pencil shavings

twenty-six: the regathering

Kaileen, for all her harsh beauty and bravery, could not quell her shaking. Blood soaked the Mage's sleeves and his eyes gazed vacantly, painted with sorrow. She longed for something to say, any comforts to sooth the bite of fear, but the pain in her own heart gnawed on her compassion at its core. She had no hope to give him. All she could do was sit at his side on a fallen log, steadying her breaths and waiting for her mind to understand what her heart had endured.

The beast had come back.

All those names, all those dead, and yet it was the demon's threat of vengeance that rang out in her ears, again and again.

Jacob, Sienna, Drakus, Marie, Diane... had their deaths not been enough?

It was the suffering to come that made her fingers quake so deeply. The pain that would stamp them out like a spark, no matter how brightly they had once burned.

The Mage pulled in a sharp breath, chest convulsing as he fought to exhale slowly.

Slowly, slowly, slowly.

That was this whole game, this test. It was a slow destruction, to remind them that darkness danced to a wretched tune, and that evil would draw the curtains closed after its final act. That even Lady Kaileen, the silver star of hope, and he, a quick-witted mage, and Hercules, the knight of righteous men, were not enough. The play would begin with the evil at bay, the sunlight flashing through the windows, the crowd laughing. And then, like all plays, it would end. Agamemnon knew that the monster was preparing its finale. He knew that when the velvet curtains thudded onto the wood, even the brightest of stars would wink out.

"Kaileen," Agamemnon rasped, swiveling his glassy eyes to meet hers. 

She touched his hand. "I know," she whispered. Pain leaked from him, as vivid as the tang of his magic. So much hope lost already.

"We stand no chance," he murmured. "I may be well acquainted with defeat, especially compared to you, but this? This isn't even a chance. This is a fate."

Kaileen bowed her head, silver hair sliding into her eyes. Her arms were stiff as she leaned over her knees, and her legs throbbed when her forearms dug into them. The mage beside her dropped his face into his hands.

"I know," Kaileen repeated. "I know."

She looked up at the sky, clear and blue, but cruel all the same. Too big to be a home and too small to contain the ocean of her pain.

"We need to find Hercules," she said at last, sitting up. "Once we ensure his safety, we regroup and plan. We stay together from now on."

Kaileen stood and began her walk toward the camp, but the Mage didn't raise his head from his hands.

"To what end, Kaileen?" he whispered. She paused, her strong shoulders rising as she sucked in a deep breath. "Where is this all going anyway?" the mage finally looked into her eyes. She hated the exhaustion in his eyes, and the sunlight on his hair, and the tightness of his lips. "I'll help you find that idiot knight, sure. But what more do you expect to do? You may as well go spend time with your family before all literal-hell breaks loose."

Kaileen swallowed hard. "We must try, Agamemnon. There will always be monsters, each worse than the last. And the only way to go forward? To hope that, so long as there are people, each generation will be better than the last." Her stormy eyes reached far into the mage's soul as she whispered, "We owe this lost battle to those who come after us. We have no chance, yes; but we can give them something to be better than."

And so the cloaked mage and silver knight walked in silence, their chins just a little higher.

Hercules sat alone. So cold, and so very alone as light peaked between the rocks and musty air leered at him with every shallow breath.

Stupid, he thought again.

Stupid to get stuck in a cave, stupid to be too weak to get out, stupid to separate himself from Kai and Agamemnon, stupid to try to fight here, stupid to have come at all.

So stupid.

He gritted his teeth and smashed his fist into the rocks that covered the exit. It didn't matter - there was no way out. But as the pain and blood stung on his knuckles, he drank in its vividness. Again. The lion of a man yelled, roaring his fury as blood streaked his arms and rock bit his flesh and fury drove him into senseless smashing while his fist and knee and shoulder crashed into the rock again, and again, and again. He lost his mind to the fantasy that his pain would gush out with his blood. Of course no such comfort came, and his agony met only crumbling rock, and dripping blood, and his own hoarse cries.

Until he felt them. The mage. He felt Agamemnon's magic toss thin ropes across the land, in pine-and-citrus coils. That green comfort stretched closer, and Hercules slumped against the blood-slick rock with a half-sob.

Maybe they would find him after all.

Maybe they would free him.

Free him, and free the demon in his veins.

Agamemnon heard the golden knight's roars. He truly was a lion of a man, that bastard. But the sound he made was the same sound Agamemnon made when his sister fell dead. It was the sound of Kaileen's heart when she spoke of her soldiers. The sound they would all make when that creature came back to claim the pieces of itself it had left behind in each of them.

The mage lowered his head, and followed his magic to those yells.

The silver-haired knight followed, sword drawn, eyes shining.

The demon slept in the place between the sunset and the mountain peaks, watching them all day, curious. It stretched its legs and settled into its shroud of dark with its hands behind its head, smiling idly as they each fought the chasm it had ripped open. Pointless, really, for the demon to offer so much effort. The ugliness in their hearts - the doubt and regret and loneliness - it would destroy them all without its needing to do anything. Such peculiar creatures, the demon mused.

He glanced back at where they gathered themselves and shoved down their pain, arguing as they stood together by the blond knight's cave. The demon folded his arms with a smug sigh, leaning back again, until he heard a God-awful noise echo up from where they stood.  It jolted upright. A hesitant hum, like a bee's hive. But growing. And that sweet melody, a triumphant anthem and golden song, made the demon blanch.

The noise receded after a moment, collapsing back into the quiet of the three warriors' hearts, but the demon didn't forget.

After all, amid its dark reign, how could a demon forget such a powerful cry of hope?