Half a dozen of those mercury splashes announced the arrival of more and more angelfish fiends. I could barely lift an arm, still paralysed by the shooting pain of the half-inch deep tear of skin, flesh, muscle down to bone from armpit to armpit.
Grunting, Alator threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and the wind RUSHED through my hair as he set off at a sprint. One of the fish materialised in his way, a few feet ahead, and its jaw dropped and its tongue lashed out instantly.
FLASH. FLASH. His eyes erupted in yellow-gold and the smoke that poured from them came hot and thick. He held a hand in front of him and the barb impacted. Blood dripped from the wound, but then the fish’s tongue bent and shattered like brittle bone against his palm.
It began to reel it back in, the mercury reforming, but he was past it. Another took its place, shooting through the air at high speed, its feathery, draping fins billowing behind it, the pipe atop performing a high pitched, shrieking battle cry. He ducked the first attack, but it turned at a spin and bared its sharp, needle-like teeth.
More glints of yellow through the reflective glare of the mirror-world: from my vantage, he was shooting off Skills every few paces. His skin grew searing hot against mine, and the fingers of the one hand that remained gripped tightly around my ankles felt like they were burning me.
With a ROAR, and another bright gleam of golden light, he kicked off at speed with both thighs and launched himself into the air, landing running maybe a dozen yards up, and then, nearing another climbing ledge, did the same again.
Alator was slick with sweat, panting. He turned fully to glance behind him, and we both saw that the fish fiends had grouped together at the base of the glistening, glass-like mesa plateau — unable to follow. I dropped off his shoulders and the mad adrenaline pumping through me kept me standing.
“Looks like we’re safe here for a moment,” grunted Alator, and he fell to his knees with a crunch of glass; it seemed the exertion affected him all the same. “Guess people avoid travelling this place at noon — seems these fiends were agitated by the light.”
Managing to nod, I opened my mouth but couldn’t bring out any words. The agony cut through everything. Bleary-eyed, I peeled the corner of the torn, stretched material (which used to be my armour) back a half-inch. I gasped and winced. The wound was difficult to look at: bright white bone glistened and pink muscle and sinew was covered quickly red by pumping blood; it looked like my chest had been repeatedly dragged across a giant cheese grater.
“That’s going to take a long time to heal,” Alator said. Even through the agony, even through the roaring bedlam in my mind, I heard a faltering to his voice. There was something in his eye as he said it, something licked his words that he couldn’t hide:
Alator is worried.
Bzz. I vaguely, half-consciously noted the bronze sphere appear next to my head, then duck away, settling against my ear. For the first time, SYS whispered straight into my ear:
// SYS : He’s lying. //
That felt like my thoughts. Tears streamed my face and I staggered, but I remembered, a moment before the Cichlids spawned, that he was about to do something.
“I saw you — the . . . golden marks on . . . on your arms — you . . . can help me, can’t you?”
// SYS : If you do nothing, I’m done for. //
I’m going to die.
“If nothing’s done, I think that’s it from me,” I mimicked.
// SYS : Tell him you can handle whatever he can give you. //
So much pain.
“I can handle whatever you can give me,” I sobbed.
// SYS : Tell him that you’ll share his curse. //
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Can’t think straight.
“I’ll share your curse.”
What am I saying? I don’t care. I need the pain to end. I NEED THE PAIN TO END.
With a severe look, head tilted back against the glare of the ground, Alator met my eyes, and his own glowed yellow. With hindsight, it must have been some kind of [Influence] that overcame me, but the pain receded. My mind, however, was still as hazy as before.
“You don’t know what you are agreeing to,” Alator’s voice was gravelly harsh and otherworldly, his sharp wolf’s teeth glistened rage. “Those aren’t your words in your mouth.”
We stared each other down a moment, then his eyes returned to their normal blue. The pain came back in crashing waves and beat a throbbing crescendo against the walls of my skull as it felt like my chest was torn open a second time. I burst into tears and doubled over.
“I can’t . . . deal with it, . . . Alator,” my breath came in fits and gasps, my chest exploded with anguish with every rasping rise and fall. “It’s . . . too much. I can . . . barely breathe.”
“This pain will pass, Talbot.”
“I want it gone now!”
Starting with just a tickle along my spine, the agony of my chest was slowly turning into anger. Prickling irritation like thorns wrapped around my brain, and I found myself in a slow rage.
Alator lifted himself groaning up to his feet to meet my eye-line. His face showed empathy, which pissed me off even more, but it also showed the slightest glimmer of appeasement, of . . . fear?
What’s he afraid of? What could HE possibly be afraid of?
“I’ve seen the wound — if you make it, in a few short weeks all of this will be forgotten.”
IF I make it?
// SYS : Weeks? That’s too long. I’ll be dead in an hour. //
“That’s too long!” I straightened up and shook my head. The pain still vibrated my whole frame, but just as powerful was the vicious anger within me.
“It would have been a mistake to ask you to share my burden. I was not thinking clearly. You can survive this wound. You must. Though it may —”
“May what?” I spat the words. I knew the answer.
// SYS : I can barely breathe — something’s damaged in there. Feels permanent. //
“You’re selfish. You won’t share your power. I can see the cuts on your arm from that fiend in the forest are already healed. The great Prowling Beast, was it? Mewling Beast! Combative Flame? COWARD!”
“Talbot, you are not —”
I roared, the anger turned to something else in my blood and I was filled with a radiating, upwards-spiralling energy. Heat poured from me. Alator took a step backwards.
“THEN LEAVE ME!”
With the slightest movement of my toes, I rushed forwards, made to throw my shoulder into him. He widened his stance like a sumo wrestler as I’d seen him do before, and threw open his arms.
The upwards spiral became nuclear.
He treats ME like a monster? GOOD.
The moment before impact, I realised he wasn’t drawing on his inner power.
I’LL MAKE HIM.
Every muscle in my body felt brand new, my heart pumped sinister pressure into my arm and I met him as he wanted.
Alator was cast wide. His arms clapped in front of his body as his chest was beaten in and he was thrown off the mesa like a leaf tossed by a storm.
NOT GETTING AWAY.
The upwards spiral concentrated for a moment in my feet and I tensed down. It felt a physical manifestation in my body, an erratic passenger in my soul, but it was nothing less than survival instinct and action — and that was EVERYTHING.
My sandals were torn to shreds between my toes and every part of the mirror-glass of the twelve or so yards of the mesa shattered and was thrown in every direction. I LAUNCHED myself after him, and in a fraction of a second I was on him in the air.
He was limp as he fell — consciousness came back to him just in time to witness me. A moment before impact, an ugly grin took his face all curiosity and madness and his red lips peeled back showing glinting, sharp teeth bared in his clenched jaw.
“That’s it!” he roared up at me. “Only THIS is living!”
Both still airborne, hurtling towards the mirror surface, I — or my passenger — drew back a fist, and threw a full punch.
FLASH of light — his eyes beamed yellow-gold.
FINALLY!
With his strengthened body, he raised his guard. The fist pummelled into his forearms, sending them back hard into his face, which was knocked back at a harsh angle, and his body went limp again.
Alator collided with a vertical ledge and crunched into the searingly bright glass, suspended in the cavity he’d made for a moment, then fell forwards onto the ground. I landed VIOLENT on my bare feet, cracking the surface of the mirror in every direction. I had to pull up hard to break my feet out of their craters, spraying sparkling dust all around.
Stamping to him, I grabbed his shoulder and turned him over. I put my grip around his neck and pulled his head up from the ground, it lolled backwards. Thin lines of blood came diagonally from his nose and mouth. His eyes opened uneasily, he blinked and slowly focused on me, bringing his head forwards with a wince.
Reaching up, he grabbed my forearm with both hands. His lips moved but his voice was muffled. I lowered my head to his and gave him an ear.
“This won’t change my mind, Talbot.”
Through gritted teeth I hissed at him, inches from his face.
“I’m not out to change the mind of a dead man.”
He shook his head, and lifted one finger to point.
“They’re coming.”
“I don’t care.”
I dropped him to the ground, raised both fists and clasped them together tightly. The upwards spiral rippled through my body and sent a volatile charge through my arms. I felt crazy, like some savage thing. I had to follow through.
Alator looked at me pleadingly. His eyes were bloodshot. A tear beaded but didn’t break. He closed his eyes.
I brought my fists down.