Chapter 36 - To relive is to live again(?) (Pre-final Evolution arc)

　　If he could but avert his gaze, stare blindly inward and wait. But no. His plight was to witness and preserve. The scathing past he longed to discard like a blunted blade.

　　He heard her fateful words. "Call upon the clerics." How he had missed her voice, her force and presence. The long windless nights, the smell of her hair.

　　The prince saw Gendrin, his bulging frame and the red of his face—years of drink and the easy life. That traitorous cur.

　　There were no words for his rage, none he could express, though he thought of plenty.

　　For the first time now, for true and real, he would heed his own warning. To not interfere as his mind forced dire remembrance upon him. The past two times in this wretched long dream, he had caused a disruption. When waking up to Gustave`s call. When holding Dicebolg at his father`s coronation. And grasping back, both memories appeared now incomplete, as if seeing them through mist. It was clear the first time, what would happen. And still he had faltered.

　　Here he was, blotting out his own existence. Always charging in blind and calling it brave.

　　No more.

　　The prince watched the world end before his eyes, clad in the skin of man, but a goblin in mind. All the hate of hell surged within and he let it, surveyed it from afar like the warrior-poet would... whatever remained of that fanciful fiction. There were no poets who made war, not proper. Art is a higher cause, and it cannot be stained, lest it ceases to be. And only in tales can a knight`s hand remain blood-free.

　　All of it he took in, the silent beholder. The goblins ran wild, hurtling like wildebeest across the town`s crumbling structures—it was good to think of the aftermath, how the land might be naught but ash, that field of sorrow and death.

　　Gael`s fall brought him low as oblivion, but he honoured her now, taking in her valiant last stand—this he told himself, and it had to be true; there must be hidden a silver morsel of atonement, somewhere in the act. This mindful reliving.

　　His own fall was felt but barely—it was nothing in comparison. He would die a thousand times if Gael could live. Or if Gendrin...

　　Startled, the prince looked with disgust and vested interest upon the one he had called half-uncle, this fiend gloating over his demise, flaunting his bare hanging gut and chest as he prattled the words. "Take a look at the cause of your undoing."

　　These blood-hammered runes on Gendrin`s body... one of them was oft-repeated in the folds of his flesh. It was the kanji for Ruin ()), as bestowed to goblins cursed by Truor鷖t, major shard of the god-blade Ziegb鰈t—the devil`s own sword. Kageru`s.

　　What a fool he had been, yet again, the prince lambasted himself. Could he not have discerned this vital fact the first time he died? Here he was now, thankful almost for the opportunity to revisit. His latest demise a blessing in disguise.

　　Ruin was the mark of the Lady Linaria also, but it made sense on her—she was a goblin.

　　What dreadful forces had Gendrin been entangled with, to bear a mark of eternal death whilst nominally still a man?

　　And amidst the strange lesser symbols on his skin, there hid another major mark—one as pronounced and recurring as the Ruin kanji from Truor鷖t. Weary-eyed, for near to death, the prince made out the kanji for Rise ().

　　Might that mark then correspond to Ferignost, the second major shard of Ziegb鰈t?

　　Although Caladbrinn was also, in theory, possible—the prince had not seen the mark made by that god-blade. But it was fair to reason that the two whole blades, Dicebolg and Caladbrinn, would leave similar blemishes, both symbol-based. Not kanji.

　　The prince combined the two kanji in thought: Rise () and Ruin ()). That seemed fitting for the devil`s blade. Kageru`s Ziegb鰈t. He who will rise and bring ruin.

　　"Hey, don`t you die on me just yet." Gendrin`s blunt intellect brought the prince back to the image conjured by his dream-state. This ham-fisted lowlife towering over him.

　　Don`t you worry, dear half-uncle. You will see me again, in blood and death. I will come for you.

　　Though the prince wanted so to speak the execration into being, he relented, boldly—for to sit idly and take it was more damning to his immediate state of mind... that fleeting hold on sanity he held dear. If only out of accursed necessity.

　　The prince`s path was clearer now and coming to an end—reclaim Dicebolg, thwart a god and overthrow him; then hack apart his own corpse and bury the parts, so his soul would be whole once his goblin-form died. Free to go on. To where was unknown. Anywhere but hell. And finally and above all, destroy the lord Gendrin, that sacrilege in the flesh, who seemed somehow connected to the broken god-blade Ziegb鰈t... of this the prince was now certain. And what to make of the fool`s unlikely ally, the darkmage wielding Caladbrinn?

　　Oh gods.

　　Artisan`s words—why had he not thought of them sooner?

　　"... Feldirk`s line, likewise wielders of a master blade, Caladbrinn of the Fallen Order..."

　　The darkmage must by blood be of high heritage, one in Feldirk of the mire`s direct line of descent. A combined thought drifted in, commanding attention: the prince realized what might be gleaned from the forced memory before. The coronation ritual. Whole god-blades can only be wielded by those of the proper blood. Rodrich`s line for Dicebolg, Feldirk`s line for Caladbrinn.

　　The prince stared at her, this foul darkmage with her conical hat and bandaged-up face, fully obscured and revealing nothing back then, the first time... but hiding nothing now. A brief yet brutal stint as a goblin was all he had needed, to deduce beyond reasonable doubt precisely why Caladbrinn was monikered the runesword of the Fallen Order`.

　　Till now he had reasoned the cause to be simple: Feldirk`s line had failed to ascend to kingship, his line banished from noble circles following Rodrich`s ascension as first king of the Blackrose. But no, they had fallen far lower, those highborn bastards of the Fallen Order, hailing from the far-off mire. The old Lothunc boglands.

　　They had thrown in their lot with the devil, or his placeholding brother to be exact. Caladbrinn was in a way already in the taskmaster`s hands; the veiled ally to Gendrin was of the same mind... she and Gorkon, they both wanted to revive the dead god Kageru.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

　　"The dead know more than you imagine," said the darkmage standing there in lifelike memory. Ah, if only she knew, thought the prince, resolved to ensure she finds out.

　　"... Devulgo." The void sphere spell killed the prince again, and he was oddly unphased in the moments before and directly after—with death so commonplace, its meaning is lost. Mortal minds or not.

　　And on one thing he could pride himself: he had not intervened; the horrid past had played out utterly unaltered. As long as he stayed strong and faced the facts of his own cast-away life... his mind could not falter. He would still be himself when finally he woke up.

　　Then the world within twisted and writhed, convulsed in an earnest effort to find the prince some firm enough footing. What next in this maelstrom of loss?

　　--

　　The forest.

　　He was holding the hammer, trudging through that woodland hellscape. Sent on a quest to procure the blue ore—the key to open one box of soul, at the cost of many more.

　　How long had it been, the rookie games? A lifetime it seemed. When the goblin world revolved around stats and not philosophy—such was then his muted perception.

　　The prince steeled himself for the fight... no, the slaughter—the feral lake-dwelling goblins. How many shards of how many souls had he shattered there? And would now again?

　　The path led ever on.

　　"My liege," he heard a distant voice exclaim, coming from behind. It was Artisan`s. Unsettling. The man had not called for him then. "Tarry a moment and I`ll come with," Artisan added, speaking from afar, most definitely acting out of step with the past—he had spent the time leaned back against a tree, near where he had almost fainted. Both the huntress and Artisan had waited there for the prince to return. These extra lines of dialogue... they did not belong in the script of remembrance.

　　Turning back, the prince hesitated, unclear on what to do: ignore the out-of-place call of his friend, or embrace this diversion from the true past—one he had not himself initiated?

　　He felt his legs begin to linger, in essence deciding to take the path astray. It might as well be so—the prince trusted his body over the mind in matters like these. Too much thought leads only to inaction.

　　The prince waited for Artisan to catch up, this hobbling and panting man he had doubted and hated and loved—he was a friend in the end; the prince chose to believe that. He had to.

　　"Finally," said Artisan, "a memory with me in it—I can lead you out now, for a time."

　　"What folly is this you speak of?" retorted the prince, wary of his own brittle cognition, the limited hold on matters of the mind. Certainly whilst stuck in the egg. "You are there with me now, in a room with my body?"

　　Artisan nodded—yes, he was there, a real spectral intruder. "Aye, you cannot impede the reliving of a true memory. Not without grave consequence, that is so. But I can. My interference is not yours, so come with; it will not shred your mental state—the seers have assured me as much. And Gorkon. I trust him in this; he needs you whole for now."

　　Wasting no time, Artisan clasped his arms around the prince in earnest embrace. "I made you go there once," he said, inclining his head toward the deep-down forest, toward the lake, "and I cannot apologise enough. The one time was more than enough."

　　Releasing the prince from his grasp, Artisan held out his hand. "Come along, away from this place."

　　The prince grabbed his friend`s hand, and the trees and hard truths of the forest receded, a scene folding inward as they were swept into the currents of another recollection. But not the prince`s.

　　Artisan relaxed, looked less aggrieved, his back settling in a lesser state of misalignment. "I want to show you, if I may, two things that may aid or harm you further," he said, shifting sedately toward the prince. The man was himself enraptured by the vital image he had conjured: a snow-clad grassy field, with kneeled upon it three dozen magi or more, women and men engrossed in meditation. They had on robes of silverweave or greater fabric, and major magestone-lockets that shone like dawn.

　　"Is that..." asked the prince, as he beheld the fair lady standing central in the field, arms spread and golden-hued as all the realm`s riches—her soul bared without the faintest effort; one need not possess the power of farsight to see she was sublime. More than merely mortal.

　　"The Lady Thanell," Artisan affirmed. "In the flesh. Gods, have you ever seen so clear an intimation of the divine?"

　　The prince could only shake his head.

　　"She taught us," Artisan went on, his gaze transfixed still on the demi-goddess, her changing stances in silence—no great need for commotion; she was holy in the simplest of ways, sharing stillness from her soul. The tempered essence of a being beyond man.

　　The ground-bound mages took it in, staring up at the Lady Thanell who had started to soar, spinning in a slow spiral going higher, lifting off a foot above the snow.

　　Soon thereafter, a monk-like figure started to stir, one among the many, sitting down with the other magi. At peace and entranced, he rose, his body fluttering some inches above the ground, enrobed by a pale golden hue. The emanation of his frail and young soul.

　　The prince recognized it, even from afar. The soul, though nascent and without fell conviction... he knew it was Artisan sitting there, one of the roaming magi. Stalking out with the pack. Led by the wolf in the west. The Lady Thanell.

　　"Come," said Artisan, spellbound, not far from tears, though his true hurt was not so readily expressed—no sorrow as this could be shed from the eyes or the body; it stayed with the man like the beat of his heart.

　　They wove into the pack, stopping three long breaths away from the Lady, not more. All things seemed clear standing so near to a sinless true being, the last living godkin that had not failed from purpose.

　　Though they travelled merely in memory, she looked straight at them both, not through but directly at—a soft-eyed glance flitting from heart to face to soul. Mournful for Artisan, the hardships he had braved. Prayerful for the prince, the hardships he should bear.

　　Always had she known this would come to pass—that was the shared sentiment the prince and Artisan exchanged, a single strong look was enough.

　　They both then sat down, kneeling in reverence. Sensing the might in this joint meditation.

　　Most of the magi made some form of breakthrough, edging their soul close to the surface, as near to the skin as their focus allowed.

　　The prince took in the shapes of their souls, all without looking. The silver and gold, the hues of great worn resolve... he sensed them like one would a lover`s approach, or an aura of battle. The visceral reality that all three things shared.

　　Beside him, Artisan began humming, the sound made not by his mouth but his body. The man drifted gently up from the snowy cold floor.

　　There were two Artisans now with their souls exposed: the young mage who had been here in the true skin of man, and the old spectral goblin one. The differences were clear, all the hurt and virtue eroded... the young soul so righteous and naive; the old one self-righteous and abundant with stain—the power of knowing does that to a man.

　　And what of the prince? Sitting in stillness, the outward act looking right as rain. But the inward strife, nary unseen, save by the odd ill-fitting grimace. The strain held him back. Held him down, ground-bound and not afloat.

　　"I have trouble," whispered the prince to his friend enthralled.

　　"You must want to see," the man responded, cherishing the brief moment of delight, basking in the light of his holy love for her, the enlightened Lady so close and far beyond, hailing from the great above.

　　Heeding counsel, the prince gave in to his demons, the hard-earned worries he had. What would it be like, the splintering soul of a low-slung hero?

　　Let it be hidden no longer; the world may see what he has become.

　　Allowing his core-most essence to rise, the heartsore prince grieved. With a forlorn stare on her, he let the Lady Thanell guide him.

　　In fitful spurts his body rose, hanging lopsided in the windless space.

　　A shattered hard gold eked through the walled-off centre; it was dark and red around the cracks, thin and frail at parts, like a light sheet of ice.

　　The Lady let her eyes rest upon him, the horrid soul he had brought to the fore. With pursed lips and a slow mindful nod, she gave him assent.

　　It is alright to be.

　　--

　　For a time it went on, the Farseeing ritual. Then at once the visions ceased, and Artisan was ripped from the fold. "It is alright," he said. "I must rest; the spectral bond is heavy. But I shall return, so hold on, brave prince. Hold on."

　　Then torment scorched the prince`s bones—here was hellfire come alive, fierce in anguish like no pain before. How it ripped through and split him straight open... it was perfect in a way. The penance he sought. For letting Gael die and Gendrin live.

　　One sin could still be rectified.

　　Rage is what he needed. As pure as the Lady Thanell was in her chaste divinity... so pristine would the prince become in the realm of hard hate. Timeless and total, he would be its avatar.

　　The flesh seared off his bones; his bones off the hollow still deeper—the current form of him was being erased. It was sublime, the unstained agony tearing him asunder. To forge him anew. Ripe for a greater destiny.

　　To break a god one must himself be broken.