Tom Lloyd - The ragged man

Doranei scowled. 'Too damn much, aye.' He released his grip as Morghien arrived and embraced him.

'Brother,' Morghien, 'how fares the king?'

'As well as can be expected, but the strain's taking a toll on us all and… well.' He rolled up his sleeve and showed his arm to Morghien. 'Beyn was in Aroth. He used the wyvern claws to send me an' Coran this message two days ago.'

Mihn turned his head to read the three words in the Narkang dialect, now scabbed over: We are lost. 'So Aroth has fallen.'

The King's Man nodded and looked away. 'No more word after this. Beyn didn't respond to my reply. That's another Brother dead.'

A moment of silence descended before Hulf whimpered and pressed against Mihn's legs. When he looked, he saw Legana had advanced a few steps. Her face was unreadable, not unexpected, he thought, of one so profoundly touched by the Gods. Mihn realised she was looking past him, but he couldn't see anything himself.

Grimacing in the light, even with the sun covered by cloud, Legana walked clumsily for a few moments, leaning heavily on her staff, until she got into her stride. Her face set, she ignored the three men.

'So it's true then?' Doranei asked, his voice a half-whisper.

'The message?' Mihn replied, still watching the Mortal-Aspect, 'it is true.'

'How?' He sounded incredulous.

Morghien snorted. 'Which part? The resurrection, or the fact he reckons he'll get lucky second time around.'

Mihn shot the cantankerous old man a warning look. 'No more of those comments; they try my patience.'

'Hah! Well, meself? I'm fresh out o' blind faith,' Morghien growled. 'Alive he may be; sane? That I ain't so sure about. You want to trust the future of us all to a man driven at least half-mad by his own foolish schemes?'

'Isak was bound by prophecy and destiny,' Mihn said, turning to face Morghien. He was not quite squaring up to the man, but he'd moved close enough to make his point. 'Kastan Styrax was born to kill the Last King, and that fate also bound Isak. But you know perfectly well no obligation nor tie can follow a man beyond the grave. And that means that now there is no link between the two, no predetermination of the outcome of a second meeting. The slate is blank.'

Doranei sucked his teeth. 'Gotta say, there's nothing binding me to Lord Styrax's destiny either, and I ain't keen to cross swords with the man any time soon.'

'The message said nothing about fighting the man, only defeating him.'

'But he won't say how, and that's what bugs me,' Morghien continued stubbornly.

'That does not interest me.' Mihn turned away to watch as Legana at last caught sight of Isak. 'He is most certainly damaged, broken, both as a warrior and as a lord, but he has seen what lies behind the veil of this Land.'

'Death's halls? He's not alone in that, I'd bet the witch has too.'

'More than that,' Mihn said, 'the fabric of the Land, the subtle balance of all things – Gods, men, even daemons. He was blessed by the Gods, not to be the greatest of warriors, but in a way both more delicate and more profound. You've seen the results of what he can do unwittingly already.'

'You mean the Reapers? Can't argue there, I suppose,' Morghien said gruffly. 'Severing an Aspect's link to Death wasn't something I thought possible.'

Mihn dipped his head. 'My point exactly. The minstrel's magic opened the door, but it was Isak's hand that performed the impossible in Scree. Intentionally or not, he summoned Death's Herald and tore the Reapers from Lord Death's grasp. Even more telling, perhaps, is the fact it was unintentional – the Land is his to command in a way no mage of Narkang could claim. Even before Scree he had defeated Aryn Bwr and chained him in his own mind – a feat only Gods had previously managed, and all this achieved by an untutored youth barely a year after his Choosing.'

'Somethin' I had a hand in,' Morghien pointed out.

'Undoubtedly,' Mihn agreed, 'you gave him the tools – but he acted alone. The Gods made Styrax the great champion, the unbeatable warrior, and then he rejected them – though they have come to realised how disastrous their direct manipulation was, it is too late to undo that. Isak was never intended to be the equal of Styrax; he was not created to be a great general. If anything, they intended him to be a fulcrum, a point on which history could turn, so that Styrax's power alone would not determine the future.'

'Whatever was intended, it got twisted awry,' Doranei interjected. 'Azaer, the Last King, maybe others too – they all tried to get a hand in, and they sent the whole thing spinning off-course.'

'So Isak was left with nothing?'

'Well, no, not exactly nothing,' the King's Man admitted.

'Consider what he has already done, even bound by all these efforts to control and direct him. He is that fulcrum. He has become a catalyst of events, for good or for ill, intended or not.'

Morghien pursed his lips. 'You sayin' that scarred wreck of a man can remake the Land as he sees fit? He can determine the course of history because it's him making the decisions?'

Mihn looked at Isak, then said to them both, 'I am saying Isak has already done many remarkable things. I am saying his mind is a tool as much as his body, and it has been forged in the fires of Ghenna. To unpick and reshape the works of Gods and emperors requires an understanding of the very fabric of the Land such as mortal minds could never grasp. We were never intended for that. What you see as madness might instead be Isak discovering a part of him more akin to the immortal mind.'

The three were silent as they watched Legana catch Isak's attention and eventually down sit beside him.

Then Doranei spoke, his voice a rasp. 'Or it could be he's just fucking mad and we're all screwed.'

Mihn nodded. 'True.'

– Do you remember me?

Isak looked up at Legana's face. There was no recognition in his eyes, but eventually he nodded. 'We are both broken,' he said, returning his attention to the surface of the lake. 'All twisted and broken.'

She looked at his face side-on. The lines of his head were unnatural, reminding her of a copper bowl battered by years of careless use. White-eyes could heal remarkably quickly, and often with barely a trace of the original injury, but Isak's head bore the record of the abuse inflicted upon him.

Scars ran up his cheek from jaw to hair-line. The curve of his earlobe was frayed, like the wing of a dead butterfly. A furrow ran down the ear that looked remarkably like a massive claw had raked it. The furrow petered out where it reached the clear indentations of a massive chain pulled tight around his throat, each link looking like it had been burned into the skin with acid.

The extent of the damage shocked her, and she was reminded of the battle between the Lady and Aracnan. Her last memory of her Goddess had been one of agony, both personal, and that radiating out from the Lady as the power of a Crystal Skull burned through her divine form.

– Not completely broken she wrote. She held the slate in front of Isak's face, but he said nothing.

– Mihn sent a message to King Emin. About Lord Styrax.

Isak shrank back from the name in front of him, drawing his hands protectively up to his chest until Legana pulled the slate away. Eventually he took a deep breath and turned to look at her again, and this time Legana saw a spark in his eyes, the return of something human that was hiding behind the damaged remnants of his mind.

'There are holes in my mind,' Isak said. 'I will never be remade – not even the Gods have such strength.'

– What do you see in those holes?

'Shadows,' Isak said, with a lopsided attempt at a smile that would have terrified children and unnerved the mortal Legana… but it was pity that filled her heart now. 'I see shadows where once there were memories, the parts of me I've lost.'