Mathin and Mareth stood over the two sleeping forms of the brothers. Aerendir looked like a statue in slumber, regal with his hands folded over his belly. He looked meditative. Siegyrd was more awkward to move. His body was stiff as stone but in the position of a half fetal sleeping pose, one leg tucked up, the other straight, one arm wrapped underneath his own head, the other laying at a ninety degree angle from the body.

They were in Mathin’s manor. The morning after the show, Mathin showed up in a rage which woke Mareth, but the brothers were still as the grave. They breathed, though very shallowly. The two were deposited on the large rug in the main sitting room next to the fire. Both their bodies were ice cold to the touch.

“Blankets,” Mathin said to his servant boy, and he fell onto his couch face forward, a wave of despairing sadness washing away what little strength he had. They had hired young men to help move the brothers up to this house. Mathin rolled over and faced Mareth, an icy glare in his eyes, “What did they do to my Zaralai?”

Mareth was facing away to receive the blankets just arrived from the servant boy. He spoke over his shoulder, “As she requested, we have done.” A tenor of sadness tremored in his voice.

“She disappeared in my arms.” Despair transmuted its enervating power into a cold rage as Mathin stood from the couch and turned, “IN MY ARMS!” He threw over a side table which crashed its contents out across the rug. An hourglass shattered into broken glass buried in the sands of time and dug itself into the fibers of the carpet. “She was there! We kissed.” He stumbled his way toward Mareth who stood and faced him, head hung low.

“I held her. She smiled and then…” Mathin’s voice trailed as he reached for Mareth’s neck, but then anger fled back into the blackhole of his confused sorrow. He rested his hands on Mareth’s shoulders instead. The wizard held the man up as best he could. Mathin leaned heavily on Mareth and wept.

Words could not answer such a sorrow, so Mareth stayed quiet. He held the crying man upright until his legs ached. His arms spasmed with exertion, and he thought he would pass out. The only thought that went through Mareth’s head was that he couldn’t let the man fall. He had to help him stay standing, as long as he could. He gave the only support he knew how to give, a physical propping up. Just as he thought he would give, that it would not be enough, Mathin stopped crying and stood firm. The weight lifted off Mareth, and he felt the rush of strength against empty air.

Mathin’s voice was cracked like a broken well, “I am sorry.” He fruitlessly wiped the wetness of his tears from the wizard’s shoulder and said again, “I am sorry. It’s not your fault. I knew her mind. She told me the request she would make. I didn’t have the heart to stop her. I hoped you would simply say no.”

Mareth stepped lightly over the unmoving form of Aerendir and sat in one of the chairs, motioning to the other for Mathin before he spoke.

“He did say no, emphatically.” Mareth’s voice was layered with emotions tenuously vying for control.

Mathin took his seat again and then looked into Mareth’s eyes and nodded.

“She tried pleading, but he would not. He spoke of the hope of life, some reference to his father. I missed some of it. I was stricken the moment we entered that world, whatever it was.”

“A kind of dream,” Mathin whispered.

Mareth nodded and continued, “When it was clear he would not, she transformed, or appeared. I don’t quite know which. She was a woman, and then there was a dragon, resplendent and magnificent. I regained myself then, though the brothers, it seemed were stricken in some way.” Mareth glanced at their still forms and shuddered. “She did not speak or threaten or even really move, but they gripped their chests as if pierced. Aerendir collapsed, Siegyrd too. Or perhaps the other way. I don’t recall, but I knew she would not let us leave. She approached me, face to face, but I was already casting. I… used Aerendir’s sword.”

Mareth pointed to it laying next to Aerendir’s body on the rug. Its white blade was clear as glass.

“Whatever song they played into the blade released when it struck, and then the dragon was transformed into a statue the likes of which I have seen only once, the moving black ice that emanated heat in your gallery below. The world collapsed, and I woke. They didn’t.”

Mathin leaned forward and tented his hands in front of him, elbows on his knees, a pensive look coming over him. He whispered, “Aeternum Rasa…”

Mareth’s ears perked and he inquired, “What is that? She mentioned it when we entered yesterday.”

Mathin shook his head, “I don’t know. There was much I never knew. I knew there was magic and age and spirit. No beauty such as hers is purely natural.”

“All beauty is supernatural,” Mareth responded.

Mathin laughed, just a small chuckle, “I suppose you are right.” The two men stared at each other for a second, then stared into some space between them, eyes intent upon memories.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

#

Siegyrd and Aerendir had a sensation something like waking but they both knew immediately that it was not precisely waking. They had no sense of space or time or movement. They held only raw consciousness hovering weightless in a vacuum of soundless, endless, deeper than blackness.

They did not speak, though they communicated, after a fashion, devoid of the context of embodied being.

Aerendir “How long this time?”

Siegyrd “Decades? Centuries? Who knows. Maybe only a few days."

“The wizard resisted her presence.”

“Only when she changed. Is it really any wonder?”

“I suppose not.”

In the raw sea of thought there was simultaneously immense speed in their communication and long, nigh infinite stretches of companionable silence.

Siegyrd, “I miss her.”

Aerendir, “You hardly knew her.”

“You know who I mean.”

The thought-sense of knowing flooded from Aerendir to Siegyrd.

“Him too.”

A flush of anger pulsed then thrummed with sadness.

Another long pause draped itself over the infinite.

Aerendir ,“I don’t remember them well.”

Siegyrd’s sadness was a ripple in the thoughtsea, a resonance and understanding, “You were orphaned the day you left home, longer than me.”

Aerendir, “I wanted to save her.”

Siegyrd, “You weren’t even there.”

“You know who I mean.”

Another thought-sense of knowing drifted through and Siegyrd replied, “You meant both.”

#

“Come on, wizard, move your legs.” Mathin’s voice was stern, but playful.

“Torturer,” Mareth huffed between breaths which puffed little clouds in the cool morning. The two jogged on a series of trails that rounded behind the manor house and down the opposite side from the town.

“You said you wanted to learn to keep up with them. This is the only way I can think how.” Mathin’s breathing was steady for his apparent age. His body was built for this it seemed. He ran barefoot in his small clothes, letting the sun bronze his weathered skin.

Mareth had thin slips of leather lashed to his feet. He lumbered heavily from side to side with each step, and his breathing was ragged. He didn’t have the wind to argue, so instead he flashed a glare and kept running. Slowly but surely, fighting through the pain.

The trees around them shaded them. It was a week since the passing of Zaralai. The funeral was held with great ceremony, though the casket was empty for the rites. So few of the townsfolk had known Zaralai, but they seemed to respect Mathin, so they wept alongside him. It was their way in those lands to exercise a week of silence after the death of a loved one. No notes of instruments, no banging on the rafters, no speech in the taverns. A kind of mourning language of hand signs and pointing had become the way during those times. Today at dawn, was the first day of new speaking.

Mathin’s voice sounded strange to his own ears as he ran alongside Mareth and tried to encourage him, “You will grow used to it. Stronger.” He had transmuted the weight of his sorrow into a strange manic energy which he channeled into his morning runs and all his other activity.

Mareth stared at the trail floor, its conglomeration of roots and rocks and earth, choosing his steps carefully, barely running. He did not see how near they were to the end. He didn’t know why he’d bothered to come along. His muscles felt wobbly, his lungs burned icy against his thumping heart.

Mathin broke into a clearing in full view of a rising glorious sun, slowed, stopped, and raised his eyes to the sky and extended his arms as if to embrace the world though there were tears in his eyes.

Mareth reached him some few minutes later huffing and heaving and bent over double. Mathin approach and gently place his hands on Mareth’s chest and lower back and pressured him to stand up straight to open the man’s lungs. “Breath is life, and soul, and force. Or so my love once said.” Mathin’s face grew dour, but he shook himself and continued. “Breathe in deeply and hold it.”

Mareth tried, but immediately failed. His gasps grew worse and worse, a panic rising in his face. Mathin placed his hand on Mareth’s chest and changed his method, “With your magics, you must control the tempo of your song. Control your breath like you control the tempo.”

Mareth couldn’t quite think, but his training in the songweave was substantial, it made sense. He sang, starting at the pace his breathing gave him, and then slowly, with effort, transitioned to a slower tempo, just humming. It took some time, but he managed to pull in, to regain control. “Thank you.” He breathed followed by a deep sigh. “I’ve more work to do it seems.”

Mathin turned away and walked further out into the clearing. The woods around them formed an almost perfect circle, and here in this field was a series of low bushes and brush on the outer edge, and a broad flat area with soft grass.

“Ready to learn some other things?” Mathin turned and flashed a smile that was joyous and sad.

“You are just torturing me to keep from torturing yourself aren’t you? Is this the way to honor her?” Mareth’s voice was steadier, but still accented with difficult breathing.

Mathin paused and breathed, fighting back tears that kept trying to overwhelm him. “She wouldn’t want me to stop for long. When the brothers wake, you will need to leave, and you will need to be as strong as you can be.”

“I may have to leave sooner,” Mareth gripped his chest and started running calculations in his head, “Why do you care?”

“About you, you mean?” Mathin’s voice was edged with anger.

Mareth nodded.

Mathin looked back with hard eyes and stared into Mareth’s, “You killed my love. It may have been Aerendir’s sword, but it was your spell, your action.” He walked up and towered over the wizard a rage marring his face, “Make no mistake, I want you to suffer.”

Mareth blanched with guilt and fear.

Mathin continued, his voice softer, “But I want your suffering to mean something. She’s gone, and as much as I want to hate you, I know it was her choice. She forced your hand. She had that way about her, giving you a choice that was no choice at all.”

“You want me to make it right? I don’t know how.”

Mathin sighed and walked away into the broad field. He turned back and beckoned Mareth forward.

Mareth obeyed, out of curiosity. Out of guilt. Out of something he could not place. He could have torn the man to shreds with a spell, or fled on wings of air. He could have done a thousand things with the magic in his blood and bones and soul, but he obeyed.

Mathin waited as Mareth approached. Then he took a low fighting stance, left leg forward, hands forward crouched, and said “Defend yourself.” The man moved much faster than the wizard expected. His first instinct was to weave a song of warding, but he could not complete it before Mathin had shot straight to him, dipped his knee and driven his shoulder upward into Mareth's hips, lifting him skyward before driving him back down. Air escaped his lungs in a mad rush, fleeing the hard impact.

Mathin was atop him now, straddling. Mathin struck twice, palm out, chest, then chin. Then Mathin leaped back, stood, and reached out his hand. Mareth took it warily. Mathin helped him up. The two stood tall, now, Mathin taller by half a head, and then Mathin spoke, “Defend yourself!”

Mareth tried to shift his weight, to side step, but Mathin’s hand shot out and grabbed him behind the head, and then Mathin had Mareth’s arm as well, and Mareth was thrown over onto his back. He didn’t see the movements. He was standing, and then he was on his back, his arm still in Mathin’s hand and Mathin’s knee resting on Mareth’s sternum.

Mathin released, and stood again. Mareth stood more slowly this time, eyes darting in every direction, not sure which information mattered most as he took Mathin’s hand to rise. Mathin walked away again, giving space between the two, then took another stance.

Mareth began his warding song, but stopped part way through. Instead he chose to mimic Mathin’s stance. He had hated physicality his whole life, preferred his books and spells and distance, but there was something rising in him. He gritted his teeth, and rushed Mathin with a shout. “Defend yourself.”

Mathin laughed, received the charging Mareth, shifted his weight and simply pushed the wizard’s shoulder as he went by. Mareth tripped, fell and rolled out onto his back. His heart beat fast. Mathin’s hand went out again, “Good, now we can train in earnest.”