to do so. Don’t give up on living!”
“But…what else is there…?” Lumen’s question was defeated, a boy who truly believed he had nothing left but to die. It would have stopped anyone’s attempt to pull him out. Not Terrill’s, though. He saw it as opportunity. Lumen had heard him. He wasn’t ready to give up on living yet. “All my life, it’s been leading to my death, to a life outside my control. Whether it’s Sayn’s will, or Golbrucht’s, it’d be better to just…surrender.”
“That’s not true!” Terrill shouted, and with one final lunge, he grabbed hold of both Lumen and Charles in the memory. The Shadow was shrieking again, and Terrill felt his whole body burning with black fire. It was resisting, refusing to let him leave with these two that were the linchpin of its life. “You still matter! No matter your past, you’ve still made choices! Those are yours!”
“What do they matter?” Charles mumbled. He was beginning to sink back down, but Terrill pulled. He would break through. He wouldn’t allow them to drown like this, and he felt like he could see the way out. The way he could pull and snap those strings. “We’re just tools. Always. We’ll never be free.”
“Of course, you won’t!” Terrill shouted. It felt like trying to pull them from cement. There was nothing he could do to save them, not if they didn’t want to be. He had to make them want it. Had to make them see the future they still had in front of them. “If you keep thinking only about what you’re meant to do because of some arbitrary concept like fate instead of what you can do, you’ll never be free from his shadow! You need to choose for yourselves! You need to fight, like Atrum is fighting!”
“Atrum is…fighting? But he’s gone…” Lumen lamented, almost deep beneath the sludge, to the place of no return. Once there, Terrill knew, he would forever be Golbrucht’s vessel. “He belongs to the King of the Dark.”
“No, he doesn’t! I will never let that happen! I’ll slay the King, myself, if I need to, but I will free him, because he wanted to be more! He wanted to defy fate!”
“But only a Chosen One can kill the King of the Dark.”
“I don’t give a damn!” Terrill screamed. His arms felt like they were going to be torn off, yet he refused to stop pulling with all the strength he could muster. “I don’t care if only a Chosen One can defeat Golbrucht! I’m still, in my heart, a Guardian. That means I need to protect the Chosen One! If I need to destroy Golbrucht to do it, then I’ll do it! I’ll make sure each and every one of you has a future! You just need to choose to live!
“You’re not alone, you two. You have me, and all the others. And we’ll never stop fighting, so make the choice and LIVE!”
Lumen’s hand grew slack in his, and Terrill feared the worst. He turned back, and saw the boy’s eyes shimmering with tears. It was as if he had never been told that anyone else would be there for him. “You’d…you’d protect me…? You’d let me…live?”
“Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, aren’t we? Didn’t I take that oath to protect you?”
“Friends… I’m…not alone…?” Lumen’s fingers were grabbing at his arms, and Terrill extended further, holding tight to the boy that knew only his destiny to die.
“Never.”
“Then, I…” Lumen looked over to Charles, and Terrill could see the older man was hanging his head, ashamed of what he had perpetrated. His grip, however, had changed, holding tighter to Terrill. “I want to live!”
“Yes!” Terrill shouted. The light was growing at the edge, a final gift from Krysta, and Terrill began to drag them there. He could feel it bending, the strings that had held them tight to their despair. Charles offered a little resistance, but Terrill spoke as he pulled them towards that glow. “Charles, you, too! You need to live. I don’t care what you’ve done in the past, or what he made you do, but death isn’t the way out. If you want to atone, then keep living, and keep protecting the way you believed you should. Now, come on! Together!”
Terrill felt like his foot had found solid ground, his leg not feeling pain from its earlier puncture. Krysta had imparted her gift of healing. With a cry of strength, he lifted both Chosen One and Guardian out of the Shadow’s embrace and through the light at the end. It ripped and tore at his body, but Terrill never let go. The strings grew taut, and then, with a final scream, they snapped in two.
“No! Noooooo! It burns!” They were outside the Shadow, the creature hissing and flailing with pain over some of its strings being cut. It clasped to its head, and beyond, Golbrucht had cradled Atrum’s body, the loss of his other two causing him pain. The Shadow rocked once more, and Terrill knew the creature outside could feel the attacks of those he called his friends and allies.
“See? Floyd, Torry, Walter, they’re all fighting that Shadow. It’s because of them that I’m here! We always have our reason to keep going, and right now, that means I’ll protect you, because I’m a Guardian! Not by country, but by choice.”
“TERRILL JACOBS!” Atrum’s voice shrieked through the darkness, combining with that of the Shadow’s. Golbrucht lunged for him, fury erupting from his body in his strings. As he fell, a sudden jet of fire found its way to the core, opening a hole outside the shadow. Terrill spun around, kicking both Lumen and Charles towards the hole.
“Terrill, wait!”
“Fight with them! I still need to save her!”
“You won’t save anyone!” Atrum’s rapier came out, but Terrill held his arms up to take the blow. This hurt more than any shadowy magic, the cold steel cutting into his flesh and causing a huge gash on his arm that threatened to sever limb from body. “You have no weapon, and no magic! There is no fate you can hope to avert on your own! There is nothing you can do!”
“I don’t believe that!” Terrill roared. Fighting through the pain, Terrill rammed his head up and into Atrum’s chin, causing the rapier to dislodge. Terrill whirled around, his fist colliding with Atrum’s face. The area grew just a little brighter, the shadows parting as his strings wavered. “Maybe I’m just a small part who had no role in any of this, but I’ve made my choice to do what I can. How else do you think I got here?”
Golbrucht screamed, in tandem with his creation, looking like the beasts he had created time and again. His rapier slashed in a frenzy, but Terrill dodged, reaching up to stop the blade from descending. “There is no destiny you can change, Terrill! You cannot stop the world’s flow! I need to break it!”
“Maybe there’s nothing I can do, but I choose to believe in the others. I chose to believe in the connection between our souls, and it led me here, to you. To Atrum!” Terrill reared back, and his fist sunk itself back into Atrum’s face. There was no retaliation he could manage, and Atrum’s body went flying back. The Shadow bellowed, looking as though it was leaking its own substance while it bent to impossible angles. Golbrucht stopped his body from flying, his strings catapulting himself back for Terrill. “For all your strings tying things together, Golbrucht, you don’t seem to realize it. Our souls are all connected and tied together, and if we acknowledge that connection, then we will change our own destinies. I’ll fulfill my promise!”
“What promise is that, Guardian?!”
“I’m bringing you home, Atrum!” Terrill prepared another fist, but Golbrucht stopped before he reached him. His body was held in place, shaking, and the shock upon the Fiend’s face was palpable, something changing in the air.
“Terrill…” It was his voice. Not Golbrucht using his lips, or the boy who had given up on the Forsaken Hill. For the first time in the longest time, Terrill was hearing Atrum, his best friend. “Thank you.”
Terrill’s hand balled to a fist, joy springing in his chest at realizing Atrum had broken through. It was only for a moment, but that moment was enough. The shadows broke free, down in the very center of the abyss, and Terrill could see her there, waiting in her own despair. He wouldn’t let her go. However, it meant the choice of leaving him behind. For now. “I can’t save you, Atrum. Not right now. But I will! I’ll drag Golbrucht out of you, and I’ll make sure you’re more than his puppet! I’ll let you make your own choice!”
“And I’ll be waiting. I’ll…” Atrum shook, Golbrucht regaining control, but he was still able to shout forward. “We’ll fight fate together! Go, Terrill!”
“You won’t…go anywhere…” Golbrucht was breaking through, but Atrum restrained him as best as he could. Terrill faced the center of the abyss, ignoring the bellowing Shadow and dove down, towards where Krysta was.
Memories flashed by him as he entered her space of regrets, but Terrill didn’t care to pay attention to them in detail. All he saw was a young man and the girl standing over him, conferring some sort of blessing, before that young man broke apart, his light sealing away the darkness that was Golbrucht.
“Is this your regret, Krysta?!” Terrill shouted to her. More memories blew past, some from their adventures and others from things he couldn’t even imagine. Like another life that had seen ages. “Is this what’s caused you despair?!”
“Yes.” Her voice was dull, all of its zest for life lost. She wasn’t even reaching for him like the others, the darkness growing around her but never consuming her. It was that endless state of self-awareness in her despair that must have been the worst thing of all. “I let him die. I sent Eric to his death, all to seal Golbrucht. All to maintain the flow, and it ended up meaning nothing. I…”
“Yeah, well, who cares?!” Terrill screamed, lunging for her. A grating cry from both the Shadow and Golbrucht indicated who had regained control, and now he was coming for him. There wasn’t much time to pull her free. “Was it his choice?”
“Yes, but I…I asked him to… He never would have…”
“Krysta, you can’t give up just because of that.”
“It was pointless!” she shouted, her body dropping. Terrill fell with her, stretching as far as he could go to reach her before she fell out of his grasp.
“No, it wasn’t!” Terrill yelled back. His fingers dug at the shadows, begging for her to grab hold. She was incapable, tears streaming down her face. Terrill could feel the burning presence of the Shadow bearing down on him. “It wasn’t pointless at all! I can’t say I know what you managed, or why you did it, but you made sure Golbrucht didn’t have free reign, and if you hadn’t, we would have never met! We would have never had that adventure together! I would have never… It wasn’t pointless.”
“But look around you, Terrill… All this… It’s all my fault. If we had never met, then at least this wouldn’t have…”
“I don’t care about any of that, Krysta!” Terrill roared. Something bound his foot, keeping him locked in place, but Terrill kept reaching. He had to get to her. “I don’t care if the world said we were never supposed to meet! I don’t care about fate! I don’t care what you are, or what sins you think you’ve committed! I care about right now! I care about you, Krysta! That won’t ever change! No matter how broken you are. No matter what you think you’ve failed at. I know you made a difference, and we can keep making those differences, I just need you to reach!
“Because I don’t want you to sink into shadow. Because any world where you’re not in it, is a world that’s wrong! And I’ll fight fate, Fiends and anything else to make sure you stay with me! With us! So please, take my hand, Krysta! Let’s fight this together!”
The Shadow started to pull him back, but Terrill kicked, giving him just a little distance. He hoped she would reach. “Terrill, I want…”
“Move beyond regret, Krysta. Let’s move to our future. One that we choose.”
Her lips quivered, and her tears didn’t stop, but finally, her hand lifted upwards. It was slow, and Terrill wasn’t sure if she would make it. So, he bridged the gap, struggling against the Shadow until he could feel their fingers touch. Then they curled around each other and joined together, the connection of their souls producing light in the deepest darkness. “I want to be with you! With all of you right now! I want the time I have left in this body to be spent with you! I want to free them! I want to…”
“That’s all I need to hear.” Terrill grabbed her close, pulling her to his chest. She was cold, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was that she was in his arms, and she was choosing to take the step forward over wallowing in regret. That gave him hope, and inside her domain, he felt his magic roar back to life. Golbrucht was still coming for him. “Let’s sunder this Shadow, then, and return to them.”
“Yes. Together.” Krysta’s hand wrapped around Terrill’s, all of her hopes manifesting in a blade of light that the two took in both of their hands. The Shadow lunged, and they swung it downward. There was still hesitation, and not knowing what the future held, or if she could ever be free from her past, but Terrill knew she had the strength to take it all on her shoulders and move forward. He would be right at her side.
Together, as Golbrucht lashed out at them to prevent them from leaving, the shining blade cleaved the Shadow at its core, and their bodies were bathed in light. The core cracked and split, and before the Fiend could reach them, Terrill and Krysta fell out, freed from the Shadow at last, and on the way to their friends below.