Thrice Spoken, Twice Torn

[KidKrinkles 2044]

[!] This would be a narrative retelling of events, only those present would be aware of what they know, as it has not been spoken of.

 

[!] Those holding the 'Thee Golden Oyashi Lager' would see the memories and feelings imbued upon the item, as well, if focused upon.

 

 

 

 

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The sounds of idle chatter filled the halls of Numenost’s castle-palace. Some guardsmen kept their post though Tar Caraneth had already left, not one to waste words. Victor Rorin stood in his kilt and plate, arms crossed, a hand under his chin, as he listened to Eislyn.

 

“...it should … be easy enough. - I will come back with information, I've ah … got good standing with the Thegn and the like, they'll probably give me better information based on that.”

 

“Though I did wish to inform you of something else.”

 

Ser Baralin, his once squire, tilt his head to the woman, “Inform away!” A slight smile coming handsomely to her features, pleasantly resting as she listened on.

 

The O’Rourke did speak in her usual tone; as a matter of factly, and cold. “There were two names I managed to get - a … perhaps friendly spirit, and what I might believe to be a mystic?”

 

“… Aye?” Victor spoke up, interested in the information. The hunts never ended; and there was always some new evil to chase.

 

““The spirit is … well, there is not much to do there, other than to help it so it may pass on. Killing and hunting it will do nothing, it will just come back.” Eislyn continued.

 

“Their names?”

 

… and before Victor could hear, he was gone. Elsewhere. The fading words of Eislyn chased him through to… wherever he was…

 

“Ilrune, is the spirit. Iluran-.”

 

---

 

The sound of a guitar string snapping signalled the finality of that leap through reality. It was the trumpet that sounded his arrival to his new, unwilling, destination. A large, cavernous depth, with miasma, gray in hue and tone, rippling from a gate of ancient stone.

 

His form buckled as he landed, his armor clanking with that change of footing. His hand drifted to his sword, Azurewrath, as an immediate instinct, subconsciously; before he even realized he had.

 

His head slowly looked about, scanning his surroundings. He felt nothing, for, there was nothing. No feeling. No time to process. No understanding. His jaw slowly dropped, and the words carried from his lips and echoed into oblivion:

 

...

...

..

 

“What the ****.”

 

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---

 

His eye did catch onto something, however. A sign.

 

The Eternal Library.

 

A pit formed in his stomach, and his eye narrowed as he looked under it, through the gate. Seams of mist poured from it, and a slit to pass as it peeled open. The man had little choice truly, and, he began to walk forward. But, he’d find… an alien sensation.

 

As if he were sewn into his body.

 

As much as he began to move, he could not stop moving. 

 

No. He could not control any part of his body. It jerked and twitched against his wishes, and the man in steel clanked through the otherwise eerily quiet halls: a lingering smell of old stone and older books on his nose. He felt his mouth, his head, still his-- but he simply watched, lest he over speak and spell his own doom.

 

The library was in some disarray; held together through some means beyond his understanding. Some rocks loosely tumbled with dull thuds, and sank into an eternal abyss; never ringing back an echo of their own arrival. Ashen mist sank and swirled towards that same fate in quiet streaks. It was a den of malaise.

 

---

 

… in this moment he felt an absence in his mind particularly hard. When he had stood atop the Mountain, he had pulled Malcahdiel from himself, and permitted something in. That lack of courage, that bolstering to his own fury, was sorely missed: for his nascent Patron had left him alone, here, it seemed.

 

A singular table, wrought of cold stone, sat isolated amidst the endless gloom. Piled behind it in a warped semblance of a throne was a mound of ancient tomes and rotting books. Seated atop them, like a vulture upon carrion, was an entity cloaked in weeping mist—grey sap leaking endlessly from its form. Two eyes were all that marked its presence: wet, crimson slits that shimmered with silver light.

The elder hunched forward, fingers like raking talons trailing over a book’s open spine. His nails scratched, scratched, scratched with a sound that rang like bones dragged over granite. Wisps of smoke escaped his lips, coiling into the haze like dying prayers. It was impossible to discern his face, as though reality itself refused to render it.

And then the sound began.

Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.

A heartbeat. Slow. Crooked. Unrelenting.

Thump-thump. Thump. Thump-thump. Thump.

Not a beat of flesh and blood, but something else—an echoing pulse of presence, of gravity, of death in stillness. It beat not just in the ears, but in the soul, so loud and heavy, it was as if it’s own beating might snuff out lesser hearts in their chests.

Then, release.

Victor collapsed, gasping, the command over his body relinquished. Smoke burst from his lips in ragged streams. He exhaled hard, once, twice, grounding himself.

And the figure spoke.

“I am going to kill you,” came the words—not as threat, but promise. Not roared. Not growled. Simply stated. Dry and final.

 

---

 

 

Victor had already guessed that was the case, though. He would be hypocritical to falter, and, flounder, in this moment; for death was his creed. As written;

 

A swordsman must always choose death.

 

And so, Victor wordlessly drifted his hand back up towards Azurewrath; his thahnic blade of blue-hue flared with a red wroth that felt its wielder’s instincts to survive, and present its own thirst for blood. The perfect blade rested in his palm as he lowered it to his side, keeping his gaze forward; and if he were to die, he would at least die with blade in hand.

 

“Say the name.”

The command slithered from his throat—not barked, but peeled, like a strip of skin from old parchment. His voice was ancient dust layered on stone, hushed yet undeniable, dry with age. and soaked in consequence.

He did not move. He need not.

Instead, his cadaverous hand—fingers gnarled and colorless, nails long and jaundiced—dragged themselves across the stone slab before him.

Creeeeeeeeeeak.

The study shuddered.

Not from noise, not from motion—but from implication. As though the very bones of the Library recoiled at his touch.

Even those carved of Malchadiel’s finest—those with divine ichor in their blood—would feel their hearts tighten, their spines prickle, their breath catch with true, true fear.

It was instinct. Ancient. Ingrained into every mortal. Inescapable fear.

The crimson slits of his gaze never once blinked. They simply stared, unbroken, like a god awaiting confession.

Victor’s knees did bend in preparation; the blade level with the ground, his left-hand moving off of the frost-kissed blade as if to brace for something, and he spoke the words.

 

 

---

 

…

 

There was a moment, as he spoke, that felt as if time slowed. He felt his head compress, as if pressed upon by cotton. As if his own body had wished him to take the moment a little slower. As much as his body wished to live, resolution fortified his mind: this was it.

 

…

 

Victor’s arm shot off his body, wet and heavy. A spray of blood in all directions, hot as it sprayed his face and the cold ground, a steam rising off of it. A heavy clang, clank, clang as the severed limb landed feet away, Azurewrath still clutched in its grip.

 

It happened so fast. No fight. No clash. No tale. It was over. He had spoken his name, and he lost. His mechanical left-hand reached over to the smooth, bloody vacancy of his arm. His legs weakly bent, and pressed into the stone. It felt like he had already lost so much blood, and somehow, his head was still swimming, the lone-eye blank, and devoid, but locked on to him.

 

“Say the other name.” The corpse-like drakaar spoke.

 

His eye flicked to the wound, that gaping, running wound, before it returned to him. His lips shuttered, and, the color in his features too paled with the blood that seeped from him. His jaw rocked, and his lips slowly parted, managing to speak through the pain--

 

“... Th-....”

 

 

---

 

“Who am I the Patron of?”

The air did not move—but Victor did.

Dragged, by some cruel, invisible barbs summoned at a thought.

His body resisted, but only in the way a corpse resists rot: it cannot deny the inevitable.

Thalandir did not rise. He did not lift a finger. Only his digits circled lazily in the air, weaving nothing, yet commanding everything. His clawed hand curled as though winding a marionette.

Victor’s throat strained, pulled tight—his jaw forced to slacken, his breath to falter. His boots scraped stone, sparks scattering all the while, with the helplessness of a man being drawn toward his execution.

And all the while, Thalandir watched.

From behind that mask of mist—those bleary gauze-sheets of soul-sap that clung to his form like death’s own robes—his eyes shone through. Two silver-lined, blood-rimmed wounds that had forgotten what it meant to blink. An ancient, cruel, lizard.

His voice came again, slower this time.

Mocking. Coaxing.

“I dare you, speak his name.”

…

That sensation again. Cotton. Pressed against his ears: as if his body had not yet accepted that this was the end of the road. He thought of the bonfire that he viewed, in moments of darkness. Of his ancestors gathered at a great blaze, smiling, and telling stories: his parents were there-- and all of his sisters. 

 

Uncles and aunts that had traveled into the distance, and those who had passed. His ancestors, Adunic, Highlander, and Elf, all about-- and closest to him, he could see his wife, Viktoria, and his son, Mikail, and Stefaniya, his daughter.

 

He’d miss them, greatly. His right-hand clenched; or tried too-- a tugging sensation of a loose tendon somewhere in his chest, the rest misted with his severed limb. A feeble motion; but one of resolve.

…

“... Ah.”

The drakaar’s hand motioned left, swiftly.

… Victor watched the room spin: his head flying off of his body. A certain latency between seeing, feeling, and hearing… it was all out of order, almost; his brain haywire. His lone-eye fluttered, as it panned between old books, his broken-body, and the pale visage of a red-eyed Drakaar. His doom.

…Until the lights went out. The bowie was no more.

 

---

 

 

…

…

…

…

…

 

Ding, ding, ding.

The whirring of a clock-tower: it wound and wounded and echoed its undoing reverberation.

Victor Rorin stood in the room, with both his arms, and Azurewrath within its scabbard, but he did not feel whole.

… he felt… robbed.

His hand immediately came up to his neck with a wheeze; the all-to-sudden sensation of death ripped from him. He was back. His head upon his body. His eye wide with panic.

… he was only meant to die once. His death. Robbed. His body was screaming. His mind was beginning to, as well, as the two old friends were handshook together again, and, realized, the despair of the situation. 

He could remember everything. That was particularly jarring.

He recalled being summoned: he recalled walking to here, agency stripped from him, his life threatened, his limbs torn by cruel, red eyes and long, spindly hands motioning for his death. 

He recalled the feeling of his arm tearing off and hot blood steaming, and of his head flying. 

In the hollowness of his missing eye, in that dark void, he continued to see the flashes of his body, and of the library, and the haunted, stone-still expression of Thalandir.

“Say the name.” His voice repeated; the same cadence… a… second chance…?

Sweat ran from Victor’s brow, sweat not there prior. His mouth opened, and jaw hung. He wasn’t sure what to do differently. A frozen expression; a dreadful feeling built within him. He made no noise, mind racing with sensory overload, and the burden of a second life.

A moment passed.

“That is the correct answer,” the elder bid, his index-finger pointing out towards Victor.

“…” Victor did not answer, shaking where he stood for a moment. His eye moved to Thalandir, uncertain.

“I do not entertain the death of descendants. It is not of my kindling,” Thalandir murmured.

“It is wanton violence, you understand?” he continued, his elbow protruding against the stone table, laying flat across the book he had returned to reading.

“Though, you will force my hand. Take this as mercy, or next time, I will make sure that your viscera is draped as my tablecloth.”

Victor’s throat moved to croak, but it was as though his head had never been reattached. He remembered the moment of death too vividly; his mind could not reconcile it. His left arm snapped to his throat, while his right floundered helplessly.

“Remember that feeling,” Thalandir said, tapping mockingly at his own gullet.

“You are not the hero of this story,” the elder drawled, and waited.

Victor’s teeth gnashed. He did not like the message. His one eye bulged, his pride deeply wounded.

“I am not the good guy,” Thalandir continued, his cloak billowing wide, casting great tormenting shadows upon the stone. “But I try my utmost to be decorous with Horen’s kith, out of personal favour and my scrupulous personality. Learn your place, Victor.”

Another croak slipped from Victor’s ruined throat. He spat and dropped to a knee, uncertain of his place any longer.

“Learn it well. This is not a book. You do not win any moralistic high ground. You are not blameless. Your words have consequences, and it is effortless, you know? I could easily prance through your fields, slaughtering for no other reason than to fulfill some cruel, baleful desire. I could be filled with squalor and mar kingdoms in flames, just because. Have I?”

“You should not try to make enemies with those who are trying to be on your side,” Thalandir said, lifting his left hand with disdain.

“I want you to tell me the name of the person who gave you this knowledge. Kindly.”

A croak came again. Victor held his throat. His eye bloodshot, filled with stress, fury, helplessness. He sat there trying to find the words buried somewhere deep.

“I would appreciate some honesty,” Thalandir said, his nails shifting across the stone in a hideous creeeaaaak.

“… Ye… eh…” Victor spit and coughed. “A-ah’m honest.”

He wiped his mouth with a shaky hand. He had lost fights and stood. But this—this wasn’t a fight. He hadn’t even gotten to swing.

“… Ye’ know who told me.”

“Cathan.”

“Go ahead,” the elder said, voice still and placid. A low, gnarly holler resonated from his gullet, smoke spilling from his nostrils. “What do you know of me?”

“All that you’ve said.” Victor’s voice wavered. “Ye’ spoke te’ Cathan. Restart te’ world.”

“Restart the world?” Thalandir’s brow creased. “What are you on about?” he asked, fingers curling through his silver beard.

“Yer’ abyss… yer’ patron. Yer’ musings with ‘em.” Victor clutched his throat. “Ah’m a listener. Part of huntin’.”

“I did not say anything,” Thalandir said flatly. “I did not mention being a patron. Nor residing over an abyss. I have never spoken of restarting the world.”

“E’ means where ye’ sit… above…” Victor gestured vaguely to the platform.

“This is a study,” Thalandir clarified. “Do you believe his words?”

 

---

 

Victor’s hand dropped from his throat. “A’ know te’ be skeptical a’ everythin’ an’ aggregate. No. I don’t believe it until I know it.”

“I do not want you speaking my name in public purview again. Do you know why?” Thalandir’s tone grew bitter. “You do not remind me of the first time I met you. It is a shame.”

“… Lack’a privacy?”

“My brothers, my sisters, and I—we are prone to corruption. And if they know I am on land… those nefarious, elegiac devilspawn and Iblees-servants. What do you think they’ll do?”

“I could become another tenebrific Azdromoth,” he said, leaning forth. “I would be much worse.”

Victor sniffed. “A’ know little a’ what’s above me. Ye’ asked me not to speak yer name anymore. A’ stopped. The name still came. A’ don’t pretend te’ know realms higher than me. A’ work for the wee-folk. A’ adventure te’ see. A’ dinnae know any a’ these damn names before I was told.”

 

---

 

“Ye’ could’ve spoken plainly. A’ wouldnae’ve crossed ye’. Nor do I think my peers would’ve.”

“Yes, well… that is the flaw of your kinsmen. They are a bundle of stupidity. Colourless. Flavourless.”

“… Ye’ like outsiders?”

“I do not particularly dislike them.”

Victor pressed his foot from the ground and slowly rose, brushing down his kilt. He stood upright, wary.

“Plainness has always gotten me far. Ye’ want partnership—there are partners. Ye’ wish secrecy—it can be done.”

“We needn’t have skepticism or fear between us. On one side.”

“Ah. You misunderstand,” Thalandir said, raising a hand. “I do not fear you. Or anything.”

“I do not wish to partner either. Unfortunately, I am not fond of companionship.”

“I asked you to complete the mountain expedition because I wanted to see if Man had anything left. Spirit. Drive. Utility.”

“… Utility…” Victor repeated, barely audible.

“I used to regale in heroic stories. I enjoyed them in youth. But now the world is grey.”

“You must grow to understand the difference between us. I am not your companion. I am no friend of Man.”

“… Does it disappoint you?”

 

---

 

“No.” Victor’s tone was dry. “A’m keenly aware’a te’ peckin’ order. A’ don’t think we’ll be friends. Can hardly think we’re allies. A’ don’t understand ye’. But there’s comfort in not knowin’, at least.”

“Grhmh.” The elder seemed… content. “Do you enjoy stories?”

“… Ye’ve become an unknown. A’ pride maself on knowin’. But at the end of the day, ye’ don’t interrupt the normalcy a’ catchin’ bad folk a’ savin’ good folk.” He shifted his jaw. “Much so. Write many. Grew up on many.”

“I have a story to share with you. Dreg it into your soul. But speak it to nobody.”

“… Alright.”

“I was once an idol to be tittered by Horen and his brothers. They chiseled sepulchres, with names written on plaques of stone—it was veneration. Deified. And to be frank, it was farcical.”

“I enjoyed it in my youth,” he said, sagging. “One day, I came across a homeless urchin. He said to me: why, oh why, great lord, why have you scorned me so?”

“I had prayed to you thrice, but you did not answer. And when I had prayed thrice again, the winds hurtled my flames.”

“I walked away from the urchin. The next day, his lifeless corpse was hung upon my obelisk. So I asked—‘this sacrifice, it seems too young. Why is it so?’”

“Oh, great lord, this child, he was a thief.”

“It was only then I realized the mangled flesh was the same urchin.”

“This is when I understood: Iblees had sown too deep. The lands of Aegis were burned. My kinsmen turned corrupt. My dearest brother, Azdromoth, among them.”

“So then I walked,” he lifted both arms. “I walked as penance. A sepulchre of flesh. Helping others. And when the scourge came, I stood as a bulwark of their demise. They put all their faith into me.”

“They all died.”

“So then I understood—Man was too brisk and receptive of power. I then decided to stow away upon a boat.”

“And every alacritous evil that followed tore the world further apart. And now you stand here, in a colourless world that is incapable of repair, at a hair’s breadth from destruction.”

Thalandir’s staff slammed into the stone.

“The end.”

 

---

 

Victor did try not to flinch at the familiar slam of the gray-staff. But, all the same, he did. He couldn't help it in the presence. His lip twitched once more at the corner of his features, but he remained upright.

“You are a knight. Go fight evil, and stop dribbling at my past,” the elder wafted his left hand, as if he had sparse words to offer.

“I fight evil every damn day,” Victor offered. An unlikely retort. “I chase relentlessly. I piece together every damn clue I can from everything I can hear for the betterment of everyone I can.”

“Wouldn't speak the way I did if I wasn't happy with where I got. Where I’ve been. Folk I’ve met. Saved. Evils I’ve redeemed of my family—or those who've committed them and turned the path.”

“I will tell you the greatest evil to fight, then.”

He inhaled through his nose. “Ignorance?” Victor asked, curiously, smoke slipping from his mouth.

“The world,” Thalandir answered, imperturbably.

 

---

 

“The world…?” Victor’s eye narrowed.

“The world,” he repeated, peacefully.

“What does it mean to fight the world, then?” Victor asked, tilting his head. “To face the status quo? To repeal curses?”

“I’ve faced evil, day by day, through the little justices and great that come. To right the sins of the callous and the careless.” He shook his head. “The world itself isn’t evil.”

“I am not being metaphoric,” Thalandir clarified with eerie calm. “The world.”

“You are a babe. So maybe one day, you will understand it to be the greatest evil,” the elder mulled. “You may hack away at evil with your sword, but I do not think your sword is great enough to fight the world.”

“… May I ask ye’ something?”

“Go ahead. This will be your last question.”

His head bobbed slowly. “Who's the greater swordsman? The one who slays a thousand men, or the one who saves a thousand men?”

“The one who does not swing his sword at all,” Thalandir answered.

A snort escaped Victor. But he didn’t seem stunned by the answer. His left hand crossed to rest on his right shoulder.

“Well, you are boring me now, and I have grown disinterested. Keep the events of today in secrecy, or, well—” Thalandir gestured toward his throat from behind the veil of mist.

“… Little choice,” Victor hummed, quieter.

“Surprised ye’ dinnae pick a more pliable person.”

“Indeed,” came the elder’s reply. His graystaff stumped into the stone, causing the library to quake as if reality itself were shattering. “I see you all little different from the other, to be kindly honest.”

“Do not test my hearing, by the way. I will know.”

Snap.

 

---

 

Victor felt the world sunder. A quake rattled the realm. It stunned him easily.

“….”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” he roared into the night sky from the bridge, both hands clutching the top of his head—some mix of frustration and helplessness escaping in that scream.

Ser Arthur Uthyrien came running, preparing to draw steel.

“Ser Victor?”

Victor stared sullenly across the harbor, tired. He'd already placed himself upon the edge, looking out across the water.

“Are you alright, Ser?”

“… Dunnae anymore, Arthur,” Victor offered, his gaze unwavering.

“What happened to you?”

“You just—disappeared.” Arthur took a seat beside him.

Victor's lip twitched. His left hand came to his throat with a frown.

“The world, I guess…”

Arthur side-eyed him. That was a nonanswer, and he knew it. “Nothing just makes you snap away like that out of nowhere.”

Victor sighed.

The waves below idly stirred. The moon reflected upon the water, up to the White City. Silence hung on the bridge as Victor stared tiredly out.

His head turned slowly to Arthur.

“You can die,” he said, simply, quietly.