David
The way David felt the need to describe the mountains around him surpassed the gut-wrench of tower or impose. He felt, as he dismounted his horse, that the appropriate description would be demanded. They were demanding of him in the same way that duty demanded of him. For God, family, and country. His eyes were tired; his gaze lingered on stray objects in the field of the valley before narrowing to adjust to the darkness of the cascading ravine beneath the mountains.
The sight gave an iron tug in his chest, though he’d been the one to carve it out years ago. And with the aid of the scholars, he’d ensured every several feet were safeguarded by earthen wards and runes of ornate and cruel intricacy. He had literally created a nightmare of a stairwell. Something a mage would be proud of. Something his superiors were proud of.
Something Farrow hated for its purpose.
Below the ravine, in the cold, dark haven of the soundless, lightless cavern, waited two sentries who shifted and drew their weapons as he came close.
“The iron of your scabbards allow for the glint of friction when your weapon draws, sentinel. It was by my strict order that weapons be held in-hand at all times to prevent accidents.”
His voice gave them both ease and tension on differing plateaus. First, he was not an intruder; however, second, he was Commander Farrow, and his presence in the Black Stair meant something was amiss--though the word failed to explain his reasonings.
“Matters have arisen that require a discussion with the prisoner,” he said, voice flat. “No matter what sounds may come from the inside, you are not to open the cell. Is that understood, Sentinels?”
“Yes sir,” they clapped in unison.
Farrow placed a hand on the wall between the guards and let out a long, beleaguered breath. The echoing, roiling sound of earth shifting around him in the blackness of the cell was nightmarish, and it registered with him, after so long, how volatile his interviewee could be in these conditions.
He knew, after all, that he would be.
The sounds ceased. He stood in a massive dome of a chamber, the only noticeable sensory details being the stark contrast between fresh water coming from an underground spring, the wafting scent of shit from a seemingly infinite well beneath the earth, and the heaviness of the presence in the chamber.
“You are late,” a voice cooed. “Laaaate. Late, late…late. I mean, you know that I knew that you knew…wait no. I knew that you knew?” Flesh slapped against hard rock in the poorly lit corner. “Urnfgh. This one had a glorious speech planned in his head, but it all froze over when you came in.” A slap to the knee, followed by grounding breath. “So, Mister Farrow, to whom do I owe the--” A skull slapped against the rocks in the corner. David smelled blood, then. “Headache?”
David slowly deflated. He dropped his coat to the stone floor and sat on an outcropping of rock that shot from the floor. “You like stories, Xander?”
“They’re delightful.”
“When Fiona and I were kids, there was this hag in a nearby village who ‘read fortunes’ for just around five coins. Fiona loved her, and whenever Mum took us to the village to visit the grocer, we’d have to stop and visit her.” He closed his eyes. “It was the only way Fiona would be happy leaving home. I cipher it to be a sort of safety blanket mechanism.”
Smacking lips. “Ah! Your Lucas went through that.” In the corner, the man licked his fingers. “The safety blanket phase.” Fingers pointing at lines and dots in front of his face with no perceivable aim. “Yes, you’ll remember. The horse. His first horse. It was quite ill. Quite ill. Rabid, was it?”
“Remarkably, yes.”
“You, in all your short-sighted wisdom, decided to take Lucas to the forest where you put the horse down. Surprised you didn’t make him do it, the coward you were.”
A smirk. “Is that bravado, blind man?”
“Old friend, in prison, you either have bravado, or the other inmates will take quite the advantage of you.”
“Other Prisoners?”
A grin, a smirk, an exhale of a laugh. “Spoilers,” he cooed. “But David, are you saying--hm.” Knuckles drug across the stone floor as the man floated near, stopped and crossed his legs to be in easy hearing distance of his guest. “You’re saying, present tense, no question, that you’ve come to the village fortune teller because--” another scoff, “--you’re feeling afraid?”
He growled beneath his breath as he exhaled. The man had waited nigh on a decade to toy with him.
“The devil you know. That’s the saying, isn’t it? But, Farrow, ask yourself: do you truly know me?”
David glared up at the man in tattered rags, barely enough meat on his bone to qualify him as a human, barely enough cloth on his skin to qualify him as civilized. David stood. “I am in this personalized hell so that I may know what revenge plot you’ve written, you piss-poor forsaken prophet of a bastard god.”
Alex raised a hand toward his forehead, parting the matted locks of hair hiding his face. “Hrumm.” Alexander bobbed in a circle around David. “Anger. I suppose I should have known...” He mumbled, drifting towards his fountain, dipping his fingers into the clear waters. “Would you like some wine?” He pulled his own hand out, letting several drops of scarlet fall into his mouth.
David slowly sank to his seat, eyes on the floor. “Alexander,” he heaved, “the world is in such incredible danger, and you--” He balled his fists. “You wish to sit and toy with me.” His wolfish glare strode to Alex’s face, hidden behind stained white and fallow hair. “You won’t even recognize what peril you’ve sewn.”
The prophet sank to the floor where he exchanged glances up at David, curious. “The elements are what you’re afraid of. Four things that you see, smell, touch each day. You believe that I’m exacting revenge through...elements? That’s terribly droll, Commander.” He tapped on his chin for a moment. “No, Farrow. I am not a vengeful man.” His hand slipped to his knees while his tongue lapped at his lips. “Though, if I were.”
There was a long pause. The spring bubbled behind him.
“If I were, my revenge would not be the peril of the earth. I love the earth. I was born there. ” An honest smile. “But vengeance...oh, that’s a sweet word that you’ve put in my mouth, Farrow.” Lips smacking. A grin. “What if I extracted my vengeance in the minds of those who harmed me? What if all along, from the very beginning of my crusade, my only goal was to long-suffer the vine of seething hatred inside of you?” He grew nearer. “Such that you could no longer trust.”
Knuckles dug into the rocks.
“Such that you could no longer love?”
Sweet iron wine on the rocks.
A whisper. “Such that you would come to your most hated enemy for advice.”
There was quiet. And another sensory detail, noted by the prophet Alexander: the weight of a breaking spirit--just not the one intended by the seer.
Alex reached out and touched David’s hand with his well-broken and mutilated fingers. “The elements will awaken, from how I see.” His eyes and head darted about to see specks of time floating about. “And I will be in the sunlight for the day the world breathes again.” He nodded. “And that’s why you were late, Farrow,” he noted. “Not because I wanted to toy with you. I’m not sadistic. I’m not cruel. I am a man of means that allows another man to meet the end. I justify the men who walk proudly in the fresh air. I bolster the actions of the bold.”
His grip tightened, voice quieting into a whisper.
“Truly, Farrow, you are late in the matter that I had hoped you would have come sooner, that more may have been spared.” His eyes closed. His head shook. “Did you truly believe the assassins in my employ would ill-commit to their duties if only you removed their master?”
David stood, stepping back. “Casius was imprisoned by an Ahiri faction years ago.” He smirked. “And Helena is dead.”
“She’s quite not,” he corrected.
“Alexander, I identified her body in the capital. I watched her burn.”
“She visited you recently. Did you not read her note?”
David furrowed his brow. “Her note?”
“Ah, yes.” Eyes closed, he could see the branch in the timeways. “You never were one to check your pockets. Neither was your sister, upon recall.”
David grabbed his jacket from the floor and tore through the pockets and zippers, dropping it once he found a tiny, thorned rose made of a lavender parchment. He unfolded it slowly, as he would unfold a burning missive of molten sheets.
It was blank. He flipped it.
Blank.
“I don’t understand,” he growled. “Helena has been nowhere near my village. The only visitors we’ve had recently were Dawson’s band and the rogue--”
Alexander slowly stood, brushing his tattered robes down. “The reason you take me for a vengeful man, Farrow, is that you are so boringly easy to subvert.”
David raised his right sword. “Tell me what this paper is for. Why is it blank?”
“Helena would never leave an old friend a wordless note,” he noted. “That would be rude.” He turned his head to the side, peering off at specks in his eyes. “What does she look like now? I have seen the possibilities, but not all of them. After all, one tends to admire each element of his soulmate, and when the face of your soulmate is one among billions--well, I needn’t tell you how long it would take, you being the ladies’ man you always were.”
His head turned back. David was still staring at the paper without a clue of how to read it.
“Have you considered the possibility that the writing was covered in dust during your travels?”
David sighed and blew on the page. A sudden flash of fire erupted from the missive, flooding the room with light that vanished in a mere moment, sapped into the palms of the prophet, newly-energized, who blinked across the chamber and gripped David by the throat. Paralyzed, the commander dropped his sword, struggled to breathe. Stems of light spread through David’s face, showing through his veins, and brought out a scream as they reached his eyes, his brain--the center of his mind where his alchemical control was housed. Rocks shook, the chamber began to crumble. Flashes of gold and verdant energy tore through the walls and ceiling, searing a skyway through the dome above. There was more light. There were droplets of rain.
Alexander ripped his control from David’s mind, shredding the consciousness from his body before he dropped him to the ground among the falling shards of rock. As he hovered out, he gazed down at the commander’s body, covered here and there by boulders. “Don’t give me that look, Farrow,” he groaned. A shot of light burned an encroaching sentinel and dropped him into the pit. “You never said we couldn’t trade!”
Alex looked left and right, shooting more sentinels as they approached. Body after body fell into the pit. Then he barked into the pit angrily. “FINE! But don’t think for a moment,” as he tucked an arm around David’s belly, “that you’ll be an alchemist anytime soon.”
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