Good and evil, choices made
Hearts are torn by fated blade.
The force of Arzath's backhand blow cracked Requar's nose, but he wasn't satisfied with that. With the butt of the knife, he slammed his fist into the burn wound on his hapless brother's shoulder.
Requar cried out as, once again, a wave of pain surged through his body, and struggled to keep from passing out. He was so weak with his expenditure of magic and the fight that he had barely the strength left to lift a finger, let alone attempt to throw Arzath off. The worst pain was in his eyes. Every tiny little movement of his head sent shards of excruciating agony through his skull, as though razorblades were being shoved forcefully into his eye sockets. He might have been able to scrape together enough strength to heal them, or at the very least regain some vision, if he had had access to his Sword of Healing. But Arzath had thrown it away on the other side of the hall, beyond his reach. He would never allow Requar time to use it in any case, even if he could somehow manage to summon it to him.
There was another blow to his head, this time from the other side. Requar shuddered as he was knocked even closer to unconsciousness. For a moment, he wavered on the edge, wondering if it would be best just to let himself sink into the blackness and disappear. He was quite certain that if he fainted, Arzath would not bother to wait for him to wake up again.
He was certain, also, that all the pain he was experiencing was nothing compared to what would happen if Arzath used that dagger on him. He had been around trigon long enough to understand that anything it came into contact with inevitably became corrupted and befouled...
Images faded in and out of his mental vision, washed-out, colourless, like paintings left in the sun too long. They were memories of his childhood, from a time so long ago that it felt as though they belonged to someone else. But one of them was a stark black and white scar etched on the inside of his skull.
The memory of one cold, moonlit night when he was eleven years old.
That one mistake had been the catalyst for all the horrendous events that had happened afterwards. A slap in the face by Lady Fate, that had sent him reeling into calamity. He understood, finally, why Arzath had been desperate for some kind of revenge or retribution all these years. He had never known that anyone, let alone his brother, had witnessed the attack. He thought it had been his terrible secret alone to bear.
He should have been more astute. He should have realised the truth much earlier.
He wanted to cry, but the throbbing pain in his head was too intense for tears. He wanted to apologise, but no words he spoke would ever be enough. Arzath had not come here, to his castle, with death in his eyes and hand, for forgiveness.
Yet, he still had not used the trigonic dagger, despite many opportunities to do so.
Why? Why am I not dead, if Arzath is so intent on spilling my blood?
"Arzath…" he whispered.
"I expect you've got an explanation for this, as well?" Arzath's voice sounded shaky, broken. "You've got an explanation for everything, haven't you?"
"It does not matter… what you do to me," Requar replied painfully. "I am so tired of fighting with you. I am so tired of my own thoughts, my own guilt, my life. Nothing that you do to me will bring her back. Or the School. Or your lost Sword. It is… all gone. Forever. Only I am left: your only remaining family. If you kill me, you will be… alone."
"I would rather be alone," Arzath said cruelly, "than continue to allow Mother's blood to run through your putrid heart!"
"Then at least hear my final words. Know that I never meant to hurt her: I loved her as much as you did…"
"No one loved her as much as I did!" Arzath cried. "She was the only person who ever loved me in return! Brannon cared nothing for me, he did not even consider me a son! To him I was merely a nuisance, a worthless dog to be kicked aside and scolded for getting in the way! I was not good enough for the School of Magical Studies, I was not good enough to serve duty on his precious Middle Isle, I was not useful even as an errand-boy!
"But you! Oh, how everyone fawned over you! Little Requar: the handsome one, the intelligent one, the talented one. The one Father chose to inherit his legacy. You were the child who would bring glory to the family!"
Requar sighed. "You are wrong. Yes, it is true that Father wanted me to follow his example, to become an esteemed and respected officer, but I was never interested in becoming a soldier. A lifetime spent spilling blood on a pile of rocks already drenched in it was to me abhorrent, even at that young age.
"But he cared nothing for my wishes. He dragged me away from my books and shoved a sword in my hand and forced me to train with him, determined that I would become what he wanted and expected me to become.
"I did everything that he ordered me to do, but I could not summon up the enthusiasm or passion necessary to excel as a fighter. He saw this, and it frustrated him. Eventually, it made him angry. Instead of trying to motivate me, encourage me he turned to fear and humiliation. He would often invite some of his colleagues from the Middle Isle to watch our training sessions. He would make me fight him naked, so as to better show the bruises on my skin, to the amusement of his soldier friends. He tried to place the injuries where my clothing would hide them in the hope that Mother would not find out.
"But she did find out, and she did not believe his excuses for my sore and sorry state. She confronted him, demanded that he stop the training sessions. So, he beat her as well for trying to protect me.
"Thankfully, he was only at home for two months of the year. The rest of the time he spent on duty on the Middle Isle. I am sure that he preferred to spend time away from us. I believe that he resented us. Fyona, because she had the courage to stand up to him, you, because he could not control you… and me, because I had no desire to carry on his legacy.
"We were all disappointments to him."
"One day, when Father was not at home, I was walking to market to buy some garlic for Mother, and two of Father's soldier friends stepped out into my path, blocking my way. They said they wanted me to carry out a task for them. They told me they wanted me to steal some items from my house, just inconsequential items that would not be missed. My family was wealthy, they said. We did not need them.
"I was afraid, but I tried to be strong, like Mother. I refused to do what they asked.
"They shoved me against a wall and placed their swords at my throat, and told me that they had seen my brother wandering around the city alone. They knew where to find you, they said. If I did not do as they asked, then they would catch you and hang you to death from one of the watchtowers. And then they would go to our house and find Mother…" His voice wavered and he swallowed heavily. After a moment he continued.
"I was only a boy and did not know what to do. I was terrified, too afraid to fight back, despite all my training. So, I agreed to fetch the possessions for them, if they would leave my family alone. They gave me their word that they would. They told me that they would never harass me again, but they were grinning strangely as they said it.
"Then they handed me a sack and a knife. A sinister black knife. I did not like the weapon or want to touch it, but they made me take it. They made me promise that I would take it with me when I went to fetch the items. They said it would keep me safe. They told me to use it on anyone who tried to stop me.
"I do not know how the soldiers obtained a trigonic dagger or if they knew what it was capable of, but I suspect that they did. I believe that it would have amused them to see Brannon's impudent young son destroy his own family."
Requar's lips quivered as truths he had never told flowed freely from them. "I took the knife. I thought that I might… use it against the men if they tried to hurt you or Mother. A part of me… w-wanted to use it against Father, when he returned. I… I became angry, after the encounter with the men. I decided that I would carry out their demands, not simply because of their threats, but also because I knew that a theft from our mansion would reflect badly on Father, and I wanted… I wanted to show him up for a fool for all the pain he had caused to us.
"S-so that very night, I donned one of Father's old black cloaks and crept into our living room, while everyone else was asleep in their chambers. I started to fill the sack with trinkets and crockery, but in my nervousness, I knocked a plate off a shelf. Immediately I ran for the door, but as I opened it, I found someone standing there, holding a lantern, come to investigate the noise. In panic, I lashed out with the dagger, dropped the sack and fled down the hallway and outside, into the yard.
“Terrified that I would be caught with the weapon, I dropped it onto the grass and ran around to the back of the house. I climbed in through the kitchen window and scurried back to my room, and into bed, and pretended to be asleep.
"I… thought that no one had discovered the identity of the thief. The two soldiers, Father's friends, disappeared, perhaps called back to the Middle Isle. I never saw them again. I thought that no harm had been done.
"But when Mother fell ill a few weeks later, I knew that something was wrong. Then Lord Etheron came to visit us and identified the knife as a trigonic dagger and I knew then… I knew that somehow I had to fix what I had done…"
Requar took a deep breath, having finally ended his tale. He waited for Arzath's reply, or perhaps another blow to the head, or the sharp bite of the cursed dagger.
No reply came.
Lying on the cold floor, he listened to the silence, but nothing could be heard. He knew that his brother was still there, he could feel the weight of him on his chest. He wondered if he should try speaking again. He wondered if he had the energy to do so…
Then, all of a sudden he felt a hand grab the front of his shirt and rip it open, exposing his bare chest to the chilly air.
Requar's breathing intensified. His hands clenched as he felt something touch his skin, on a spot directly above his rapidly pounding heart.
Arzath didn't believe a word I said! he thought in despair. Or if he did, he no longer cares…
His lips moved in a whispered prayer as he braced himself to meet his fate.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
He lay there for what seemed like an entire turning of the world, and still the dagger did not move. It remained poised above him, just touching his chest.
Then Requar heard a very quiet sound, like a soft exhaling of breath. After a few moments, he heard it again.
It was then that he realised his brother was crying.
He did not move, just listened to the quiet sobs. Then the point of the dagger lifted away and there was a clink on the floor beside his left arm. He felt Arzath's body weight shift off him, but still he did not dare to move. He could not see his brother, could not tell what he was doing.
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Finally, when no attack was forthcoming, he pushed himself up, very carefully on one arm. The effort sent pain exploding through his head and shoulder, but he gritted his teeth and endured it. He sat for a few moments, breathing heavily, waiting for the throbbing to subside and nausea to settle. Then he gathered together the remnants of his magic and invoked his Mind Vision.
It was weak and hazy, pulsating in and out in sync with the blood pounding through his brain, but at least he could see something. Surrounding him, filling the hall in a silvery mist was Ferrian's Winter. On the floor to his left was a small, yet piercing black shadow, a knife-shaped hole in the ether. The ambient magic swirled and twisted around it, seemingly attracted to its edges.
In front of him sat the silhouette of his brother. Arzath's life-force emanated from him in a scintillating green-gold aura, rippling with bursts of violet-blue. He was hunched over with his face in his hands, weeping. Requar looked at the sparks of thoughts swirling around in his head. They were the colour of anguish, of guilt, and regret.
Tentatively, Requar reached out and touched his shoulder. He expected Arzath to cringe away or react violently, but surprisingly, he did not.
"You knew it was me all along and you kept my secret," Requar said softly. "Why?"
Arzath removed his hands from his face, but did not lift his head. "Because," he sobbed. "Because you… you are my brother, and I believed that you could save her!"
Requar stared at him through his magic-enhanced vision.
You are my brother.
Swallowing back a sob of his own, he shifted over and put his hand gently on Arzath's shoulder. His brother did not look at him, but neither did he flinch or pull away.
"I… I am sorry," Requar whispered. "None of this should ever have happened. I am sorry I ruined both our lives. I am sorry that I never told you the truth, the most important truth that you deserved to know. I am sorry for my own cowardice. I am sorry I failed you, and Father, and Mother. I am sorry… for everything." He looked up into the mist swirling around them, as though searching for some meaning to life in its glimmering motes.
"I know," he went on, "that you may find it difficult to forgive me for her death, and for all of the other atrocious things that I have done. But…" His free hand lowered slowly to the floor, touching the dagger that lay there beside them. Prickles crept through his fingers as he curled them around the black hilt. "Please…"
He lifted the knife. "Please forgive me… for this."
Then he turned the trigonic dagger in his hand and plunged it into his own heart.
He heard Arzath's cry as though from a great distance, and was vaguely aware of him grabbing his shoulders. His Mind Vision blurred. The colours of the ambient magic mixed with Arzath's brilliant aura, leaching and running into each other like vaporous paint. He felt the knife run through him, felt his heart fail and his lungs constrict with the shock. Strangely, there was no overwhelming surge of pain, as he had prepared himself for. Instead, a frigid numbness spread outwards from his chest through every part of his body.
It was not horrifying.
It was peaceful.
The numbness washed over his head, sweeping away all emotion and dissolving his thoughts like grains of salt in an ocean. As his head fell back, his lungs expelled his last breath as a whispered sigh. Then a shadow like cold black velvet descended over him and wrapped him in oblivion.
"REQUAR!"
Heedless of his own safety, Arzath grabbed the dagger, trying to pull it back out of his brother's chest. He did not have time to stop and wonder why he was so desperate to save Requar's life when just a short time before he had been so determined to take it from him. All he knew in this moment was that something monstrous was happening to his brother, and he could not allow it to happen.
Requar had slumped to the floor. The skin around the embedded dagger was losing colour and darkening slowly to black. Arzath wrenched at the cursed weapon, but it refused to come free. It pulsated strangely beneath his grip, as though it were a living thing, a leech. He was almost certain that it was trying to bury itself deeper.
Quickly he invoked his own Mind Vision, and then stared in horror. Requar's life-force and magic-force were not dispersing as they normally would in death. Instead, they had collapsed in on themselves, into a glowing mass that twisted around the black blade like brambles.
And it was being absorbed.
Arzath's blood ran cold. The dagger was literally eating his brother's soul!
"No!" he cried. "You will not take any more of my family from me!" Bracing his knee on Requar's torso, he pulled with all his might.
But the dagger was just too powerful.
At that moment, there was movement across the foyer as a door opened. It was the strange man named Flint who had accompanied Requar to his castle. Completely disregarding the sorcerer's instructions, he stuck his head warily around the doorframe to see what was happening.
"HELP ME!" Arzath screamed.
The man jerked in shock. Then he flung the door open and raced across the hall, sliding to his knees at Requar's side. Not wasting time with pointless questions, he grabbed Arzath's wrists and the two of them strained on the knife.
Finally, the blade began to tear free. But then Flint released his grip suddenly and fell back on the floor, shaking his head.
"What the hell are you doing?" Arzath cried, glaring at him.
"We're gonna… rip his heart right out of his chest," Flint said.
"He is going to die if we do not get this dagger out of him!"
Flint looked at him sadly. "He's already gone," he replied quietly.
"You do not understand! He is not merely dying, his soul… aaaaauuuAAARRGGHH!" With one last, immense heave Arzath pulled the dagger free.
Then he recoiled in shock.
Long black tendrils of trigon had grown out of the blade. Glistening and writhing in agitation, they whipped about, flicking blood over the two men's faces. Denied their primary meal, the tendrils sprang backwards and pierced Arzath's hands instead.
Gasping in pain and horror, the sorcerer smashed the dagger into the floor, trying to release his grip on it. But the tendrils only burrowed deeper into his skin and wrapped around his wrists, trapping his hands on the blade. His skin started to turn grey, the agonising flash of pain dimming to prickling paralysis as the dark, insidious power seeped in through the wounds.
"AAAARRGGH!" Arzath cried.
Flint grabbed at his arms, trying to help him, but Arzath screamed: "NO, YOU FOOL! Don't touch it! Get out your knife!"
Fumbling at his belt, Flint yanked out a small blade. Arzath placed his hands on the floor between them, breathing heavily in fear. He tried to brace himself, feeling the numbness creeping up his arms. "Do it!" he ordered, grimacing.
The other man's eyes widened. "Are… are you sure?"
"JUST DO IT! CUT THIS GODFORSAKEN THING OFF ME! DO IT NOW!"
Obediently, though with a shaking hand, Flint brought his knife close to Arzath's wrist, just above the constricting tendrils. He pulled back the sleeve. Arzath's skin was the colour of ash, with blackness seeping visibly through his veins, like ink.
Taking a deep breath, Flint lifted the knife…
Just then, the tendrils contracted back into the dagger, releasing Arzath's hands. He dropped it immediately and in fury kicked it spinning across the hall. Gasping and shaking, he looked down at his punctured, blood-streaked hands.
Then he remembered Requar.
Both he and Flint turned to look at the once handsome, white haired man lying lifeless on the floor. There was blood everywhere. It flooded out of the gaping, ragged wound in his chest, soaking into his clothing and hair, spreading out in a dark pool across the frost-dusted floor.
For the first time, Arzath noticed how cold the foyer was.
Flint sat beside him quietly, averting his eyes from the body, his face stricken.
"No," Arzath said suddenly. Ignoring the tears springing to his eyes, he got to his feet and looked around the hall until he glimpsed what he needed. He ran over to the Sword of Healing, snatched it up, then ran back. The pool of blood rippled in the moonlight as he sank to his knees and placed the Sword flat upon his brother's chest. He forced one of the limp hands around the handle. "Wake up, damn you," he demanded fiercely.
Requar lay still and pale.
Arzath grabbed his chin. "Please…" he pleaded.
Blood leaked in a dark line from Requar's mouth, running over his fingers.
Arzath bowed his head. Tears now streamed unfettered down his face, dripping off his chin. It isn't meant to be this way, he thought. It isn't meant to feel like this.
He had thought he wanted to kill Requar. For most of his life, he had convinced himself of that fact, and had built all his plans around it. But Requar had been right. His death changed nothing. Now Arzath was alone, the last of his family, the last of a forgotten culture. His future opened up in a great chasm before him – dark and empty and devoid of meaning or hope.
He realised now, too late, the truth that he had successfully managed to deny to himself: that he had never wanted Requar to die. He had only wanted answers. He had only wanted Requar to accept responsibility for what he had done, to know how greatly he had hurt everyone with his actions. But Arzath's anger had been misplaced; he should not have directed it at his brother, but at Lord Brannon, for it was his father's wretched arrogance that had ruined them all. But his father was long dead. He had drowned himself out of grief shortly after Fyona's death. He had been buried at sea: there were not even any rotting bones left to dig up and unleash his vengeance upon.
And that hell-forged trigonic dagger! He hated that object with every mote of his being. He wanted desperately to destroy it, to smash it or burn it to ashes, to pound every last piece of it into the dirt until it was gone. But trigon was indestructible. That retribution too was denied him. He was sickened that he had ever sought to take advantage of its vile power.
All Requar had ever tried to do was protect him, and in return, Arzath had attacked him at every opportunity. It had all been so… pointless.
He sat down in the blood beside his dead brother and stared at his hands again, at the black blotches covering them where the trigon had infected the puncture wounds. He curled them into fists, forcing the blood to flow from them, grinding his teeth at the pain. Now he could not even follow his family into death. In a few months, he would change into a demon-wraith. The process would be much quicker than it had been with Fyona, considering he was a sorcerer and was imbued with a plentiful supply of magic as well as life-force to feed on. Perhaps Requar's fate had been the more desirable one, after all. Surely, oblivion was preferable to an eternal half-life of madness and despair?
He let his gaze drift across the floor until it came to rest on the dark glinting shape lying amid the glass shards of the grandfather clock that he had thrown Requar into earlier. The thought of touching the dagger again made him feel ill. The memory of what it had done to Requar made him shudder. But he had no other choice.
Slowly, Arzath got to his feet and began to walk towards it. His cloak and footsteps left a trail of blood on the floor.
Flint realised what he was intending and scrambled to his feet. "Hey!" he shouted. "Don't do anything stupid, man!"
Arzath kept walking. Without turning around, he said: "One could say that my entire life has been just that – stupid. Why should my death be any different?"
"Y'know, your brother cared a whole hell of a lot about you!" Flint said. "I saw the sorrow in his face when he talked about you, when he thought you were dead. Me, I thought you sounded like a right evil bugger. Maybe I was wrong."
Arzath paused, and half-turned. "The trigonic dagger is evil. Everything else is simply… choices."
"Yeah, and you're about to make one that all of us are gonna regret." Flint nodded in the direction of the dining hall. "There's a kid in there who's still cursed, and you're the only person left who knows anythin' about magic. You kill yourself, and you're condemning him to an equal fate!"
Arzath snorted a laugh. "You think I care about Ferrian?" he said coldly. "Just because I wanted my brother to live does not mean I have any interest in the rest of the boot-scrapings known as Humanity. I am not Requar!" He turned away, his expression bitter, and crouched by the dagger. "Besides," he added, "it is my understanding that the boy is already dead."
Behind him, he heard Flint muttering and cursing, no doubt regretting his error in judgement. Arzath couldn't care less what the man thought of him. He didn’t care about anything any more, except the need to die as quickly as possible.
There was nothing in this world left for him. He had lost everything that ever mattered.
Staring down at the dagger, Arzath's expression turned from bitterness to intense grief. He had not felt pain like this since Mother had died.
Damn him! Why did the stupid fool kill himself? Why did he leave me here alone, with NOTHING?
Fresh tears followed the paths already traced through the blood on his face. He looked over his shoulder, back at Requar's body, and invoked his Mind Vision again. He wasn't sure why he did so. Perhaps as a last vain grab at hope, that he might be mistaken and some tiny glimmer of Requar's blue life-force might have escaped the devouring pull of the trigon …
There was nothing to be seen in the space where his brother lay, but his attention was drawn to something beyond him, at the opposite end of the hall.
It was far too big to be standing where it was, but the castle's architecture rose through the Dragon's ghostly form as though it were not there. Its eyes were polished silver like Ferrian's, and they were staring right at him.
Arzath froze in astonishment.
The Dragon began to fade, and a much smaller figure appeared superimposed on top of it.
The outline of a sixteen-year-old boy.
His silhouette was strange – not dark with a surrounding colourful aura as was normal, but filled with pure white light. The light blazed out of him, so bright that Arzath was forced to banish his Mind Vision in order to see properly.
Ferrian stood in the doorway, his eyes revealing the white glow shining within him. Wordlessly, he walked into the middle of the foyer where Requar lay. He knelt beside the body and took the handle of the Sword of Healing in his hands.
Flint glanced in puzzlement at Arzath, but the sorcerer was just as bewildered. Momentarily forgetting the dagger and his own fate, he got to his feet and came forward to watch.
Ferrian lowered his head a little and just sat there, completely still, holding Requar's Sword on his bloodstained chest. Then, without warning, blue light flared down the blade.
Flint blinked in surprise. "Is that possible?"
"No," Arzath replied in a shocked whisper. "It isn't… the Swords can be bound in blood only to one wielder. He cannot…"
But despite his words, magic was coursing down the blade.
Mesmerised, Arzath walked forward.
But as he approached, the blue light turned white and a new layer of frost surged out of Ferrian. It swept over Requar's body, freezing him like a white shroud. The white light increased in intensity and the floor began to tremble, icicles erupting from it around Ferrian. The wind outside returned in a sudden gust that rattled the windows and doors. Flint and Arzath backed away quickly as the frost flowed towards them.
"What's happening?" Flint yelled.
Arzath did not reply. The light was now so bright that it obscured Ferrian and Requar from view, and was filling the hall.
Not again, Arzath thought, gritting his teeth as it pierced his eyes, even through his clenched eyelids.
And then no further thoughts or words were possible as the light invaded the two men's heads and swept their consciousness away like feathers in an icy storm.