Clipped and Broken [Complete]

[Melkire]

"So the rumors are true."

 

The old man stumbled backwards, his shoulders slamming into the wall behind him and the resulting impact spilling an ornate Doman carpet to the floor. Then, as suddenly as they'd separated, they closed again, the vicious beast bearing down on him with all the savage grace of a master and him with nothing but the brutal practicality of a legionnaire to his credit as he rebounded.

 

He did not get his blade up in time for a proper parry.

 

Steel slid against brass, and the rapier's point found his right shoulder, driving him back and piercing through his decrepit flesh only to sink into the rosewood behind him. Pinned as he now was, he could only manage a simple counter in riposte, an abysmally feeble effort with his off-hand to thrust his burning brand into his adversary's heart... but that, too, slid away, as had every strike since the first, this one driven up and out just enough for the fiend to drop his dagger and seize the old man's wrist and slam it against the wall, knocking the bastard sword from his hand and extinguishing its flames. Infurating, that not once had he slipped this brute's guard for even the slightest touch, let alone a mortal blow. He'd had the one chance, while the beast slept, and he'd squandered it.

 

Silence reigned for a few precious moments, broken only by the scuffling of their struggle and the slow rhythmic dripping of blood from the stump of an arm where his right hand had been freshly severed. So viscuous and putrid was his blood that it gleamed as black as oil in the soft glow of candlelight.

 

"Fascinating, Adonis," breathed the giant from beneath its platinum-blond locks. 

 

Adin Adonis, former Major Triarius, once a faithful son of Garlemald and loyal hand of the Empire, spat in the face of tyranny not his own. The beast merely laughed, its eyes never once leaving the old man's, pale yellow looking into red and black.

 

Two moons ago, the Crow known as Rotunda had departed Aldenard for Ilsabard, intent on reclaiming the prestige and authority of his former life and setting that power to purpose as a platform, a platform with which to make his own bid in the succession war. His grief upon learning of the destruction of his House was paralleled only by his dismay when his worst fears were confirmed for him by his own men. As he'd thought, so it was: no Garlean would follow an abomination. As a man, he'd been fit to lead, to inspire, to rule. As the undead, he was feared, reviled, and renounced. Rank and title were beyond his reach, as forever lost to him as his own humanity.

 

He paid his soldiers their just deserts, of course. Insults, he could live with. Deserters, he could not.

 

Would that he could have waited for the witch. He had gone a fortnight with no word, though, and by then he'd decided to proceed without her assistance. He could not have afforded to wait: 'Opportunity waits for no Man, and Fortune favors the Bold'. So went the adage. Alas, the prejudices of his culture proved too great a hurdle in the end. He could not win over peasants, much less men and women of standing, and soon enough, despite his efforts, rumors began to spread. Adin Adonis left for Eorzea. Adin Adonis came back changed. That heathen land is cursed, and so now is he. Red-Eye. The Deadman. The Laughing Smoke.

 

They knew. The ones that mattered, they all knew. Legatus was beyond him now, as was the throne. His vision was slipping away from him.

 

The struggle ended as abruptly as it had begun, as another dagger flashed forth and sank through the old man's wrist to pin his left arm to the wall, securing him there. Rotunda strained against the steel, but the brute knew his business and had forced the blades deep enough into the rosewood that even the lack of pain afforded to Crows wasn't enough for the old man to break free. He tried. He failed. Repeatedly. The giant took its time as it strode over to a large, ornate armoire and drew forth a greatsword.

 

"To think that you would deign to assault me, to attempt an assassination - personally, I might add - on the eve of my coronation. My, my, Adin. How desperate. How low. How... common."

 

Rotunda froze. Deep down inside him, somewhere dark and primal and not of the material, something snapped.

 

HE DARES fool PRETENDER

discipline IF HE ONLY KNEW incompetent

FAITHLESS pagan GODLESS heathen MINE mine OUT

bloom SUFFER of PROMISE ages WITNESS stop--

 

When he came back to himself, he was panting, sweating, shivering, and the beast was shaking its head as if with pity and remorse. He could still hear the ringing of his own voice as the words echoed throughout the chamber.

 

"HAIL THE TRUE GOD! HAIL THE TRUE GOD! NALD'THAL COMES FOR US ALL IN THE END! NALD'THAL COMES FOR US ALL IN THE END!"

 

For the first time since he'd been wrenched from the Void in chains, Adin Adonis felt cold. Even as the brute made its way back to him and set the point of the giant blade against his sternum, he felt cold. Strange, to think that not even his rotting corpse of a body had done this for him. His eyes fell, and though the beast's next few words drifted to him, they may as well have fallen on deaf ears. 

 

"Out of respect for your many years of loyal service, and for the kindness you always showed me, old friend, I will make this swift."

 

There came the sudden sickening squelch of metal in flesh and the hard crunch of metal in wood as the giant thrust the greatsword through his heart, all the way up to the hilt. Black ooze dripped from the gash, dripped along the steel, dripped to the floor. He coughed, hacked, spat up sludge, rested his head back against the rosewood, and laughed. Laughed, because it was futile.

 

I can't win.

You've failed.

Not like this.

Release me.

Not here.

Home.

Yes.

 

His gaze shifted as he peered down his nose and up at his rival, turning his red eye on the bastard, the sick grin on his face twisting midbirth into a leering rictus.

 

"To the finish," he wheezed.

 

And then he fell apart, fell into ash, flesh dissolving, clothes dissolving. Even his brass blade seemed to melt away. As if borne on a wind, each and every mote of ash swirled up into the air, gathering, the grey turning black as the cloud grew denser, swirled about the chamber, rose. Laughter echoed faintly as it did so. Then it fled, as if to emulate the last flight of Midgarsormr, twisting and turning upon itself as it flew right out through the vents.

 

"Fascinating," muttered Varis Zos Galvus once more.

[Melkire]

~Three Fortnights Later~

 

She was dressed simply in hemp and leather; she had left the garments bequeathed to her by the guild back at her room in Quarrymill, along with her tools. The woman hefted the rucksack by the strap, slipping it off her shoulder as she walked further into the clearing. She approached the water’s edge and stared out over the glistening surface, eyes lingering for a moment on the aetheryte before turning up to the night sky over Urth’s Font. “I am here.”

 

The stars went out.

 

From east to west, light vanished as those heavenly beacons went dark one by one, as if a curtain had been drawn over the land. Black as soot, the curtain swirled to a focal point far above, directly over the aetheryte, then spiraled down in a column of smoke, curling about the crystal as it came. Laughter emanated from that column, a low sinister chuckling, and as the last of the large cloud descended, light returned to the sky, the stars no longer smothered by foulness.

 

As far as the woman knew, no soul yet living save hers had ever born witness to this process.

 

The cloud settled about the aetheryte, then flowed toward her, gathering in a dense pool on the bank opposite her. Now most of that foulness roiled upward, ascending as slowly as it had descended swiftly, diminishing in substance as it went, and in its wake it left ash, a pile of ash that resembled feet… legs… a torso… arms... the ash figure that emerged from the smoke resembled a man sitting on his haunches, his arms resting on his knees, his head bowed. As this figure neared completion, a second, thinner column followed, and in its wake was left color, the red flush of flesh, pale tan of skin, and gray lines of hair.

 

The woman stared, and thought about how easy it would have been to toss a lit torch into that mass of dust.

 

What little was left of the black cloud now surged upward in what was the thinnest column yet, and behind it was left sabatons, a belt and buckle, a scabbard, a bastard sword, chainmail, and gauntlets. She wondered at this. Her observations from her previous meetings with this abomination had led her to a working theory with but a singular conclusion: that prolonged exposure to and possession by the monstrosity had bound these articles aetherically to their master. More black magic, no doubt.

 

A man crouched now under Odin’s crystal, and with a heavy sigh he pushed a hand back through his gray hair and lifted his face to look upon the woman, the baleful red gaze of his right eye boring into her. “Where have you been? You were instructed not to leave this clearing.”

 

“I’ve been here a fortnight. A fortnight, wasted here. I grew restless. So I wandered. Decided to risk it. Reached out. Risk proved worth taking. Message came to Quarrymill. Word from Thanalan.” She slung him the rucksack. “Someone was asking questions. Asking after the troublemakers.”

 

He caught the bag. “Do go on.”

 

“A messenger. Bearing a letter. Letter and… something else.”

 

He lowered the rucksack to the dirt and rummaged through it. “Did you read this letter?”

 

She glared at him. He raised an eyebrow up at her. “Sincerest apologies, mistress. Often times I forget that this is a land of savages without the good grace of an imperial education. The messenger?”

 

“I went south. Hirelings often miss.” She smirked. “I do not miss.”

 

His answering smile faded as his rummaging ceased. From the bag he drew metal. An intricate construction which appeared magitek in origin. Gold, black, silver. The woman regarded this with distaste. He merely stared at the prosthetic arm he was holding. Then the moment passed. He set it aside and reached for the letter, ripping the seal open and unfurling the parchment as he stood. She couldn’t help it; her own eyebrows climbed higher and higher as his countenance turned stern and his body language betrayed his agitation. With a guttural cry, he cast the letter into the air, dropped one hand to his scabbard, and with the other drew his sword and cut the parchment in twain. The two pieces fluttered to the dirt, burning as they fell with unnatural flames.

 

“And so one son ends another,” he sneered as he sheathed his brass blade. “My suspicions are confirmed. Paranoid though it seemed, I chose wisely in recalling you.”

 

“Explain. I did not appreciate that. We are behind schedule now.”

 

“Rest assured, you will be handsomely compensated for your troubles.” He spat into the water. “Those of my ilk are connected. We feel each other across the distances the way you might feel your arm, or your leg, or your hand or your foot. When you are wounded, when aught pierces your skin or your flesh, you feel it. You know.”

 

He dropped to his knees and stuffed the prosthetic back into the rucksack, which he flung over his left shoulder as he rose to his feet again. “Some time ago, I felt incredible pain that was not mine. Agony, as if I was being torn in half. Then, not so long ago, a sharper, harsher pain… and silence, as if I had lost the use of a limb. Silence followed by anguish from a completely different direction. So I brought you here, took you away from your work, and went after the others. Those who are mine answered the call through our connection, but the others… the others numbered a mere two individuals. After nearly a fortnight, I found him. I finally found him.”

 

He drew in a deep breath, though he didn’t need it. “Oubliette Crow lives, if you can call it living, and that means that Atrium is no more. And this,” he exclaimed as he brought one foot down on the smoldering remains of the letter and ground it into the dirt, “this confirms it. The Void cannot hold Epinoch.”

 

The woman tensed. “The albino you spoke of?”

 

“The same. Now you understand?”

 

Her face contorted, and there came the loud clack of a tongue pressed sharply against the roof of a mouth until it slid down past the teeth. “Yes. This is why.”

 

“You will have to exercise caution. Resume your work. Be about your task. Do not return here until it is done. I am not ready for him. Not yet. Let him fixate on those others for now.” His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her fidgeting. “You have questions?”

 

“About the albino, no. About the giant, yes. You sent him to me. Why?”

 

“I trust Renatus more than I trust you. So. If you need to reach me, send him here, and I will come find you when I can. Is that satisfactory, Miss Raske?”

 

Thekla smiled. “Naturally.”

[Melkire]

Self-immolation was not pleasant.

 

The whole of him burned, though there was no pain. Had he been counted among the living, he surely would have filled the catacombs with unholy screams as the flames licked at his skin and the fire burned through his flesh. His death, it seemed, had at least spared him that agony... but there was yet something dark and deep that tugged at the very core of him, as though draining him of a sun's rest to leave him a mewling, pitiable husk of a man who thirsts even as he starves. The sensation was not pleasant. Self-immolation was not pleasant.

 

There was no fear on his part. He knew what to expect; after all, he'd devoted ample time to researching, testing, and refining this process. For what other reason would he have cast about in the void for a former comrade, only to chain her once found and drag her back, in spite of her shrieking protests, to the harsh reality that was unlife? He had bound Igluvijaq once more to a small corpse, as the Voice had once done, and from that experiment came the fruit of his efforts, proof that what he dared hope to bring to pass might, in fact, be possible. The irony, that once he had sought immortality and now he allowed himself to be consumed, was not lost on him.

 

Still, even as the last of the black ooze ignited, wrenching at him yet again, he could not help but meet the eyes of the two women who had made this possible. Highlanders both, one taller than the other. Green eyes and raven hair shared between them... and yet the first held a knife to the throat of the second. The shorter of the two was in tears, her lips moving as she recited an incantation that he could not hear save in his own thought, a leather-bound grimoire held open in her arms.

 

That was the last impression he had before the weight of the world left him once more and he felt the peaceful bliss of oblivion calling to him. That call, he would have answered... but immediately, he felt the world pulling him back, as if someone had wrapped arms and legs in chains and sought to lift him from the ocean in which he'd been submerged. There was another weight that settled onto his shoulders... but this was one tingled and surged and shivered and blazed.

 

"Adin," came a soft voice, and he couldn't help but wonder how he'd come to this. So far from the man he once was, he'd lost himself to the witchcraft and savagery he had once denounced.

 

"Adin..."

 

 

 

 

 

"Tengri."

 

The Auri male groaned as he reached up and pressed a hand the color of mocha against his temples. Eyes fluttered open, one green, one shockingly white. The Hourglass. He was back at the Hourglass, in their old room. The one that had been reserved for them while they'd sojourned to Vylbrand and back. His gaze shifted from the ceiling over to one side. Standing attentively beside the bed was a small Auri female of the same color and complexion, her eyes a match for his, her hair just as dark as his with the same tinge of green licking at the ends. She was fully dressed, and sunlight was intruding on his skin. Had he slept in late? That was unlike him.

 

"Forgehands is waiting for you, as requested," reported the woman. In her arms she held a bundle of clothes clearly meant for him, given the size. Behind her, his platemail awaited on its armor stand. "Our marks have yet to move, though the latest from the north suggests that they might make for the city soon."

 

He grunted as he pushed himself upright and swung his legs out over the side of the bed. "I will need you to keep an eye on our charge for me while I am gone, Sarangerel; I fear she may plead her case to Renatus in my absence."

 

His sister frowned at him as he stood and took the proffered garments from her. "Is this necessary? They are no match for the runt as they are. They weren't a match for us back when--"

 

"Immaterial," he snapped, only to meet her glare as she sat down on the bed in his place. He took a few short, deep breaths to calm his nerves as he pulled on his slops and shirt. "We should not dismiss a history of victories as flukes. If I can use them, I will."

 

Her small tail swished to and fro for a few moments. "And you are sure you do not wish me to accompany you?"

 

"I will not be away for long," he answered as he turned to the stand. "You have made your preferences clear. If this is where you find yourself best serving our cause, then it would be foolish of me to take you away again."

 

"Perhaps I shall attend the Grindstone in your place, then."

 

He frowned thoughtfully. "If you do so, I would have you speak with a few men in particular."

 

"Oh? Their names, brother dear?"

 

He smirked as he reached out and touched his armor before beginning the tedious process of preparing himself to bear its weight. "Turner. The champion of the tourney, as I recall, who bested your man. Him and one other."

 

"The Judge? The Arbiter?"

 

He shook his head. "You've seen him, same as I. He never did do away with that filthy disgusting habit of his."

 

He turned to her in time to catch a telling gleam in her eye and a grin full of teeth on her face. Tengri couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that.

 

"They call him Ki now, or so I hear," she informed him. "And his standards have not improved."

 

He chuckled and shook his head as he turned back to his preparations. Ortolf Forgehands had never been a patient man.

 

"I think you had better arrange a meeting, sister dear. For old times' sake."