Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"You have his life in your hands, Guardian," Jordan said. "What will you do, I wonder?"

Bravo called to her, but she had already thrown the gun aside.

"There's a good girl." Jordan tossed the key at her. "Pick it up." When she did, he pointed to the altar where Bravo had begun to dig. "There. Go on. You know what to do."

Jenny began to cross to the altar.

"Not so close," Jordan ordered. "I'm not about to give you that chance."

Obediently, she altered her course. As her position changed, Jordan swiveled, keeping Bravo's body between himself and Jenny. She knelt and began to dig with her hands. Within ten minutes she had come to a hard surface. She brushed away the dirt, revealing the top of a box.

"Go on," Jordan said as he pushed closer, Bravo in front of him. "Faster."

The box, as Jenny uncovered it, was perhaps forty-five centimeters in length by about half that in width and depth.

"Now lift it out."

"But I-"

"Do it!" Jordan shouted.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Jenny reached into the hole she had dug and with a grunt lifted it out. The effort cost her a great deal both in energy and in blood. She knew she was nearing the end of her rope, that she would have to get to a doctor sooner rather than later or the wound might turn fatal. At the very least, she was in danger of passing out from loss of blood.

"Now use the key," Jordan said, his voice as avid as his eyes. "Open the cache!"

Jenny did as she was told, sliding the key into the old-fashioned lock. She turned it to the left, heard the tumblers click. All at once, a wave of black despair inundated her. This can't be happening, she thought. I was supposed to help protect the cache, not help the Knights steal it.

With numb hands, she opened the lid. She peered inside, aware of Jordan bending over to get his first look at what he'd lusted after almost all his life.

But there was nothing inside, nothing at all.

Jenny began to laugh, Jordan cried out in rage and dismay, and that was when Bravo twisted his torso, viciously slammed his elbow into Jordan's kidney. While Jordan was still off-balance, Bravo threw him forcibly into the rock wall. Jordan slashed out blindly with the dagger and Bravo chopped down with the edge of his hand. Jordan's hand went numb and he dropped the weapon.

He struck out with his other hand, then rushed at Bravo. They hit the wall again, then, as they grappled, fell backward into an opening. Bravo punched Jordan, but it was without his full force. He kept trying to understand his new reality: Jordan was his brother. Jordan, however, was holding nothing back. He pounded Bravo, as Bravo retreated back along the passage toward a shaft of sunlight.

Jordan was on top of him, connecting repeatedly with punishing blows to his head and torso.

Bravo pushed back and they crouched, staring at each other, panting, abruptly motionless. "Why are you doing this?" Bravo gasped. "Because my father rejected you, is this what it's all about? You should have come to me."

Jordan bared his teeth, an animal scenting the kill. "And then what? You would have hated me, just like your father did. You would have taken his side."

"His side?"

"I was his little mistake, an indelible stain on his stellar reputation. I was the reminder of what he had done, of his betrayal. Why else do you think he wanted nothing to do with me?"

"I don't know," Bravo said truthfully. "But if you'd come to me, if you'd told me the truth, we could have worked it out. We were friends; we're brothers, after all."

"I'm not your friend, I'm not your brother," Jordan said. "I'm your enemy."

"It doesn't have to be that way."

"But it does. There's no other path for us than to be at each other's throats."

"Why? You said it yourself: the Knights have been reborn. The old enmity between them and the Order can be a thing of the past. Think of what we could do if we joined forces, the good we could achieve."

"Oh, yes, of course-why wouldn't I love to be your right-hand man?"

"Christ, Jordan, that isn't what I meant at all."

"Oh, but it is. You're just like your father: arrogant, judgmental, you think you're smarter, better than anyone else. No, thank you, I have my power base, I've spent years sacrificing, compromising, kowtowing to my gorgon of a mother, all in the service of consolidating it. Fuck you, I'm not going to share it with you or anyone else."

Bravo tried not to think about how he'd been just that way with Jenny-felt he knew more, condemned her, and had been proven wrong. Had he done the same with Jordan? "Listen," he said with mounting desperation, "you're making a mistake-"

Jordan smirked. "It's so like you to think that, isn't it? You see how right I am about you?"

Bravo tried to ignore what Jordan was saying, ignored the accusations that had sunk their barbed tips deep into his psyche. It would be easy to dismiss Jordan as a deluded monomaniac, but the truth was he knew Bravo too well, knew his failings just as Bravo now knew Jordan's. Still, some font of goodness inside him impelled him on what he now knew was a fruitless course. "Despite what you think, we still have a chance, if you only-"

"Listen to you? I'd rather slit my wrists."

"I'm offering you a family, Jordan. Why can't you see that?"

"Why can't you see that you're trying to lord it over me again? Not again, Bravo, never again, this I promise you. You're the one with a past, a history, a family. Offering me a family? No, you'll come to pity me, if you don't already. In fact, the process has already begun. It's pity that has motivated you to make your offer. 'Poor Jordan,' you think. 'I can help him.' But you can't help me, Bravo, you'll only want to take over, to make decisions for me, to tell me what's right and wrong. You always felt you knew the difference between good and evil, but it turned out that you knew nothing.

"You have what I want, what I never will have. Can you give me that? Would you, if you had the chance? You fucking-"

He leapt at Bravo, struck out blindly, with a rage-filled heart, with the full intent to maim, to destroy what he hated most. Bravo defended himself as best he could, but all too rapidly he was being plowed under by the ferocity of Jordan's rage. He kept retreating down the passage, further and further toward the shaft of sunlight, until at length, Jordan knocked him partway into the chimney and, with one leg hanging in space, he saw that it not only went up, but down as well.

Blocking Jordan's next blow, he tried to twist himself back from the brink, but Jordan blocked him with his body, forcing him back against the rim on the rock floor. He could feel the shaft of air at his back. His foot slipped over the edge. How far down did the chimney plummet?

Taking advantage of Bravo's momentary loss of concentration, Jordan got inside his perimeter of defense, landing a blow to his ribs. Bravo went down onto his knees. Jordan struck out with his foot, but Bravo caught it before it could land, took Jordan off his feet. Bravo fought his way on top of Jordan, swinging his balled right fist into Jordan's face. In so doing, they both moved further over the edge.

Bravo struck again, but this time Jordan was ready, blocking the blow as Bravo had blocked his kick. Twisting Bravo's arm, he reversed their positions. Now it was Jordan who was on top. Very quickly, Bravo realized his intention. Jordan was pushing and shoving, trying to tip Bravo over the edge, to push him into the rock chimney, to be rid of him forever.

Bravo's head and shoulders were already into the chimney. In a moment, he'd be too far over the edge to be able to save himself. It was now or never. He knew he had to put aside his feelings of wanting to save Jordan from himself, of forging by his will alone a new expanded family that would, somehow, expunge the bitter taste of his father's betrayal. As Jordan had said, it was pure arrogance. He couldn't do it: he would fail, and if he persisted, he would certainly die trying.