Eric De Bie - Shadowbane

The two enforcers stood, watching the sun set from the roof of an abandoned building flanking the market square. The place where tomorrow, a king would be chosen.

“You know this kingmaking of yours will end in blood,” Sithe said.

“It is the way of Luskan.” Kalen nodded.

The genasi gave him an approving look. “You are ready, then?”

Without waiting for an answer, she came at him, leaping through the air with impossible speed. Her axe scythed across as though to take his head from his shoulders. He bent at the knees, no faster or farther than he knew he needed to. He trusted himself. The axe passed within a hair of his scalp. He rose in its wake so smoothly it seemed to have passed right through him.

They faced each other across five paces-Sithe with her axe, Kalen with his daggers drawn and ready. He pulled back his increasingly tattered cloak, showing only a plain black tunic and leggings.

“No armor?” Sithe asked.

“I am armored by my faith,” Kalen said. “Just as you are.”

“Faith in what?”

“That I am no murderer for my god,” Kalen said.

“We shall see.”

Sithe attacked again, her axe tracing an arc of fire through the air. He dived around her, his blades slashing along her side. She swayed just wide of his steel, but the attack had come close-close enough to have drawn forth her warding darkness. The dying flames of Sithe’s axe illumined their faces.

“Are you going to tell me?” Kalen asked. “What Myrin meant-‘all for nothing’?”

“Why should I know?” Sithe asked. “I have spoken thirteen words to the girl.”

“Because you know something of nothing , Lady Void.”

That struck her. Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened. He could not help thinking he had made a terrible mistake.

She raised her hand and an invisible force wrenched him straight into her scything axe. He dodged low at the last instant and rolled between her legs. He rose and faced her once more.

“You’ve set aside your armor, but all your defenses are still in place,” she said. “You refuse to accept the truth. You fear to be your god’s instrument-the hand of vengeance.” She raised her axe. “You prefer fear to faith.”

“I told you,” he said. “I fear nothing. ”

“And what of Myrin?”

Kalen hesitated.

Sithe pointed at him and bonds of darkness formed around his legs and arms. Before he could react, she came rushing toward him, her axe raised.

Kalen tried to dodge, but Sithe’s power hobbled him and he stumbled. He crossed his daggers in front of his chest to block, but Sithe’s axe shattered right through his defense and sank with a wet thunk into his chest.

He felt the blow only a little-mostly, Kalen felt the impact as it hammered him into the rooftop like a heated blade caught between a smith’s hammer and an anvil. He saw more than felt blood welling around the ripping blade of Sithe’s ugly weapon. For some reason, he couldn’t move his arms or legs. He couldn’t-

Sithe wrenched the blade forth in a great gout of blood and flesh.

He felt that , assuredly-felt the jagged blade rip into his insides and light a fire that brought darkness lunging at him from all sides. His body reacted of its own accord, limbs twitching toward the wound. The world wavered and he gasped for breath.

Sithe threw a leg over him, straddling his chest and pressing his wound closed with her body. She put her face to his, almost as though they might kiss-but no desire or even mercy shone in her eyes. She caught his cheeks between her hands.

“Do not fight this,” she said. “Rather, embrace it.”

He could feel sucking darkness. The pain from that initial wrench subsided, replaced by a numb confusion as his body struggled against the inevitable.

“I–I cannot feel it,” Kalen said. “My spellscar. I cannot feel-”

She punched him in the face, silencing his protests. “This is death,” she said. “Spellscar or no, this is the death you have carried since birth-since ever your father looked upon your mother with lust and she upon him with the same.” She wrenched his head up and their noses touched. “You are not responsible for this.”

“But my spellscar-”

“If you had never acquired a spellscar, still you would feel nothing,” Sithe said. “You feel nothing because you fear to. You fear the truth of your doom-a doom you have always known and always chased-and you fear to live in spite of it.”

“No, that-that isn’t-” Kalen’s words felt sluggish now, his body fading. “I–I cursed myself. I brought this doom upon me. I have chosen this.”

“You are a bigger fool than I could have imagined,” Sithe said.

She stood, releasing the pressure on his wound.

Involuntarily, Kalen’s throat cried out like a terrified child. His body seized in a rictus of agony, then collapsed.

He thought about Myrin.

Darkness.

Sithe crouched beside the dying man, her chin on her hands. Blood flowed freely from the rent in his chest and his body was twitching its way into oblivion.

She could let it end, she realized. Killing was her purpose-death her only lover and master. What right had this man to life, when he sought at every turn to deny it?

She might have left him to die, but she saw something more. She saw what he was … and what he could be.

She drew a vial of white liquid from her belt and forced its contents down Kalen’s throat.

Then she waited.

Life came back in a rush and he sat up with a wrenching cry. The wound in his chest had closed, and he could feel the tingling effects of a healing potion.

“Peace.” Sithe put her arms around him and pressed his head to her breast.

Tears welled in his eyes and he wept. He could not say why. In truth, he had not known he was doing it until he saw the tears darkening her bodice.

“Peace,” she said.

For many moment, they sat that way-Sithe holding Kalen as he wept. He kept starting to speak, but no words seemed to fit. When the silence broke, it was Sithe who spoke.

“You fear death less than you fear the truth,” she said. “And that is laudable.”

“What truth?” he asked.

“Terrible things befall all men,” she said, “and you are not special.”

“I don’t understand.”

“All your life, you strive to make amends,” Sithe said. “This death inside you-you believe it your punishment for a life of sin.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked. “Why else would I have this curse?”

“Death needs no reason.” Sithe met his eyes. “You were born with this darkness and you will die with it. There is no meaning or greater explanation. It simply is.”

She eased away from him, leaving him kneeling alone on the rooftop. She turned toward the sunset.

Kalen knew she was wrong. As a boy, he had wandered into a storm of spellplague-that was the source of his curse-and yet … He looked at his fingers, scarred from when he had gnawed them as a child. His lips as well were hardened. The spellplague hadn’t stolen feeling away. It had made it worse, undeniably, but the numbness was his own.

And if it was …

“Myrin lied to you,” Sithe said at last.

“When?”

“In her letter,” Sithe said. “She claimed she drew death out of you and that you would live just that much longer. A lie.”

Kalen shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“She did not draw out your death, because she cannot-no one can,” Sithe said. “Your death is your own and so is your life. If you yet live, it is because you choose to and for no other reason.” She turned to him. “Now get up.”

“I cannot,” Kalen said, his teeth gritted.

“Get up.” Sithe kicked him savagely in the ribs, and Kalen curled into the pain.