When Heroes Die

“Twenty-eight. If you find an orphaned child on your quest, be sure to hand them off to someone else. Whilst fulfilling, the role of a mentor has a limited life expectancy.”

– ‘Two Hundred heroic Axioms’, author unknown

The following weeks were frustrating. The temptation to keep drinking plagued the both of us, although neither of us gave in. We weren’t evicted from the tower. Unfortunately, there was now nothing distracting us from reflecting on our pasts. The two of us had taken to talking over games of Shatranj. As a game, it was like a local variant of chess.

I talked about my time on Earth Bet, although I always kept the details sparse. It remained a land far off beyond the coasts of Calernia in my stories. I never talked about heroes again, or the fight with Scion. I didn’t even know how to start.

Max knew I was holding a lot back. He was kind enough to never press.

The others still viewed us warily. They probably expected us to fall back into drinking. I could have made the effort to befriend them, as Olivier had suggested. To my surprise, I found that I didn’t really want to.

They wanted to make tools and live quiet lives. As romantic as the idea seemed to me in abstract, I knew that trying to live like that would probably drive me mad. Our perspectives were too far apart, and I was fine with that.

As time moved on, more and more of the tower’s residents had left. It wasn’t even our fault, either. Roland was hardly around. When he was, though, his presence was tyrannical. Ordering people around and venting anger, he alone was driving people off.

I had already been toying with the idea of leaving. The stay had done me some good. It had helped to ground me in a new world. But I was restless.

I needed a purpose. Some goal to drive me forward.

“So I was thinking,” I began. I picked up my pawn, capturing one of his.

“Now there’s a first,” he teased. I gave him a mock glare.

“When the Winter ends, I think we should leave.” I told him seriously.

“With Olivier?” He inquired.

I hadn’t actually considered that as an option. It was something to think on. Olivier and I hadn’t quite reconciled, but… we weren’t on bad terms.

“Possibly, but even without him.” I replied.

He frowned at the board in concentration. “Let’s hear why.”

“We aren’t made for this kind of life. It’s bringing out the worst in both of us. I’m planning on leaving regardless, and I thought that I may as well invite you along.” I explained.

He said nothing for a while, then slid the white queen diagonally across the board, capturing my rook. “Where are we going to be heading, then?”

I suppressed a smile. Whilst it wasn’t an explicit agreement, it was more or less the same thing. He was willing to come along. “I hadn’t put thought into that part yet,” I admitted. “I figured I should ask you first.”

“You’ve never fought in an army before, have you?” He asked.

“No, I haven’t. I’m not sure if I could.” I set up my knight to capture his bishop a few moves down the line, threatening his queen in the process.

“And why’s that?” Without looking at the board, he moved his queen again, taking one of my bishops.

Damn.

He usually won our games.

“I can’t trust other people to make the right choices. I need to be the one in charge.” I explained.

He grimaced. “Not much room for that kind of attitude on the battlefield, kid.”

“That’s another reason I brought this to you first. I don’t need to be a soldier. I just need to feel like I am making a difference. A goal that is worthwhile.” Now that his queen had moved out of the way, I could promote my pawn.

“So what else can you do then. From what I’ve gathered, your homeland was very different to Calernia.” He proceeded to capture the other rook.

“It was different, yes. In most ways, I would argue it was better. On the whole, people were lived easier lives. We had machines that could do the work of tens of men in barely a fraction of the time. I miss it a great deal.” I said wistfully.

“You know how to make any of those machines?” He inquired.

I shook my head. “The technical details for most would escape me. I understand the broad strokes in some areas. Enough to point someone in the right direction. I couldn’t build them myself, though.”

And just telling everyone everything I had some vague understanding of would never end well. Either I would be taken as a lunatic, or I would be taken seriously. The latter was probably more dangerous. There was nothing stopping me from talking later once I understood my situation better, but if I talked now and regretted it, then I couldn’t take it back.

He furrowed his brow in thought. “I believe I know what you need,” he asserted.

I said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“You need to travel and get to know Calernia for yourself. You want to do something, but you don’t know what to do because you don’t know enough to decide on your own. You feel out of place, lost. Tying yourself to a cause right now would be a mistake.”

The game continued as I mulled over his words. It ended up being one of the few games I won, despite how distracted I was.

It felt almost like a cop out. But it was a cop out I could live with. Not so much was working towards a goal as working towards the goal of having a goal. It wasn’t committing to something permanently without having figured out what I wanted first.

“Would you be willing to travel with me then?” I asked.

“I’ll think about it,” he replied.

Weeks passed by, eventually he agreed. We planned to leave come the Winter’s end. I had asked Olivier if he would mind if we joined him for the journey. Apenun sounded like it would make for a good first stop. It was the closest city that was somewhat important. Visiting it would give me a taste of what the Principate was really like.

Olivier had still not taken my advice.

He had avoided talking to his brother, who had withdrawn even further from the rest of us. The few travelling wizards who had set up around the tower had departed. What once looked like the birth of a new institution was now on the decline. The only person who saw Roland regularly was Morgaine. The two of them spent more and more time away from the tower.

I warned Olivier that I expected something was wrong. He brushed aside my concerns.

When trouble finally came, all of us were taken by surprise. Max and I had just arrived back in town from our time spent foraging and were making our way to the tower. We were passing the tavern when it happened.

“Is that a lute?” Max asked, slowing.

I stopped for a moment and listened with him. It was hard to hear anything specific over the din. Frowning in concentration, I could eventually pick something out. It was off tune and didn’t make for very pleasant hearing. But it was unmistakably a lute.

“I think so,” I said. “I didn’t think anyone here had one.”

“Whoever is playing it needs to be flogged,” Max scowled.

“It’s bad, but I wouldn’t consider it that awful,” I disagreed.

We bickered over it for a couple more minutes and were about to go inside when the crows came home to roost.

An entirely different sound caught our attention. From the direction of the Knightsgrave, the clamour of hooves could be heard. I squinted. Vaguely, about a dozen cloaked figures could be seen making their way towards the town. They were carrying lit torches flickering with clear blue flames. As they approached, they started hurling them onto the roofs of buildings.

“We’re under attack!” Maxime roared at the top of his voice, before I could even react.

He formed a fireball, hurling it at the lead rider. Their cloak caught light. They remained eerily silent. Hastily, I started to support him.

Can I restrain them?

Max hadn’t taught me any ways to incapacitate rather than kill. He was too caught up in his own fight though to pay attention to what I was doing. I decided it was better to risk him discovering my secret than to risk living with more regrets. I visualized the ground beneath the hooves of the lead rider becoming quicksand and pushed. The horse began to sink.

The rider leapt off. As they got closer, I saw into their helmet. A skull stared back at me. It was one thing knowing that you were living in a storybook world, and another to understand it. I was so taken by surprise, I failed to dodge as a blade headed my way. Someone shoved me to the ground, averting what would have been a hit.

“Get your head into it, girlie!” Max bellowed at me.

I rolled as I landed, then climbed to my knees. Another zombie horse was headed my way. They weren’t really alive, so I had no reason to hold back. For a moment, the world around us darkened. Then a spiralling helix of actinic light departed from my fingertips. The last time I had seen something like it, Purity had been on a murderous rampage. I felt something drain out of me.

Four of the riders were blasted away.

I blinked, spots appearing in my eyes as a result of my attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another sword swinging at me. Diving to the side, a sharp pain jolted through me as I landed on my stump.

I turned towards the figure and sent another beam in their direction.

I hadn’t tried using it before now, it was too flashy to not be seen. It was something I was fairly sure I could pull off, though, considering the other powers I had tried out. On the other hand, when I had tried to see if I could use Flachette’s power, I had given myself a splitting headache and not had much else to show for it. Creation hadn’t been too keen on me doing that at all.

“Careful with that murder beam girlie, you’re going to fry the townsfolk!” Max shouted.

Right, the civilians.

The riders had split up and were making their way through the town. Feet thumping heavily on the snow, we chased after them. They seemed to be going out of their way to avoid us and were heading towards the east side of Beaumarais.

When we arrived, the House of Light was under attack.

The two of us joined in the defence. My approach was much more cautious than before. I pulled water out of the snow, freezing it on their bones. It didn’t completely incapacitate them. It only made it easier for others to handle the fighting.

Unfortunately, there were many friendly targets around and it was hard not to injure them. Dimly, I realized how much easier it was to avoid collateral damage when you controlled a horde of insects.

I’d tried to see if I could control bugs over a month ago, once I started to realize what I was doing. There was no point to it. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t multitask effectively without my passenger. It made the entire exercise meaningless when I suddenly had to micromanage individual insects. I didn’t test if I could control people. Even if I could, nobody would take kindly to it.

Best for me to leave well enough alone.

It wasn’t like insects would help me much against skeletons anyhow.

Several of the priests had been killed, but some were still alive. The mayor was helping mount a defence, but Alisanne couldn’t be found.

I couldn’t feel any more of our enemies immediately nearby. In the distance, I saw more of them coming. What I guessed were another four dozen zombie riders were on their way towards us. They came down the hills from the Knightsgrave.

The town had woken up though and was rallying to the defence. The militia had come out, as well as priests from the House of Light. Those that were still alive, in any case. I expected more would die before the night was out.

The riders were still some distance away, so I took a moment to consider what to do. Purity’s beams were effective, but caused too much incidental damage. Fire was too slow, and I didn’t know if lightning would even do anything. My first plan was probably the best one.

Trapping them in mud would make it easy for everyone else to deal with them.

So I tried the same approach again, but this time I thought larger. I remembered Leviathan when it came to Brockton Bay. I remembered the waves. That wasn’t what I wanted, but it was something I could work with.

All around us, the snow started to move. It fell off of rooftops and clumped up into a muddy wave. The wave began to move. It crashed into the riders and their progress slowed dramatically. The corners of my eyes began to darken and my vision swam.

Everyone else took advantage of my manoeuvre, though. The militia formed up properly, and the priests organized themselves as well. I felt a hand seize my shoulder, shaking me gently.

“We should go, Taylor.” Maxime urged me.

“What about the attack?” I asked.

“Zombies usually don’t just raise themselves. There is probably a sorcerer or necromancer behind this. We should go look for them. We need to stop them first.” He asserted.

Trusting his intuition, I went along with his advice.

The pale light of the moon peeked out from between the clouds as we scaled the path back to the tower. We hurried along recklessly. In hindsight, we were lucky neither of us slipped and injured ourselves.

It was eerily quiet when we arrived. There were two more skeletons outside, but they were easily disposed of. There was nobody else around. When we reached the threshold, something felt different about the place. As if it no longer counted as a home. That was cause for concern. We entered the room.

In the armchair beside the fireplace, Morgaine’s corpse lay. Her side was badly scorched. Blood pooled on the ground beneath her feet, oozing out a wound from her chest. She looked anguished.

The soft murmur of voices could still be heard from above. The two of us started the ascent.

“The ma - it was - I was so angry.” Roland said.

“Your - attacked - is dead.” Olivier replied.

“It was her - told me we would never get - needed to raise the corpses. - you have to believe me.” Roland hissed.

“Taylor warned - regrets.” Olivier spoke mournfully.

“She - wake - spell is broken,” Roland said. “She… - know. Olivier, - help me. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

We were at the base of the stairs leading to the final floor. Their voices were much clearer now and could be easily heard. I was about to start the climb, when Max put his hand on my shoulder and quietly shook his head.

“What do you want me to do, Roland?” Olivier softly asked.

“Morgaine is dead, or good as,” Roland said. “And it was her idea from the start. We can tell people… Alisanne is the magistrate, and she trusts you. If you tell her it was all Morgaine she’ll believe it.”

There was a lull in the discussion. Olivier didn’t say anything. I looked at Max again, but he just shook his head.

“They need to talk this out without us, girlie,” he whispered to me.

“Trying to get rid of me, are you?” Roland accused. “Now that you have all you wanted, time to do away with the mage brother before you buy yourself a title. You owe me, Olivier. If you hadn’t taken her, I never would have-”

“It’s your fault,” Roland spat out. “You know it is.”

“I do,” Olivier quietly replied.

“You can’t have done this,” Olivier mused. “It would ruin it all.”

“Yes, exactly,” Roland agreed.

Whatever it was they were contemplating, I didn’t like the sound of it. I started to climb the stairs.

“There is a spell that could make her more suggestible when we wake her,” Roland told him. “Nothing untoward, just as if she’d had a large cup of wine. It would-”

“You should not have magic,” Olivier said.

“It should have been you, right?” Roland laughed. “You manage to go a great many years without saying it, brother. I’m almost impressed.”

“You have abused your power,” Olivier said slowly, as if testing out the words. “You no longer deserve to hold it.”

“I was born with it, Ollie,” Roland hissed. “There it is, the simple truth: I was born with it and you weren’t. And you’ve been trying to take things from me all my life to make up for that, but it won’t ever do anything because the Gods Above already decided which of us would matter when they gave the Talent to only one of us. Allow me to demonstrate-”

The world grew quiet for a moment, and then a Roland made a keening sound. I quickened my pace.

“What have you done?” Roland shouted. “What have you done, Olivier? Did you destroy my magic?”

“It’s over, Roland,” Olivier declared. “You won’t escape the consequences of this.”

Max and I reached the next floor, to see Roland standing beside a desk. He was simmering with rage. Olivier was lying against it, dazed.

“It will come back, if I kill you,” Roland seethed. “Won’t it?”

Olivier grabbed at his brother, as if to attempt to push him back. He failed, and his head was smashed against the desk once more.

Deciding the fight had gone on for long enough, I ran in, grabbing a chair with my hand as I went. I hurled. Spinning through the air, it hit Roland dead on, sending him tumbling to the ground. He landed beside what appeared to be the sleeping body of Alisanne. Both of them froze.

“Somebody had best explain what happened here.” I declared, fixing them both with a glare.

Olivier opened his mouth and I turned my attention his way. Before he could say anything, though, Roland cried out.

Alisanne was sitting up and had buried a knife in his heart.

Great.

“Max, separate those two. Can you heal Roland?” I ordered.

I kept my eyes trained on Olivier as I spoke, daring him to do anything.

“Roland is at fault. He raised the corpses and set them on the townsfolk. His plan was to take over and see himself declared as lord. He did not deserve his magic, and so I took it from him.” Olivier began to explain.

“You have developed a Name.” I stated, testing the word.

Names, as I understood it, were something like this world’s version of trigger events. I didn’t really know the specifics, information on them seemed to be frustratingly vague. The details were similar enough though that I couldn’t help but draw parallels.

Someone without powers undergoes some ordeal and then gains powers in the aftermath.

He smiled at me bitterly, but didn’t say anything.

Max raised his head. “This one’s beyond my skill with healing, Taylor,” he informed me.

“Are you here to tell me that you told me so?” Olivier asked.

I opened my mouth, about to reply, when I saw the warning glance from Max.

What would I be feeling right now, if I was Olivier?

I would be in shock. Upset, struggling to put together an answer for a problem that had no real solution. I changed what I was about to say.

“What do you want to do now?”

Max left the cooling corpse. Alisanne took the opportunity to run up and hug Olivier. Awkwardly, he hugged her back.

“It can’t have been him,” he stated.

“What can’t have been him?” I inquired. Whatever train his thoughts were following was on a different timetable to our own.

“The necromancy, the attack on the town. The story we tell cannot allow it to be him.”

“I thought you claimed he was the one who did it, earlier.” I pressed.

Is he in denial, or does he want to blame someone else?

“He did do it,” he agreed. “But we can’t tell people that.”

“And why is that?” I asked.

“Because if he takes the blame, this all falls apart. This refuge for wizards, all I have been trying to build up. If the townsfolk know that he is at fault, all of their prejudices will seem earned.” He explained.

“There is no denying it is his corpse here, how do you plan to spin this?” I asked.

He licked his lips thoughtfully, then raised his hand. Quickly, I watched him attempt to weave an illusion. It took him multiple tries, but eventually he got it done.

“No,” Alisanne quietly said. “No, please. Olivier, don’t do this. Don’t take his face.”

“Olivier de Beaumarais died,” he replied. “Slain along Lady Morgaine by the Praesi warlock who raised the dead and set them on the town and tower. He will be buried here.”

I tried to follow his logic, but didn’t see what he was trying to achieve.

“Roland de Beaumarais heroically drove back the Praesi but failed to kill him, and now pursues him to avenge his brother,” he continued. “He wills all his possessions to Alisanne Lassier, to dispose of as she sees fit, as he will never return to Beaumarais.”

It would serve to sell the lie, but I couldn’t see it doing anything else. His dream was still dead. Without him around, nobody would maintain the tower. It had been his project from top to bottom and now, like all dreams, it lay broken.

Before I could start speaking, Max’s hand settled gently on my shoulder.

His dream was dead, but telling him serves no purpose.

Though there was something else I could offer that would help.

“Max and I will come with you on this journey,” I declared.

“I don’t recall putting my ass on the line, girlie,” he stated, amused.

“So are you choosing to stay behind then?” I asked.

“I never said that, but I think I can speak for myself.”

Olivier looked like he was about to protest. I shut his mouth with a glare.

“This is the worst fight you have ever been in. For me, this isn’t even in my top ten. Of the three of us, you have the least experience. The two of us were already planning on leaving with you before all of this, so why not allow us to come along.”

“It will be dangerous-” he began.

“Max was a Fantassin, and I fought in a fair share of battles myself. Both of us have nobody who will miss us if we die. Neither of us mind the implied danger. The two of us understand the risks. You’re the one who doesn’t.” I cut him off.

Alisanne looked at me gratefully, then added her own thoughts. With her voice thrown in, it didn’t take long for him to change his mind.

Not an hour later and the three of us departed, riding out on horseback. If I had known how uncomfortable riding was before then, maybe I wouldn’t have left.