Prince of Time

Chapter Forty-Eight - The Duel

Tobiah was slower than Finem and the man was already inside his mind by the time he reached the join. He was smiling as he waited, a shifting wraith in black, his form shrouded in smoke. He had the upper hand now.

“How does this battle work?” Tobiah asked.

“We fight with all at our disposal,” Finem spread his hands and an arsenal of weapons appeared. “And one of us loses.”

Tobiah reached for the ghostly form of his sword. It shattered in his hand. Finem’s weapons vanished.

“Let me show you something,” the darkness smiled. “Let me break your mind.”

Tobiah felt the mental form of himself break away to dust. He screamed in agony and Finem’s laugh echoed around his mind.

“This is what I am fighting for!” Finem cried. “This is what you are missing!”

Tobiah dissolved…and reformed as a bird. He soared above mountains, propelled by Finem’s will alone, looping and diving…

 …and winged by an arrow. Tobiah screamed in pain as he became human again, tumbling, pouring blood, dropping towards the unforgiving stones below. The sound was torn from his lungs, ripped away by the air…

…and he was a fish swimming underwater, serene in blue and green, calm and beautiful…

…and the line caught him by the throat and dragged him out of the water while he tried to cry out, voiceless. He was a boy again, lying on a river bank, unable to breathe, choking, gasping, retching, about to die…

…and he was a bear being brought down by spears, a horse crushed in a battle, a dragon starving far from its natural hunting grounds. Each new shape brought fresh agony, waves and waves of it more than Tobiah had ever felt before.

 He resisted. He raised all his mental defences but Finem was inside of them, strolling through his mind, admiring the scenery. Tobiah tried to block him out, tried to protect what little was left of himself from the painful transformations. It did little good.

“How about the people?” Finem said, cheerfully. “Don’t you want to see how they live?”

Tobiah felt his bones shrinking and crumbling and suddenly he was a baby, starving, abandoned, alone in the cold, trying to scream but without any voice left…

…and he was a slave, bent beneath the lash of the whip, back torn open, sores festering on his legs, shoulders cracking under the weight he bore…

…and a boy kneeling before a block, his hands outstretched, the blunt knife coming down again and again upon his wrists while he screamed and screamed and screamed…

…a prisoner chained down, spikes being slowly driven into his skull, his shouts unheeded, his pleas unnoticed as they drove deeper and deeper into his brain…

…a man tied to a stake, the knots cutting into his flesh, the rough wood scratching at the oozing sores upon his back. The flames rose higher around him, the smoke stinging his eyes and choking his lungs, the heat too strong, his skin beginning to bubble and blister, his heart frantic and useless…

 He was a million things and each hurt more than the last. He was torn from shape to shape, his body reworked to fit, each one abused and destroyed before Finem changed him again and again. Tobiah lost the strength to scream. He focused only on keeping the last fragments of himself.

“This is your world,” Finem spoke through the pain. “This is what you are fighting to save. Are you proud, Tobiah?”

Suddenly it was quiet and peaceful. Tobiah lay on the soft grass, the air clean and sweet in his lungs. He couldn’t move. The pain still wracked his body but it was old pain, remembered pain. He shuddered and sobbed against the unreal landscape.