F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

For Magda! Glaeken thought and lifted the point. At that moment the sun topped the eastern ridge and poured into his eyes. Through the glare he saw Rasalom diving toward him.

Glaeken realized in that instant why Rasalom had been so talkative, why he had tried so many seemingly fruitless delaying tactics, and why Rasalom had allowed him to approach within striking range of the sword: He had been waiting for the sun to crest the mountains behind him and momentarily blind Glaeken. And now Rasalom was making his move, a last, desperate attempt to remove Glaeken and the hilt from the keep by pushing them both over the edge of the tower.

He came in low under the point of Glaeken's sword, his arms outstretched. There was no room for Glaeken to maneuver—he could not sidestep, nor could he safely retreat. All he could do was brace himself and lift the sword higher, dangerously high until his arms were almost straight up over his head. Glaeken knew it raised his center of gravity to a precarious level, but he was no less desperate than Rasalom. It had to end here and now.

When the impact came—Rasalom's hands ramming against his lower rib cage with numbing force—Glaeken felt himself driven backwards. He concentrated on the sword, driving the point down into Rasalom's exposed back, piercing him through. With a scream of rage and agony, Rasalom tried to straighten up, but Glaeken held on to the sword as he continued to fall backwards.

Together they toppled over the edge and plummeted down.

Glaeken found himself unnaturally calm as they seemed to drift through the air toward the gorge below, locked in combat to the very end. He had won.

And he had lost.

Rasalom's scream wavered to a halt. His black, incredulous eyes bulged toward Glaeken, refusing to believe even now that he was dying. And then he began to shrivel—the rune sword was devouring him body and essence as they fell. Rasalom's skin began to dry, peel, crack, flake off, and fly away. Before Glaeken's eyes, his ancient enemy crumbled into dust.

As he approached the level of the fog, Glaeken looked away. He caught a glimpse of Magda's horrified expression as she watched from the causeway. He began to lift his hand in farewell but the fog engulfed him too soon.

All that remained now was the shattering impact with the stones invisible below.

Magda stared at the two figures atop the tower parapet. They were close, almost touching. She saw the red of Glaeken's hair turn to fire as it caught the light of the rising sun, saw a flash of metal, and then the two figures grappled. They twisted and teetered on the edge. Then they fell as one.

Her own scream rose to join the fading wail from one of the struggling pair as their intertwined forms fell into the ebbing mist and were lost from sight.

For a long frozen moment time stood still for Magda. She did not move, did not breathe. Glaeken and Rasalom had fallen together, and had been swallowed up by the fog in the gorge. Glaeken had fallen! She had watched helplessly as he plunged to certain death.

Dazed, she stepped to the edge of the causeway and looked down at the spot where this man who had come to mean everything to her had disappeared. Her mind and body were completely numb. Darkness encroached on the periphery of her vision, threatening to overwhelm her. With a start she shook off the awful lethargy, the creeping desire to lean farther and farther over the edge until she, too, toppled forward and joined Glaeken below. She turned and began to run along the causeway.

It can't be! she thought as her feet pounded the timbers. Not both of them! First Papa and now Glaeken—not the two of them at once!

Off the causeway, she ran to the right toward the closed end of the gorge. Glaeken had survived one fall into the gorge—he could survive two! Please, yes! But this fall was so much farther! She scrambled down the wedge of rocky debris, unmindful of the scrapes and bruises she collected along the way. The sun, although not high enough yet to shine directly into the gorge, was warming the air in the pass and thinning the mist. She made her way swiftly across the floor of the gorge, stumbling, falling, picking herself up and pushing on, as close to a run as the broken, rutted terrain permitted. Passing under the causeway, she blotted out the thought of Papa's body lying up there alone, unattended. She splashed across the stream to the base of the tower.

Panting, Magda stopped and turned in a slow circle, her frantic eyes searching among the boulders and rocks for some sign of life. She saw no one... nothing.

"Glaeken?" Her voice sounded weak and raspy. She called again, "Glaeken?"

No answer.

He has to be here!

Something glittered not far away. Magda ran over to look. It was the sword ... what was left of it. The blade had shattered into countless fragments; and among the fragments lay the hilt, bereft of its glossy gold and silver hues. An immeasurable sense of loss settled over Magda as she lifted the hilt and ran her hands over its dull-gray surface. A reverse alchemy had occurred; it had turned to lead. Magda fought against the conclusion, but deep within her she knew that the hilt had served the purpose for which it had been designed.

Rasalom was dead, therefore the sword was no longer necessary. Neither was the man who had wielded it.

There would be no miracle this time.

Magda cried out in anguish, a formless sound that escaped her lips involuntarily and continued for as long and as loud as her lungs and voice could sustain it. A sound full of loss and despair, reverberating off the walls of the keep and the gorge, echoing away into the pass.

And when the last trace of it had died away, she stood with bowed head and slumped shoulders, wanting to cry but all cried out; wanting to strike out at whoever or whatever was to blame for this, but knowing everyone—everyone but her—was dead; wanting to scream and rage at the blind injustice of it all but too dead inside to do anything more than give way to deep, dry, wracking sobs from the very core of her being.

Magda stood there for what seemed like a long time and tried to find a reason to go on living. There was nothing left. Every single thing she had cherished in life had been torn from her. She could not think of one reason to go on...

And yet there had to be. Glaeken had lived so long and had never run out of reasons to go on living. He had admired her courage. Would it be an act of courage now to give up everything?

No. Glaeken would have wanted her to live. Everything he was, everything he did, had been for life. Even his death had been for life.

She hugged the hilt against her until the sobs stopped, then turned and began walking away, not knowing where she would go or what she would do, but knowing she would somehow find a way and a reason to keep going.

And she would keep the hilt. It was all she had left.

EPILOGUE

I'm alive.

He sat in the darkness, touching his body to reassure himself that he still existed. Rasalom was gone, reduced to a handful of dust flung into the air. At last, after ages, Rasalom was no more.

Yet I live on. Why?

He had plummeted through the fog, landing on the rocks with force enough to shatter every bone in his body. The blade had broken, the hilt had changed.

Yet he lived on.

At the moment of impact he had felt something go out of him and he had lain there waiting to die.

Yet he hadn't.

His right leg hurt terribly. But he could see, he could feel, breathe, move. And he could hear. When he had picked up the sound of Magda approaching across the floor of the gorge, he had dragged himself to the hinged stone at the base of the tower, opened it, and crawled within. He had waited in silence as she called out his name, covering his ears to shut out the pain and bewilderment in her voice, longing to answer her, yet unable to. Not yet. Not until he was sure.