The Divided Knight - Chapter Twenty-Seven

Thaddeus blinked and the Vault changed around him. The change wasn't because of anything he did, but there was magic behind it – one of the enchantments Solanas had placed on Thaddeus's sword had triggered one of the myriad, overlapping spells that filled the chamber, which then had a very specific effect on Thaddeus, himself. Gone was the sickly green glow that had suffused the Vault before, replaced, instead, by a sterile white light that lit everything in the room uniformly, without any apparent variance in brightness or shade. All of the alcoves along the far wall were now empty and, with a start, Thaddeus realized both Zoe and Aylander had vanished. I'm not alone, though.

“Hello, again, Thaddeus.”

Turning toward the voice, Thaddeus was presented with a man who looked older than he had the last time Thaddeus had seen him, though not quite as old as he had the first. His eyes – Solanas's eyes – still glowed as blue as they always had, however, and, when Thaddeus looked at him, he gave Thaddeus a sad smile. “So,” he said, “you found him. Just as I asked you to.”

“I did,” Thaddeus said. “I haven't quite found myself yet, though.”

“Not surprising. Many of us go our whole lives without finding that. I, myself, didn't discover my true purpose – who I really was – until it was too late to do anything with the knowledge.”

“You were a Battlemage, and the first Magister of the Torvaran Empire. You defeated Atraxos the Black – for a time, anyway – and forged a peace that lasted two thousand years. What other purpose could you possibly have had?”

“I could have been the Nightslayer who slew the Hidden King and sealed the Sundered Halls forever. I should have been.”

For a time, Thaddeus said nothing. He understood the implication of Solanas's words. Solanas expected Thaddeus to be what he hadn't. But that was impossible. Even if the Nightslayers had been more than a legend, their time was long since gone. If they could be brought back – if Thaddeus was to become one of them – the means to make it happen had long been lost. “So, why weren't you?” Thaddeus asked.

“I was afraid,” Solanas said.

“Afraid? You?”

“Yes. Afraid of what I had to do in order to seize my destiny, of the horror I had to unleash. I couldn't do what I had to and, because of my fear, I sealed the doom of the very peace I forged.” His voice grew quiet. “And also condemned the woman I loved to a fate akin to being buried alive when I should have set her free.”

Though he wanted to understand better what Solanas meant, Thaddeus felt a sudden surge of anger. Had Solanas somehow manipulated events after his death? Had he guided things so that they would come to the point they'd come to, now? He he used Thaddeus, hoping that, through him, he could atone for those things he'd failed to do because he was afraid? And so what if he did? a voice in Thaddeus's head, which sounded a lot like Zoe's, asked. Is your anger at him going to undo anything that's happened?

“This is the last time you're going to appear to me, isn't it?” Thaddeus asked.

“Yes,” Solanas said. “You're very near the end, now. The time will soon come where you will be faced with the same decisions I was. I trust you will choose better than I did.” He suddenly smiled. “If Ilya did what I suspect she did, I probably shouldn't be worried. Her storytelling prowess was without equal and, in the end, isn't that all a prophecy is? A story of what is to come?” The blue light in his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Or of what may come?”

Thaddeus had no idea what Solanas meant, but a part of him sensed that Zoe might. Which means she's the key to me making the right choice, and that she can't know anything about what I'm seeing, now. “How did you die, Solanas?” Thaddeus suddenly asked, not knowing what prompted the question.

“I didn't, really. You see, after I stepped down as Magister, I lived for a while among the True in Eltara. They sensed my guilt, and I'm sure many of them suspected the reasons for it, but they did not judge me. I think they felt sorry for me, honestly. They did what they could to heal me, but they could never heal the intense loneliness I felt. And so, one day, I decided I'd had enough. And, when I did, I simply faded away.”

Magic had taken him. That was almost as legendary as the Nightslayers, but, if it had happened to anyone, why shouldn't it have been Solanas the Elder? “How do I become the Nightslayer?”

“You'll find that out soon enough. Trust in your companions. Trust in your family. Farewell, Thaddeus.”

“Wait!”

But Solanas was gone, and the Vault had gone back to looking as it had before the vision began. Beside Thaddeus, Zoe looked at him and arched a puzzled eyebrow. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You looked like you were somewhere else, and Aylander isn't in your sword, right now.”

“I'm fine,” Thaddeus said. He glanced at the far wall of the Vault, where Aylander worked to free the Sprite from the alcove. “How's he doing?”

“I don't know. He just started.” Zoe frowned, and Thaddeus had a vague sense of her touching him with her magic. The frown deepened when the answer her magic gave her was, apparently, not satisfactory.

“Are you all right?” Thaddeus asked.

Before Zoe could answer, the alcove Aylander was working on exploded, and the Vault was flooded with blinding, white light. An otherworldly howl filled the air – it came from the Sprite, Thaddeus realized, and was full of rage and anguish – and, for a moment, it seemed like the whole world was about to end. Then the light faded – it didn't go away completely, but it did fade – and the Sprite stopped howling, the howl replaced by a growling hum that, every few seconds, was broken by a snapping hiss that reminded Thaddeus of static electricity. Squinting, Thaddeus looked at the newly freed Sprite, which was much larger than the one at the Guardian's dwelling had been. Thaddeus also looked to see where Aylander was, but the spectral Eltaran was nowhere to be found.

“A foolish move, freeing me,” the Sprite said, its voice almost booming in comparison to that of the one back at the Guardian's dwelling. “You should have left me where I was, forgotten and alone.”

“You've been imprisoned here for centuries,” Thaddeus said. “No one deserves that.”

“Perhaps, but, now that I am free, who's to say I won't do to you what my brethren did to the others?”

“Do I deserve your vengeance? Do my friends? We freed you. We are not the ones who imprisoned you.”

A crackle of crimson energy coursed its way over the Sprite, and Thaddeus thought he could feel how unstable the fabric of reality was growing around it. “Be that as it may,” the Sprite said, “you still want to use me, which makes you no better than the others. I should send you to join them. Punish you as they were punished.”

“And what would become of you, then?” Zoe asked from Thaddeus's side. “We met a brother of yours not that long ago, and he implied that, even though he hadn't been imprisoned like you, he was still trapped. Would you still be trapped after you finished punishing us?”

The Sprite seemed to hesitate before answering. “No,” it said. “I would be free. The other Sprite you spoke of is bound. He may not have been a prisoner. He may not have had vile experiments performed on him. But he is forever tied to what binds him. I have no such limitation.”

“What if what he was tied to was destroyed?” Thaddeus asked.

“Impossible. Not even those who create constructs can destroy them. Only a Battlemage would have that power.”

Thaddeus let his eyes come alight. “I am a Battlemage, though. And I destroyed the Guardian. I destroyed that which the other Sprite was tied to. And, when I did, he said he still was not free.”

“You're lying,” the Sprite said, a frantic note creeping into its voice. “You're lying!”

“You know he isn't, Grandfather,” Aylander said, his voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. “You can sense his power, and I think you can also sense the potential of what he may become. Punishing him, or any of us, will not make you free. Oh, you'll be free of the Vault. You'll be free to roam above ground, again. But you will still be trapped, tethered to a world you should have left behind long ago.”

“There is nothing but this world,” the Sprite said, snarling. “Nothing!”

“That's what you've allowed yourself to believe. It's the same lie the ones who experimented on you believed. That lie allowed them to commit an atrocity, and, if you perpetuate it further, it will make you no better than they were. Is that what you want, Grandfather? Is it truly?”

“But, if this world is not all there is, what else is there? There is no afterlife.”

“That's where you're wrong,” Zoe said. “There is an afterlife, and we can help you get there. We can set you free.”

“You are a Sorceress!” the Sprite said, astonished. “Do you pray to Adarion, then? It is said the Lord of the Dead was the sole member of the Council to escape.”

“Will you help us?” Thaddeus asked. “Help us, and we'll set you free.”

A tendril of energy lanced out from the Sprite. It struck Thaddeus, but, when it did, he felt nothing. The tendril lingered for a moment, then the Sprite drew it back inside itself. “You carry a Scourger,” the Sprite said. “One that was forged in this very room. Perhaps my helping you will aid you in setting me free. Draw your sword.”

“Do it, Thaddeus,” Aylander said. “The wards were broken when I freed him.”

Thaddeus drew his sword. As soon as it was out, it was torn from his grasp, flying across the room toward the Sprite. Like the tendril of energy before it, the Sprite drew the sword inside itself, and then immediately began to flash, crackle, and spark. Colors strobed – red, blue, gold, white – and the Sprite hummed and growled. And then the sword was back out, hurtling across the room toward Thaddeus. Reflexively, Thaddeus snatched it out of the air. Its hilt was warm to the touch and, as Thaddeus looked at it, he saw the runes etched into the blade had changed. They also glowed blue – the same blue as the glow that came from his eyes.

“What have you done to it?” Thaddeus asked.

“Made it what it needs to be,” the Sprite said. “Your sword is no longer tied to this reality. It will cut through any armor, and can be used against creatures from the Abyss – such as the drake you fled from. It will also amplify your power. However, it is no longer a Scourger.”

“What about Aylander?”

“I want you to use my energy to forge a new body for him.”

Thaddeus shared a wide-eyed look with Zoe. “Can I do that?” he asked the Sprite.

“With the sword, and help from your Sorceress. Truthfully, the power to place his soul in another body has always been within you. By using my energy, though, it will give my final passing some meaning. You see, I still doubt the existence of the afterlife, and so I choose, willingly, to sacrifice what remains of my life so that Aylander – the grandson I never knew – can have a second chance at his.”

“But you've made it so there's no other way!” Zoe said.

“Indeed I have, Sorceress. Now, please, grant my final wish and do what I ask.”

“What do we need to do?” Thaddeus asked.

“First, extend your sword out toward me. Then, reach out with your magic and will it to start drawing my energy into the sword. At that point, Sorceress, grasp the hilt of the sword and begin channeling my energy out of it. Once you start doing that, the both of you will begin to work together, blending your magics to forge a new, physical body to house Aylander's soul.” The Sprite paused, and Thaddeus had a sense of it focusing its attention on Zoe. “Sorceress, though you will be being assisted by the Battlemage, the success of this task will fall mostly on your shoulders. I sense that you have knowledge of spells that, while known, were forbidden from use by my people. Remember those spells, now, and know that, if you fail, it will result in two deaths instead of just one.”

“I won't fail,” Zoe said.

“Then let us begin!”

Thaddeus leveled his sword at the Sprite. “One thing,” he said. “What was your name?”

“I don't think that's relevant,” the Sprite said. “I haven't been that person in a long, long time.”

Thaddeus smiled. “I think both of us know that isn't true. Now, what was your name?”

“Zolanos.”

“Zolanos. Very well, Zolanos. I swear to you that you will not be forgotten.”

“You honor me. Just as a grandson should.”

Grandson? But wasn't Aylander the Sprite's grandson? Thaddeus decided it was something he would wonder about later. He reached out with his magic.

Almost at once, energy began streaming from the Sprite and into the sword. As energy bled off of it, the Sprite began to dim, but Thaddeus hardly noticed – with its energy, the Sprite brought its memories, and as Thaddeus's sword took in the energy, his mind took in the memories. In a span of mere moments, Thaddeus learned all there was to learn about who the Eltaran Zolanos had been. In his life, which had ended its physical span eight hundred years ago, he'd been a scholar, a soldier, and a wanderer. Surprisingly, he'd often been at odds with the ideals of the True, though he'd never done anything to undermine them, and, in the latter part of his life, when he'd at last settled down and had a family, he'd supported his son's desire to join their ranks. Thaddeus was surprised – almost to the point of losing his concentration on what he was doing – when he realized just who Zolanos's son had been, and what it meant about the sons that son had gone on to father. Trust in your family, Solanas had said in Thaddeus's vision, and Thaddeus hadn't even stopped to think about what that might actually turn out to mean.

Thaddeus was brought back to the present by Zoe taking hold of the hilt of the sword. As she did, Thaddeus saw that both of them had begun to glow with the Sprite's energy, and that the Sprite had dimmed to the point of being little more than a pinprick of light. Thaddeus felt his magic begin to blend together with Zoe's, and saw that Zoe's lips had begun to move in a soundless chant. There wasn't a lot that Thaddeus had to do beyond maintaining his focus and concentration – Zolanos had been right about most of what they were trying to do being on Zoe's shoulders – but he understood that, if he let it slip, even by just the smallest amount, all would be lost and Aylander would die.

Suddenly, Zoe looked at Thaddeus, her eyes wide and glowing. Her soundless chanting didn't stop, but there was something in her gaze Thaddeus found accusatory. She knows about the vision, he realized. There were no secrets between people who blended their magics together.

Still looking at him, Zoe raised her free hand, palm facing outward. Energy streamed from her hand and, as it did, it began to coalesce into a solid shape. The shape was that of an Eltaran, an Eltaran who wore a blue tabard emblazoned with the symbol of the True on it, and, as the last of him solidified into place, what little light the Sprite still gave off was extinguished. With gasps from both of them, Thaddeus lowered his sword and Zoe took her hand away from the hilt. Silence, save for the sound of Thaddeus's own heart pounding in his ears, filled the Vault. Strangely, Thaddeus realized he didn't feel as tired as he should have, and a glance at Zoe showed she didn't, either. Hadn't they just done something that required a great deal of magic? They should both have been drained to the point of exhaustion.

“You two never cease to amaze me,” Aylander said. “You do such wondrous things so easily. Has it always been this way with Battlemages and Sorceresses?”

Thaddeus may not have felt as tired as he should have, but he was starting to feel the beginnings of a headache behind his eyes. Too much to hope there wouldn't be some consequence. “The least you could say, Brother, is thank you,” he said.

“Oh, don't mistake me, Thaddeus, I am quite grateful for what you and Lady Zoe have done. It saddens me that Grandfather had to sacrifice the last of himself for it to happen, but I am quite grateful.” His eyes suddenly widened. “Wait! Did you just call me 'Brother', Thaddeus?”

“Isn't it normal for two people who have the same father to call each other that?”

“I'm really surprised it took the two of you all that to finally realize it,” Zoe said. “I've known for days.”

Thaddeus looked at her. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you say anything?”

Zoe shrugged. “Oh, I don't know.” The playful look in her eyes vanished. “Why didn't you say anything about your vision?”

“Why didn't you tell me about the prophecy?”

“Are you two seriously going to do this right now?” Aylander asked. “I mean, we do have a pack of drakes to escape from, remember?”

Thaddeus glared at him. “You weren't like this while you were in the sword.”

Ayandler shrugged. “What can I say? Having a body again makes me feel, well, more like me. Now, can we save the lovers' spat for a more appropriate place and time?”

“This isn't a lovers' spat!” Zoe said. “Thaddeus has been keeping things from me!”

“And she's been keeping things from me!” Thaddeus said.

“I'm sure, I'm sure,” Aylander said. “Still, any . . . discussion . . . about that can wait until after we've dealt with the drakes. Don't you agree?”

“He's right,” Zoe said. She looked at Thaddeus. “But, afterwards, you and I are going to have a long talk.”

Thaddeus didn't answer right away. “All right,” he said finally. “Fair enough.”

“Just remember,” Aylander said. “Dealing with the drakes is only a small part of what we have yet to do.”

Thaddeus looked at him. “I'm so glad you're here to remind us of these things, Brother,” he said. “I shudder to think what we'd do without you.”

Aylander smiled. “As do I.”

Thaddeus snorted, but didn't say anything else. Together, they left the Vault.