Into the Abyss (The Nightslayer Trilogy, Part 2) - Chapter Eight

Thaddeus would reach them soon. Aylander could sense his approach, and could also tell that he wasn’t alone. Whatever accompanied him – though it seemed to have no physical form, Aylander could tell it was an entity of some sort, and also that there was something vaguely familiar about it – was powerful, and made Aylander uneasy. Now that Aylander had allowed himself to give in to the temptation of the Abyss, he felt dealing with Thaddeus would be simple – after all, hadn’t seizing the power the Abyss offered him made him, if not a god, then something very close to it? – but the entity that accompanied him, despite its vague familiarity, was an unknown quantity, and Aylander wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with it. But why wouldn’t I be? If I can handle Thaddeus, surely I can handle anything.

Aylander glanced back over his shoulder at Zoe. The expression on her face was stony and unreadable. Despite that, however, the bond Aylander had created between them allowed him to read her emotions, which, right now, were comprised of equal parts fear, desperate hope, and pity. The pity she felt angered him – it was for him, for what he’d allowed himself to give in to, and for what consequences she was sure it would bring to him. Aylander didn’t want Zoe’s pity. He wanted her to fear him. He wanted her to worship him. The fear she felt, however, wasn’t of him – it was for Thaddeus, fear that he was dead, fear that he wouldn’t be able to face what Aylander had become, and fear of how he would react once he learned what Aylander had done. She still thinks I can be saved, Aylander thought. How can she possibly still be so naive?

An indeterminate distance ahead – all distances in the Abyss were indeterminate, no matter how close you thought you were to what you saw – Aylander saw a dark, man-shaped figure appear seemingly out of nothingness. As he watched, the figure drew a heavy, two-handed sword from a scabbard on its back and brought it around to rest, point down, on the ground. An ethereal shape appeared over the figure’s left shoulder, its form flickering rapidly back and forth between something that might have been human, and a ball of brilliant, white light. A Sprite? Aylander wondered, frowning.

Of course, Aylander knew that the figure the thing that might have been a Sprite hovered over was Thaddeus. He also knew that Thaddeus was aware of what Aylander had done, of what he’d become. When Aylander had first envisioned this confrontation with Thaddeus – with his brother – he’d pictured Thaddeus charging in, sword raised, blazing with magic and full of wrath. That Thaddeus had chosen, instead, to await their approach, standing still as a statue with his sword drawn, looking for all the world like a sentinel that, when pushed, would be roughly as easy to move aside as a mountain, gave Aylander his second moment of unease. It also made him think – really think – for the first time about what he’d done, about what he’d allowed himself to be seduced by. Hadn’t Atraxos seduced him like the Abyss had? By promising him powers that would make him like one of the Divine Council, themselves? The only difference was that the powers the Abyss promised were real, and had been given to him willingly. But did that make what it offered better?

“Is that Thaddeus?” Zoe asked.

Aylander looked at her. “It is,” he said.

“He will kill you, Aylander. And there won’t be any coming back, this time.”

“There should never have been any coming back for me!” Aylander snarled.

“Why?”

“You know the answer to that.” Aylander took a step back from her and spread his arms wide. “Look at me, Zoe! Look at what I’ve become. This, this was always to be my fate, to become something Twisted and evil.”

“I don’t believe that,” Zoe said. She nodded toward where Thaddeus stood in the distance. “And I don’t think he does, either. Aylander, listen to me. I’ve been thinking. Maybe you were supposed to give in to the temptations of this place, but not for the reasons you think.”

Aylander frowned at her. “What do you mean? There was only one reason to give in to the powers of this place. Those powers are meant for someone like me – someone who’s felt weak and inadequate all his life. Don’t you see? It’s that weakness that made them so tempting. It was that same weakness that made me fall under Atraxos’s spell. I won’t be weak any longer, however. Never again!”

“You were never weak, brother.”

Aylander whirled around. Thaddeus no longer stood so far away – if he ever had, in the first place – though he still had his sword out, resting point down on the ground in front of him. The expression on his face was stern, but not angry – it was full of pity, the same pity Aylander had felt coming from Zoe. “I don’t need your pity!” he spat.

“What do you need, then, Aylander?”

The entity that reminded Aylander of a Sprite had stopped flickering and settled into the shape of the man who now stood beside Thaddeus. The man wore clothes similar to Zoe’s, and was balding. As he looked at Aylander, there was no pity in his expression. There was compassion, though, along with a promise that said, should Aylander decide to lash out, there would be consequences harsher than Aylander was prepared for.

“I know you, don’t I?” Aylander asked.

“You knew me as a man much older than this,” the entity said. “And I knew you as someone better than you seem to think you’ve become.”

“Father Alvarem?” Zoe asked.

The man smiled over at her. “Just Horace, now, my dear,” he said. His smile grew into a grin. “Or should I address you as Mother, now?”

“You have a choice to make, brother,” Thaddeus said. “This place hasn’t taken you as far as you think it has. Not yet. You don’t have to let it take you the rest of the way. You can still fight at my side.”

“What makes you think I still want to?” Aylander asked.

Thaddeus smiled. “Because I know you,” he said. “You did spend quite a bit of time in my head, remember?”

“Your sword was supposed to cleanse me!”

“It did.”

“Then . . . then why am I like this? If my soul wasn’t still Twisted, why would I use my powers to do what I did to Zoe? Why would I be filled with so much hatred for you?”

“Are you filled with hatred for him, though?” Horace asked. “Or has it gone?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“A clean soul is still one that can make mistakes,” Thaddeus said. “Now, why don’t you take off the bond you put on Zoe?”

Aylander did it without even thinking about it. He also made the black clothes he’d fashioned for himself disappear, turning them, instead, into prisoner’s rags. Looking down at his feet, he realized he’d never felt so small. Oh, he’d become powerful, but that no longer meant anything. And then, suddenly, he felt Zoe’s arms around him, he felt Thaddeus’s hand on his shoulder, and he knew that, despite what he’d done, everything was going to be all right. And why was it going to be all right? Because he was with his family.

“Thank you for not making me kill you, brother,” Thaddeus said.

“We should all be grateful for that,” Horace said. “Losing him would have been a terrible waste.”

Aylander blinked his eyes a couple of times – had he been crying? – then looked up at Horace. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

“I think Zoe was right in what she said, about you giving into the powers of this place. You were meant to, but not for the reasons you thought. You see, the powers of the Abyss are not intrinsically evil. Nothing is, really.” Horace – who Aylander understood, now, was a Sprite, despite him not having any Eltaran blood while still alive – paused. “You’re going to do great things before this over, Aylander. I’m sure of it.”

“Although,” Thaddeus said with a smirk, “I’m not sure what could be greater than what you did to that dragon. Because of that, I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about any Creatures of the Abyss bothering us for a while.”

“You felt what I did?” Aylander asked.

Thaddeus laughed. “Felt it? I saw it. The drakes that were chasing us ran away like scared chickens once it was over.”

Aylander chuckled. The image of a pack of drakes fleeing like chickens was more than a little amusing. He looked at Zoe.

“I am truly sorry about what I did to you,” Aylander said.

Zoe smiled. “I know. But you could have done worse, and you didn’t. Thaddeus and I – along with Father Alvarem – “

“Horace,” the Sprite interjected.

“Yes, Horace. Aylander, the three of us will help you to not make a mistake like that, again. I swear it.”

Aylander smiled back. “I know you will,” he said. “Thank you.” He looked at Thaddeus, again. “You arrived here at a city of some sort, didn’t you?”

Thaddeus sheathed his sword. “A ruined city,” he said. “It’s an important place, isn’t it?”

“I think it might be. I know we have to go there if we want to get out of here.”

“So do I. Ready to go, then?”

Aylander got rid of his prisoner’s rags, replacing them with the clothes he’d had on before killing the dragon. “I am, now,” he said.

“Aylander, what’s that design on your tabard?” Zoe asked.

Aylander looked down. Instead of the tree that symbolized the True, the design on the front of his tabard had changed to a stylized representation of what looked like a golden scythe. He’d never seen anything like it before, but, almost at once, he knew the sigil was ancient, a symbol of something that had existed long before the Eltarans had come to Eltara.

“Adarion’s sign,” Horace said, the awe in his voice unmistakable.

“What?” Thaddeus asked. “How can that be?”

“I don’t know, but there can be no doubt that’s what it is.”

Adarion’s sign. The sign of the God of Death, who had sacrificed himself to make Thaddeus the Nightslayer. There were Eltaran myths about this sign, myths which identified it as the Sign Unknowable. Those myths said that, were anyone blessed to wear the Sign Unknowable – to make it once again Known – that person would go on to reshape all of creation. That can’t be me, Aylander thought. It can’t!

They all shared a look, but nothing more was said. Not, then, anyway.