Chapter 13 - The blade and its bearer (Rookie Games arc)

　　"The sun is waning," said Artisan as they trudged through the wild and weeds. "They don`t say that anymore—the young minds. It`s always the moon now when there`s talk of waning. But when the world was younger and so was I, the same was said for both sun and moon. Might it not be that they all have grown soft, the mages and scholars... or that the truth does not sell as well as the lie. It`s the light that dwindles most of all."

　　They had walked for some time, the prince in silence. He did not know what to say or even how to be. The quiet seemed better and somehow less intrusive. He took long and mindful strides, feeling the grit of soil and its grind, bare and threadbare as the soles of his feet. It was strange to step without the strain of studded leather, his boots that were always a shade too small. The fibres that harden from wet and wind-swept marches. Tight and strong like the men who wore them. The throwaway commons and those of a highborn blood. All men tire just the same.

　　Artisan had tried to fill the empty now there was no probing chatter. It was strange how one old as he still got nervous.

　　The forest had grown silent; no more rustling of leaves or wind. Like all the creatures had gone to an early slumber. But there was the ground and the way in which he walked—both gave the prince a certain comfort. The earthy sense of satisfaction he had not noticed nearly so often. Not as much then as he did now.

　　"It`s not the same," Artisan said. "There`s no going straight if the path bends at every which angle. And you are not now more blemished than in all the time before."

　　"I got the blue dust," the prince said after a while. "Is that not all that matters?"

　　"Godric`s sake—you turn and twist like a weathervane in a whirlwind!" Artisan snapped. "How princely do you suppose your disposition, now at this very moment? Is this the true mind of the one who beat Vol`krin, fist to fist and blood to blood, champion of the sands? All I see now is a surly child. You almost had me with the strength of your stance and your conviction. With the roar of your rage. Almost, prince, did I think—now here is a true Blackrose, fearsome and wild like Rodrich the first. Though now I wonder... was the line broken before it began?" Artisan stopped, in speech and step. Seemed to search for something solely within—be it for word or greater wisdom. Looking askant then at the prince, his face grew hard... but still he knew hesitance. At last he went on. "The sons were in nothing like the father. Rodrich was to man as man to beast. But was he weak where none might fathom? Had he heart for naught but strife and warfare—fierce in fight but in fight alone?" His voice grew loud in admonishment. "Did he falter in the privacy of his chambers?! When the night grew hard... did he grow soft? The sword longer than the blade?! Or did that outland harlot..."

　　The prince rose dark and he struck out, cracked Artisan straight on the jut of his cheek.

　　"Once more, Artisan. Sully my name once more, and it is last thing you do—in this life and in all others. The blood of the Blackrose was borne unbroken, from father to son and from son to heir. In the time of Rodrich and in the time of Bartold." The prince felt his fist draw back as many a time before—the flash of an old stubborn instinct.

　　But there was the huntress then, her arms weaving round his. As blank and as bland as a soul can be...` those were Artisan`s words—but was he wrong to think of her in the way he had? A natural. A true goblin... never been nothing else besides.` How then did she know when a fist should not fly?

　　"Glory to the prince," said Artisan, swiping the blood from his mouth. "Is that still the phrase for the pride of Lothrian, lord and protector? Stay thy hand, lest I fall fixedly into the past."

　　The huntress held out a hand, helped Artisan to his feet. Fiercely loyal and perhaps to a fault, she was sworn to them now, like sailor to ship.

　　"Were beatings the currency of the realm then?" The prince stepped back, sinking slowly into the shade of the forest, a sturdy tree to lean against. Here he might think and not merely act.The author`s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

　　"We damn near gutted him." Artisan looked old now. Wizened, too, in a sense. He had clutched a strong fist around the satchel as he fell... as though he had braced for a thing he knew coming. As though he had coaxed it out. To bring the prince back in mind as he had in body.

　　"Alaric the redeemed..." Artisan spat blood. "He was weak before—a mind for brothels and wine and not much else. But there is no word for what came after. He changed when he got the sword. That savage hell-dark curse of a sword." He looked at the prince in a way unlike before—pleading almost. But then his face grew hard. "Did you not think to ask? What the price of it was? Wielding death and drinking darkness? Had it not once occurred to you why the rose is black, why it is wilted and dead on the vine?! Not once, you hardened fool? Blind like all the rest before you?"

　　"Dicebolg." The prince spoke the thought into completion. Dicebolg. Blade of the Blackrose. He had revelled in its strength; it had made him whole. Like a god raining fury, down on a broken world.

　　"Too late now for salvation, my prince. For you... and for me." Artisan smiled but it was a hopeless smile, the baring of a broken will. "I could not wield the great sword your line claims it to be, but I have seen it—dreadful Dicebolg, blade of the Blackrose. Stark and unholy its desecration. Slicing and maiming in a strip of night. Broken as the starless sky. It was not mine, but how strong the craving, dear prince. Had I but the blood to wield it... then my hand might have found the strength to slit his neck as he slept—Alaric the shadow, Alaric the scourge. Oh, how I would have rent the earth... Dicebolg, a blade as black as the devil`s heart."

　　The prince felt the world swim before his eyes. He thought back or tried to—what was it like to hold the blade and know its darkness? To shear it out along its sheathe and into battle. How divine at first and deeply hollow... or so at least the prince imagined, for the truth eluded him, was a far-off thing now, like the lake and like Lothrian but longer still. Lost and only found in that deep and dead part of the past.

　　"Was it my hand then and not another`s..." said the prince in rueful tone, "my hand alone that drove me down to bleak perdition?"

　　"We are all alike in that. In death we wear the chains we have forged in life. How blind a man can be when he wants."

　　For balance, the prince pressed himself into the tree—he feared that he might otherwise faint. His hand ripped at the bark and then there was the fist again, pounding it with all his being, the will of man against the force of nature. His hand throbbed and he pushed away.

　　Artisan shook his head. "The rage has not left you. Or you it."

　　"Dicebolg was mine, my sin and rage. And yours? What chains hang round that feeble old neck?"

　　"Ferignost, shard of Ziegb鰈t—in that are we alike, and in that are we different. Mine was a broken heirloom, not as mighty as the full god-blade you wore into battle. But it was enough to break my foes and their bodies. Enough to scar my soul and bring me to where I am now. We were not meant to have them—as the Lord and the Lady forged the gods, so too did the gods forge the blades. They were not meant for the hands of mortal men."

　　"And that is why..." the prince started.

　　"That is why," Artisan said. "That is why we are here now. As goblins. Low and broken, souls left to a wild mercy."

　　The prince balled up his fist, cocking it behind him like the surly child Artisan had seen, winding up to rise in wrath against the forest... but the huntress stopped him—though maybe this time he would have stopped himself. He liked to think he would have.

　　"What do we do? Where do we go from here?" asked the prince in peasant tongue, his royal decorum fallen like a leaf.

　　"Now you act like a prince. And we go to where the blue dust fits—the lock of the final coffer."

　　They walked on, and for a while without words. Artisan guided them through the forest, and they came out the other side. The beach was long behind them, and the sun was setting, the sky now streaked like a blaze of glory. The cliffs rose stark against the backdrop—a crimson red to herald the coming night.

　　"I did not think there would be so many," said Artisan. He shook his head. "Maybe I did. And my body could not go there."

　　The prince did not say a word. But he did not strike out either.

　　"Might it help..." Artisan trailed back in, "if I say they are wild and without heart? Without soul? I would say it gladly, though I do not know if it is so. They are wild—that part I know. Cast out at birth for failing to heed the taskmaster`s call. Half of a nest is discarded each time; this is the goblin way. Those without word and the will to listen. So savage they cannot be trained. Not like the huntress. Not even like Vol`krin whose mind can still obey, for he came to Gorkon."

　　Did it help, these words of reason? The prince had slain so many, so why... why did it grieve him so? They were wild and they were helpless, the ghosts at the lake who were now here with him. But they drifted or started to, the ghosts, farther than they had before. The night blew a fresher air and not all was as dark as the sky would be.

　　"Ferignost..." said the prince. "The blade was lost when the Northern Hold fell. When its wielder fell. I have heard all the tales of the lord of the barren—sir Gav.."

　　"Don`t speak the name," Artisan broke in. "I cannot bear to hear it."

　　Silence swept over them and they walked—but it was not long before Artisan spoke. He needed to know.

　　"And what say you now, my prince? Am I as grand as in the tales?"