“There Will Come a Time.”
“Y ou look rather more a mess than I initially thought,” Shawdell told Karigan.
The off-key music of an unseen orchestra softly vibrated through the tiled floor of the ballroom she lay curled on and resonated through her nerves— one-two-three , one-two-three . . . Above, the bones of small creatures clinked together with no Earthly air currents.
No longer did they occupy the ballroom on the plane of reality, but this other, its dark reflection.
Shawdell sat upon his throne chair, his gray hood pulled back fully revealing his glass mosaic face with its irregular cracks and edges. Telagioth’s smallsword sat on the armrest, which he picked up and turned over, and otherwise toyed with as if to soothe some agitation.
Every time Karigan moved even a little, steel-edged pain ripped through her arm, and a tear slipped down her cheek from the agony of breathing.
One-two-three, one-two-three
This time there were no dancers, just she and Shawdell.
“The people...” she gasped.
“What people?”
“In the ballroom. Donal...The others.”
“Oh, those people. I assume they are very confused about why they are assembled in the ballroom at such an hour and why one among them is dead. You ruined the game, which I should have expected, and I brought us here out of...self-preservation.”
“Need to go back,” she whispered.
“Say again?”
“Need to go back.”
“Oh, of course. You wish to go home. You suppose there are people there who would miss you, and you no doubt believe you must be there for the all important and inevitable fight against Mornhavon the Black. But look at you. You could not harm a newly hatched chick.”
One-two-three, one-two-three
He leaned forward on his throne chair. “You are just a weak mortal bleeding onto my floor. What my grandfather saw in you to make him adopt you into the House of Santanara, I certainly cannot fathom.”
“Why,” Karigan asked, “have you brought me here?”
“You want to know, in other words, why I torment you so.” He rose from his chair, stepped off the dais, and lowered himself to the floor and stretched out on his side before her. He propped his head on his hand. “Do you recall? I told you a time would come.”
“You wanted my eye,” she murmured. Her vision blurred.
When she blinked, the ballroom flickered away for an instant to a blank gray.
Not her consciousness fading, though it was not exactly acute at the moment, but to some truth she must understand.
She could not seem to make sense of the world around her.
Like the strands of energy rooted in Shawdell’s chest that reminded her of a pulsing umbilical cord that stretched endlessly to or from parts unknown.
Another, a gray rope of power, adhered to his back.
It brought to mind an anchor. Where the anchor lay was impossible to discern for its length also extended beyond perception.
She didn’t think she was meant to see these cords of power, but somehow she could.
Might they be illusion? In her present state it was difficult to determine. However, if they were real, she needed to make sense of them. It was important, but she couldn’t say why because it was hard to think.
“Taking your eye,” he said, “would have been shortsighted.” He laughed at his own jest.
She did not join in.
He used the swordtip to lift her eyepatch as he had during her first “visit” to the dark ball.
“Just a peek,” he said.
Her eye throbbed with exploding stars. He gazed at it at length, then let the patch fall back into place. And frowned.
“How disappointing,” he said. “All I saw was my reflection in gray. Perhaps it takes time. In any case, I require you for more than your eye. The offer stands for a remarkable and powerful partnership. Think of it! Together we would conquer Mornhavon and bring peace, prosperity, and security to all the lands.”
He omitted freedom for all the lands from his vision for what they could accomplish.
“All you must do,” he said, “is eat of Salvistar’s heart.
” It shimmered in the air between them. It still pulsed, and it was like she could feel it in her own chest. Sweat streamed down her face and burned her eyes.
She blinked rapidly, and between blinks, she saw a golden glow emanate from the heart, but she must have been mistaken, for it remained the pulsing organ, no gold sheen, no matter how much she blinked.
Everything here is dream and illusion, she thought, and Shawdell dealt in deception.
“This is my final offer,” Shawdell said.
“Eat of the heart, and we’ll embark on a partnership that will bring about an Age never before seen.
We can remove Mornhavon’s influence from the world, take the power of Blackveil as our own, restore Argenthyne.
I have seen the consequences if you do not, and they are unending darkness for all. Is that the future you wish?”
“Futures can be changed,” she murmured.
His azure eyes sparkled with amusement. She could get lost in them like soaring into the expanse of the sky.
“This one is not so easily changed once Mornhavon releases his legions from beyond the wall.”
She was distracted by another glimpse of gold wafting off the heart. Perhaps it was not an illusion, after all? “What happens to me if I don’t consume the heart?”
“One of two things,” he replied. “I cut out your eye and enjoy your suffering, or I cut out your eye, let you go, and observe while you lose everything and everyone you love to Mornhavon’s wrath. And you will become his plaything.”
“Not a very good choice,” she muttered.
“You could simply take a bite of the heart. No drawbacks, only rewards.”
“What would stop me from ending you if I chose to eat of the heart?”
“Ah, you are less stupid than I thought.”
“What a relief,” she muttered acerbically.
“You saw how easily I controlled your people, yes? I can set a spell to instantly force them to battle one another to the death. All your friends, the one you love. After that, your people would have no chance against Mornhavon without their stalwart king to lead them.” He paused and gazed intently at her.
“However, if you join me and leave me unscathed, do as I ask, you are free to defeat Mornhavon and have your king. That does not sound so bad, does it? I am merciful, and we are, after all, kin.”
Battling a symphony of pain, she forced herself onto her knees. She fought to retain consciousness.
“Tell me again,” she said when she caught her breath, “what you would get from this partnership.” She wavered and closed her eyes in an effort to steady herself.
“To become whole,” he said. “To guide the rebirth of our lands and fill them with beauty and magic. To be unfettered.”
“From what?”
He cocked his head as if to evaluate the motive behind her question. “Are you so under the thumb of your king that you do not understand the concept of ascendance of the self? No one above you telling you what to do or holding you back, not even your gods?”
She squinted at him, still seeing, in flashes, the umbilical cord connected to his chest, and the gray rope holding him from behind. She lurched to her feet and almost fell back down. Shawdell stood, as well, and reached out to help her, but she recoiled.
“Have you an answer for me?” he asked. “Will you eat of the heart?”
She staggered to a nearby column and leaned against it to keep upright. “Are you in some kind of a rush?”
“I suppose not,” he said thoughtfully. “Time in this place does not behave in the way one might expect. No, there is no rush, except that I have been awaiting your answer and am growing impatient.”
“It is not,” she said, “the kind of decision one makes lightly.”
Cobwebs wafted around the animal skeletons hanging from the ceiling. Outside the windows, stars and galaxies sparkled. The music of the dance thumped in her chest like a heartbeat.
One-two-three, one-two-three
“You may have noticed,” she said, “I am not at my best at the moment.”
“I have,” he said with a nod. “If you ate of the heart, you would likely be able to heal yourself.”
“Very tempting,” she replied.
Very tempting, her dark self echoed. Dark Karigan flickered into being beside her, in all black as usual.
“I am having trouble thinking straight,” Karigan said. “I simply ask for a little patience.”
“I do not understand what there is to think about,” Shawdell said. “I have been very clear about the outcomes to the choices you make.”
“Easier to think about even small things when your head is not pounding and there is no bone sticking out of your arm.”
“I can see your point.”
“I beg patience,” she said.
“Very well. If Eletians are anything, we are patient.” The tone of his voice, however, had lost any such sufferance.
She gazed around the ballroom and staggered toward the refreshment tables heaped with rotting delicacies and rancid libations. She bumped into a chair and held onto it to maintain her balance.
One-two-three, one-two-three
“Where are your dancers?” she asked.
“There is only us.”
“Not much of a ball,” she murmured.
The heart, still afloat in the air, called to her, pulled on her.
Eat it, Dark Karigan said. No more pain, only the power to rid the world of Mornhavon and make everything good.
“Then you wouldn’t exist,” Karigan pointed out. “Maybe just that would make it worth it.”
Dark Karigan glared at her.
“Why wouldn’t I exist?” Shawdell asked in a perplexed voice.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Telagioth’s sword gripped in Shawdell’s hand.
..Sweat streamed down her face. There were pieces of a puzzle she was trying to pull together, but they eluded her like a word or name on the tip of her tongue she could not recall.
Her reflection in the window stared back at her and, strangely, so did that of Dark Karigan. The heavens behind the glass were vast.
Illusion. It’s all illusion.
The chair scuffed along the floor as she dragged it with her. When she stopped, she leaned against it to rest.
“What are you doing?” Shawdell asked.
“I want to look out the window,” she replied.
“You are a very strange human.”
“I’m sure you’re not the only one to think so.” After she caught her breath, she dragged the chair again, pausing to rest now and then, wondering how much blood seeped from her wounded arm with the effort. “I want to see the world I— we —may rule over,” she said, “if I decide to eat the heart.”
“Aah,” Shawdell said, pleased. “The world is greater than you can conceive, and our power will be endless.”
“Why do you not eat the heart?” she asked him.
“Because I cannot in my current form.”
“That makes sense.” He was a glass mosaic.
She placed the chair before one of the windows and sat in exhaustion. She closed her eyes and rested. The pieces had not quite fallen into place, but they were connected. A sword, a heart, and the energies that bound Shawdell. Shawdell could not eat the heart.
One-two-three
As she rested, she wondered if she had the strength left to do what was needed. She’d had worse injuries, but she was greatly weakened. Her head throbbed. Everything was fuzzy. She just wanted her bed so she could rest.
One-two-three
She smiled as she envisioned dancing with Zachary, his arms around her as they glided across the ballroom floor.
The real ballroom. The warmth of his smile, the love alive between them when they were close together.
It felt safe. A feeling she wanted to curl up in, but that reality was far away from here.
Here, where Shawdell had given her a dire choice. She didn’t like what he had presented.
When she opened her eyes, she watched an enormous chunk of ice and rock tumble past the window, dragging a tail of particles that gleamed in the light of some unseen star.
She stood, determined to make her own decisions and decline the choices Shawdell offered, no matter what it cost her. Her worry was of her waning strength and her ability to carry out her plan.
She leaned on the back of the chair. It felt of real wood, and, yet, intuition told her it was not.
“You can’t eat the heart,” she said to Shawdell, “because of your current form.”
“Yes,” he replied. “It is as I told you.”
His reflection shone in the window behind her own. Her dark self stood off to the side.
“Your current form is glass,” she said.
“What is your point? You did this to me. Your actions and the volatility of magic, and the nature of what you call the white world, changed my form. You shattered me, but you failed to kill me.”
Yes, she recalled that time in the past, the first time he had tried to make her play a game of Intrigue, but she had resolved that problem in her own way, as well.
“I have come to a decision.”
He stepped toward her. “Yes?”
“The chair.”
“The chair?” he asked.
“The chair.”
“I don’t understand,” he replied.
“I choose the chair.”
“What do you mean you—”
Exquisite pain ripped through her ribs as she hefted the chair with her good arm and smashed it through the window.
And broke the universe.