Chapter 6

The Knight

He had found it: the miracle.

Although, Lumen was now out of stock on all his provisions, including water and a decent bedroll that he had lost in the darkness. It had been a couple days since he had discovered that winding hall away from the mural, and he had nearly despaired of finding his way out or reaching his destination. Everything had twisted and turned, with branches that ran in innumerable directions (or too many for him to memorize). He couldn’t figure out if it was that the path split or if the path joined up again to lead to the same spot. All he knew was that his path forward had taken him here, to this miracle of sights.

And what a sight it was!

Behind Lumen lay the O’Della Canyon, its deep gorge unable to be seen in the night sky. Part of that had to do with the mist that surrounded the southern peninsula of Gladius, which pierced deep into the canyon. Much of it had to do with how wide and unforgiving the canyon pass was to anyone who wished to try and cross it. He supposed those with talent might, but there was a reason that this place had stayed as a fairy tale for the longest time.

It was for good reason, Lumen remarked to himself, staring upon the great wonder. The Wind Fortress was not something easily missed when one got close to it.

Indeed, across the barren, uninhabitable plains on the southern tip of Gladius, a great construct lay buried in the ground, as if lost to the sands of time. It was an odd building, Lumen thought, even from that great distance. It appeared to be tilted on its side, black in color where it was not baked in dust. The moonlight tried to hide it from Lumen’s gaze, but failed despite the mist’s support. Its black appendages, as Lumen described them, were rigid as they emerged from the top of the fortress, with spinning propellers attached to each of them for stable flight. Maybe. Lumen could hardly believe this was real to begin with, let alone the legend in Valorda that this could fly.

That seemed a concept beyond even the imagination.

He crept closer, drawing the almost empty bag tighter around his shoulders while he approached. Each step was deliberate, afraid of setting off some trap that could surround the fortress. If the people who operated it resorted to such careful measures to protect the way in, there was no doubt they’d protect the immediate exterior.

Yet, as Lumen came within range of the tilted, buried building, he ran into not a single trap. He didn’t even sense one, not that he was any good at such things. It brought him into a contemplative mood when his feet scraped to a stop outside the building, looking up at its looming, dark form and the shadow it cast over the badlands. No traps. No sign of movement. Even the path into this place was dark and lonely, like a relic of a past age rather than anything made to be part of the present.

“No wonder it’s considered a legend…” Lumen mumbled aloud, hoping to give him some way to feel less alone. It was the discovery of a lifetime, yet yielded very little. The boy kicked at the ground, almost tripping himself but recovering by sitting upon his pack. He folded his arms with a huff. “All this way for nothing…Did I waste my time?”

Lumen sat back, groaning loudly with frustration. His head tipped backwards, up towards the moon and the stars that shined down. They made him feel at peace, reminding him of the same moon and stars he could see from his bedroom in Sayn. He wondered, too, if Terrill and Charles were seeing these same stars elsewhere in Adversa.

Gathering no response to his personal query, Lumen faced forward once more, to the dead hunk of metal that was the lost Wind Fortress. So much around it looked undisturbed, as if no one had visited it or tended to it in centuries, though he was no expert on the qualities of metal. It didn’t even look like metal at times, reflecting the moon above with a beautiful luminescence. Regardless of what it was made of, however, the truth of it was that the Wind Fortress was as dead as could be, not a soul stirring, and no door to the inside of this behemoth making itself present.

The futility of his trek presenting itself, Lumen slid his bag out from under him and dug into the few things that were left, including a lantern and book that he had managed to snag back in Valorda. After some finagling, the boy managed to ignite the flame within, providing him just enough light to read by as he cracked the book open, its title of Tales of the Sword printed upon it. It didn’t take long to flip to the section covering the Wind Fortress, and he stared down at its print, hoping to discern some sort of clue.

Mostly, however, it was dry history detailing how the Wind Fortress in the past would intervene between any conflict upon Gladius, keeping the peace with a might that was unknown by anyone else in the world. There were anecdotes here and there, but much of it read as either textbook jargon or the sort of flighty stuff that only someone like him would choose to believe in. None of it helped him with his current predicament, and he sighed, looking up again to the clear and beautiful starry sky.

The revelation hit him, Lumen’s hands snapping the book shut before he sprang to his feet with widened eyes. He could see the moon and stars above him, clear as could be, with not a trace of mist in the way. Yet all around was the turret of fog that prevented any and all from seeing inside.

With a grin, the boy realized that he wasn’t wrong. He just hadn’t found all of the answers yet.

Lumen stowed his book away once more, nabbing the lantern from the ground and proceeding to get closer to the building. As he approached, he could see that parts of the ground had been disturbed, albeit not recently, and Lumen began to wonder if it was just that the fortress had crashed unexpectedly, making it impossible to escape its mechanical interior. Whatever it was that forced their landing also looked to have sealed any entrances or exits. Even vents for air were invisible to Lumen’s eyes, making him wonder if people were inside, how they had the capability to breathe. The swirling fog might have provided some form of answer, but Lumen was eager to get something more concrete.

Hoping to find something better, Lumen continued along. The crash of the waves to the side told him that the ocean was close, but while his ears listened to that, his eyes searched for any sort of outline that would indicate an entrance in the cylindrical base. Or largely cylindrical, as there were still some corners to turn, one of which he cleared without tripping, to his elation.

He still dropped his lantern to the ground soon after, the flame snuffed out and leaving all doused in darkness and starlight.

This new darkness highlighted one of the things he had noticed first upon turning the corner: the faint outline of a door, rimmed with a turquoise light that could have been mistaken for a reflection of the stars. At the same time, the darkness hid the figure that stood before Lumen, his helmet held in his hands while his eyes twinkled in the night. He wore a soft smile, but Lumen was on edge, and he didn’t wait to drop his bag and draw his sword upon the man.

“Stand back, Charles!” His sword shook, pointed at the man that had manifested without warning. There wasn’t a clank of movement, or anything to suggest Charles was going to make a move, but his sudden appearance made Lumen shiver. He didn’t need to have spoken with Atrum to know that something felt very wrong.

“You look stronger, Lumen. More mature.”

“How…?” Lumen shook his head, knowing that he was not asking the right question. “Why are you here, Charles?”

“Duty.” Lumen scowled, sensing the dual nature behind his words, and in his free hand created a light that he shined upon the pair of them, concealing the hidden door.

The inverse of that concealment was that Charles was brought into the light. His beard glistened with the moon, and his sharp eyes were highlighted by the grizzled scars around his face. He was a man that had seen battle and the horrors of the world; Lumen had always known it. None of that had ever frightened him. What frightened him was that there wasn’t a world-weariness or lust for battle, but a resignation in his eyes. An acceptance of fate. Lumen hated seeing that on his face.

“Duty for whom?” the boy asked, hoping he’d get a straight response instead of the runaround. Charles was immoveable, however, his stern face hiding any and all emotion aside from those in his eyes.

“My duty to the Chosen One.” Lumen’s fist tightened, snuffing his light out for a moment before he reached up to Charles and grabbed him by his armor. The spikes upon it hurt, drawing blood from his hand, but he wouldn’t relent.

“Don’t say that!” he screamed, his voice echoing to no one. Even Charles was unfettered by his outburst. “You know just as well as I the only duty to the Chosen One is to lead them to death! You know this, Charles! You facilitated it!”

“And you accepted it. You accepted fate, just as I did.”

“Well, I don’t want that!” Lumen pushed Charles away, the man barely moving. He, himself, felt winded instead. In anger and frustration, Lumen kicked at the dirt, sending it flying into the fog. “What was the point of it all, anyway? What was the point of sacrificing a Chosen One just to defeat the King of the Dark?”

“To buy a moment’s peace. Or so I believed,” Charles said. His beard bristled with the wind, and Lumen shined his light upon him once more, taking in the armor that clashed with the man’s kindness and devotion. He instead looked like one bred for war. “When I arrived in Sayn, I viewed fighting Golbrucht as a road to redemption, but I was a fool. In the end, all of those sacrifices were just…fuel for his fire. The proving of a theory.”

“A theory?” His curiosity getting the better of him, Lumen began to lower his sword before he remembered where he was.

“I was a puppet, strung up by strings. I thought by running I could escape that fate, but instead the strings pulled me in all too tightly. That, Lumen, is why I am here now.” To make his point, Charles let his helmet fall to the ground and drew his two obsidian blades in its place. Lumen stumbled back, afraid of being skewered when he was so close to his goal. “I’m here to ensure Terrill Jacobs never makes it to the Lifeblood of Wind.”

“Terrill…?” Lumen said. He extinguished his light, dragging his shield out in defense while his mind processed what Charles was trying to tell him. “You’ve seen Terrill?!”

“I…might have. The details are sketchy.” Charles didn’t advance on Lumen, but nor did he stow his blades away. Lumen raised his just a little higher. “There are moments where I feel like I have complete lucidity, and then moments where it is as if my soul is not my own. As if it is subsumed with another taking advantage of my regret, and my despair. It has been this way since my youth, though I thought it had gone for a great many years. Then, there are those moments where I can break those bonds, but I’m still being dragged under. In one of those moments, I believe I heard Terrill call for me. That boy is something else…”

“So, you don’t know where he is, but you believe he’s coming here?”

Charles shrugged, and Lumen believed he had decided there was no point in hiding the information from him. “It is likely. That’s what he thinks.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Lumen shook his head. None of this made any sense. Or he didn’t want it to make sense. He did realize Terrill was running amok around Adversa, but how that factored into Atrum’s plans, he couldn’t place. Yet now Terrill, who had long eluded Lumen’s sight was coming here of all times. It felt uncomfortably like fate over coincidence. So, he had to know why. “For what reason do you think he’d come here?”

“The Lifeblood of Wind. Terrill is freeing the Lifebloods.” Lumen furrowed his brow. What did that mean? He didn’t want to give his confusion away, but Charles wasn’t scrutinizing him, anyway. He was still as a statue, and Lumen started to question if he was of his own mind or Atrum’s. His eyes weren’t glazed over, though, so Lumen took that as a good sign. It meant he could probe further and get answers to the questions that were swirling inside his head.

“I would guess that Atrum doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want Terrill, or any of us, here.”

“You’ve always been a discerning one, Lumen.” Charles gave a throaty chuckle, bringing Lumen back to those castle days where the man spent time training him in the way of the blade. It gave him hope that maybe Charles wasn’t as lost or hopeless as he seemed to believe. “For a while, he did. He wanted us to create havoc, but with Terrill’s role done, he wanted to remove him from the board. Apparently, he’s proven trickier to remove than expected, and while it has played somewhat into his hands, the havoc he’s wreaking on the Fiends has necessitated he place his most controllable piece back on the board: me.”

“Then don’t let him control you, Charles!” Lumen stepped forth, unafraid of the blades as he moved one aside with his already cut hand. He was adamant, but Charles didn’t waver from where he stood. “Your soul should be your own! Not his!”

“I don’t have a choice. You should know just as much as me how little our souls are our own.” Lumen refused to recoil from the biting statement, getting in Charles’s face with a twisting of his lips. “We’ve both been tied to him through it, his indomitable Soul String.”

“I refuse to accept that.”

“You have a bleeding heart, Lumen. Always have.” For the first time, Charles smiled, which only served to heighten Lumen’s worries. He stowed one of his swords away and placed a hand upon the boy’s shoulder. It hurt, though the boy didn’t say a word. “He wants to take advantage of that from you, just as he used Terrill to his advantage. As if he knows how we will move as pieces.”

“I won’t-”

“You won’t have a choice.” The armored hand began to shake, the fingers digging through Lumen’s traveling cloak and clothing to his very skin. It burned, causing the boy to grimace while Charles grunted, attempting to exert control over himself with minimal success. “See? Even now, he pulls the strings closer. He will make sure there is only one option for you.”

“And that is to die, is it not?” Lumen slapped the hand away from him, watching the tenuous strings pull away from his body, leaving scars where they had been. Lumen held his light up, forcing the strings to recoil, extensions of the soul they were speaking of. Each of them wrapped back into Charles as his now free hand clutched at his head. “I won’t die. I can’t afford to die before Sayn, no, our world is brought to peace!”

“You’re just running away. Don’t fight anymore, Lumen. It will be better that way. He can’t be stopped.”

“You’re just saying that because you’ve given up!” Lumen’s light-concealing fist punched at Charles’s armor, pushing the man back but failing to make a visible dent in the darkness. “Well, I haven’t! I am the Chosen One! I am Lumen Candoris-Regium, and as long as I can, I will make sure Atrum’s ambitions do not come to pass! Terrill continues to fight, so I will, too!”

“You don’t…even know Terrill. He was just a grasp at friendship for you…agh!” Charles’s sword fell to the ground, its clang echoing with ghostly fright. The man dropped to his knees, cradling his head as the darkness wrapped around him. “You’ve always known what you were born for, and what you lived for. What you needed to die for.”

“And you trained me to be better than that! So why aren’t you resisting?”

Charles looked up, the soft and stern eyes of his mentor going blank. Lumen didn’t care for his words, though. “Because I want to die.”

Then he was gone. The content smile slipped off his face, and his hands dropped to his sides while he remained on his knees. Lumen could sense the pooling wickedness inside him, that kind shared with Atrum, and the blond took his step back. Charles started to move, grabbing the discarded helmet and placing it back atop his head, straightening into a statue with gleaming eyes at Lumen.

The boy couldn’t process it, hearing his mentor saying that. Though they had spent much time together, never had he mentioned a thing in that regard. Lumen tried to reach out, tentatively and with caution. “What burden are you carrying, Charles? Is it the fallen Chosen Ones? Is it what the prophecy demanded of you, or me? Because no matter what it is, we can’t just-”

“You cannot fight fate, Lumen.” The voice was distorted through the helmet, but even with it, Lumen could tell this was not Charles speaking. It was him. “As I told you, tossing a stone into the river does not divert its course. The flow continues on. But supplanting everything will change this world forever. You and I can live forever, brother, and make sure the prophecy never comes to pass!”

Atrum’s declaration made Lumen sick to his stomach, though he did not retch or vomit. He would not give Atrum the satisfaction of knowing just what the boy’s presence did to him. His light was entirely snuffed out, Lumen’s rage peaking inside. “I will not be your tool, Atrum!”

“You have already been, just like this puppet serving his master’s strings.” To emphasize, Charles’s body began to move, taking his sword from the ground and twirling it with perfect precision. “Or do you think you can really be like them? Like Terrill? You see now how even after all his struggles, this man returns to me, to his butchered past. Do you really think you can avoid joining me when the time comes? Continue on like this, and you will die!”

“That’s-” Lumen’s eyes widened, the horrific reality settling in. Atrum knew it, giving him that moment of silence to contemplate everything that had just come into his mind. He didn’t want to die, and had told Charles as much, but the only way to avoid such a death was joining Atrum in his insane quest to rip the world from its foundations. And if he chose to stop it, then he would… “No. No, you’re a liar, Atrum! You use people like things! My soul isn’t yours, and it’s not fate’s!”

“But you can never know that, can you? What have you seen that makes you think you can change fate?” Charles’s body slashed the sword in his hand, creating a rippling wave that nearly took Lumen off his feet. “You were fated to be alone and you have been nothing but alone this whole time! Searching for a fairy tale as though it will cure your loneliness and give you purpose! But I can give you purpose.”

Lumen’s breaths shortened, and all of the badlands were veiled in darkness, the moon covered by a swathe of clouds that reduced them to shadows in the dark. He was right, of course.

How long had it been since he’d truly seen his companions? Atrum had gone on to wreak havoc, and Charles had given up, while Terrill…Terrill was off gallivanting throughout the world, paying him no mind. In the end, he was alone, chasing after dreams in the hopes of giving his life more meaning than the one that had been attached to it. There was nothing more he could do, and Atrum knew it. He’d always known it, and every word he’d spoken or visit he paid was a further attempt to whittle him down and convince him of that very thing.

Still, Lumen began to realize, he didn’t want to give up just yet.

He couldn’t.

He had come this far, and he knew that Terrill was still out there, fighting. Perhaps he was alone, and perhaps Terrill didn’t care, but the man had become his Guardian and had stuck to that creed to the end of their battle. Who was he to give up when the person the least involved in Atrum’s prophecy was still trying his best?

“Go away, Atrum,” Lumen growled under his breath. He grabbed his shield, holding it in tandem with his weapon as he faced the form of his first friend, staring him down with all absence of emotion. “I will not let your lies sway me from the one course I believe in to protect my countrymen and the world they belong to. And I will not let you harm Terrill. You’ll have to kill me before I ever let you do that!”

“Terrill isn’t worth your time.”

“Anyone who would hold a sword in defense of me is worth my time. That’s what you fail to understand, brother. Terrill is a good, kind man, who you used to further your ambitions. Well, no longer! As he protected me, I will protect him! You will not use him or his death to further your designs any longer.”

“Then don’t let me. Come to Clupei, where I am waiting with the Lifeblood of Darkness. Join me, and I won’t bother Terrill any longer.”

“I will purge you first, Atrum! I’ll sever your strings!” Lumen’s sword flashed out with blinding light, the blade blocked by Charles’s. He didn’t draw the second one, though with a singular move, he disarmed Lumen and sent the sword flying through the air. Lumen blocked the next blow with his shield, sending him to the side, near the remains of the Wind Fortress. His sword came spinning back down and he deftly caught it. With his mentor’s teachings in mind, Lumen got low to the ground, racing for the man’s legs, where the aura of Atrum’s darkness could be seen pooling within the ground. Coating his blade in light, he stabbed for the strings, snapping one or two of them before the sword was aiming for his head.

“You cannot sever my soul, Chosen One! No matter how many times you break my connection, I will weave it back into a tapestry of my control! Just like you! Or where do you think your powers over the light came from?!”

“That still means they can be severed. Even if it’s only for a moment, I can loosen your control!”

“Only for a moment?” came the metallic scoff, and then Charles’s eyes glowed red through the slits in his helmet. “I desire more than a mere moment!”

The blade swung out, and Lumen was forced to put all of his actions behind the defensive pressure of his shield. It hit with more force than expected, which would have been enough, except Lumen’s clumsy feet got tangled up at the worst of times, sending him falling backwards until he hit the shining door to the interior of the Fortress. The incoming blade glinted in the dark and Lumen crossed sword and shield until…

…he fell backwards.

The door at his back swung inwards, and before Lumen knew it, he was falling through it. A gust of wind emerged above his sliding body and he soon realized that he was tumbling down a very long set of stairs inwards, bumping over some pivots and rivets. Charles, or the Phantom Knight as he now was, disappeared from view, blown away by the wind. Then the door to the fortress hissed shut as unexpectedly as it opened, dousing Lumen in silence and darkness once again.

The boy hissed, realizing that the corner of a stair was pressing into his back and he sought to remedy that by standing. Soon as he had, he realized that his bag had been left outside and only his weapons were in his hands, prompting him to swing his shield back around. His sword would suffice in the new location, which he soon shed light upon.

Fascination replaced his more violent drive for a mere second, as he looked down the long corridor of stairs to the interior of this magnificent place. There was a light at the end of the hall, cold but inviting nonetheless. Yet Lumen put his attention on where he’d come, running for the door where Charles was waiting outside. Unfortunately, when he reached it, Lumen could tell there was no way out. The door was sealed, and any hope of freeing Charles from Atrum’s string was lost to him. In anger, he kicked the door.

The stairs began to move.

“Wait! What is this?!” Lumen shouted to no one. His body jerked with the movement of the stairs, a mysterious machine that carried him down to the light. Unsure of what he’d find, Lumen readied his blade, the stairs never stopping until, finally, he was on the doorstep and he stumbled into a fall.

“Welcome, Chosen One of Sayn, it is a pleasure to meet one from Dimidia.” The calm voice caused Lumen to look up at the face of a man dressed in green robes, as though he was a practitioner of some long-lost art. He had bushy gray eyebrows and a bald head, his hand held out for Lumen to pull himself up by. The boy hesitated at this newest development, looking back and forth at what lay beyond the stairs. It was a giant atrium lined with machines of metal and steam, though they didn’t appear to be working much. Near the top of this magnificent, domed room, were other robed individuals, floating above the ground.

It was a bizarre sight, but to Lumen, proved he had been wise to go this direction. Now, he had but one question remaining. “How…how do you know who I am?”

“We are the descendants of the Wind Tribe, of course,” the older man said, his outstretched hand sliding over his heart as he bowed to the boy. Lumen took that opportunity to stand. “Caretakers of the Wind Fortress, and those who have long followed the flow of the world our tribe saw and read upon the winds.”

“And…and you know of…Dimidia? And Adversa?”

“Yes. The only tribe to have known so with purposeful intent. And that is why you are most welcome here, my friend. The Wind Fortress has long awaited a Dimidian brother to free it.”

“Free it…?” Lumen shook his head. “None of this is making sense. Who are you?”

“I am Elder Titus, overseer of the Wind Fortress, that which stands watch over the world.” It didn’t answer much for Lumen, but he decided it was good enough to understand his meaning in coming here. He wanted to ask more, however, but before he did, the pale light in the room flickered. A crimson wind flew out from one of the floating people, while from another, an azure wind rolled out, the two crossing and clashing. Titus turned. “What do the winds of Gladius say?”

“The Invarian Navy is making berth, elder. They are beginning the march to Fort Tierial, where Valorda’s army has pulled back for a major stand.”

“So, we are out of time…? We must free the Lifeblood immediately if we’ve any hope…” Titus folded his arms behind his back and strode to the center of the room, prompting Lumen to chase after him, fascinated by the interior. He stopped short when Titus faced the one that had displayed the blue wind. “And I take it there is news from the Trough.”

“Three have arrived and appear to be making their way here. The winds tell me they purposely crashed their ship there.”

“Then they’re coming for us…which means it must be the other Dimidian. Just in case, seal the passages, drive them to the canyon. If it is the Dimidian, he should find his way here. Hurry!” Lumen blinked a few times, though it felt like a few hundred, the conversations between these robed tribesmen flying over his head. Only one thing stood out, though, and it was to that which Lumen latched on. The other Dimidian was on his way. Just as Charles had said, Terrill was coming to the Wind Fortress.