Aid

OF GODS AND MEN

Chapter 36: A Phantom Debate

            Tarsus stood atop the crown of Malthus’s spire; the spire that rose so high off the cathedral base that it pierced the clouds in the sky.  Through the patchwork aerial quilt of blue and white, he caught glimpses of Malthanon underneath; the grand city glittering in the rays of sunlight that managed to find their way to the world below.

            In his entire life as a mortal, Tarsus Cole never imagined he’d look upon this city from a height so far away.  Back then, he was mesmerized by the enormity of it.  Not only was the city large, but it housed so many different people from so many different places; yet here is where they chose to call home. 

Now, though, it looked small: like a child’s toy.  Tarsus thought of Malthus shaping it, building it…like a meticulous collector, passionately constructing a model he was only ever going to lose interest in.  He thought of Cecily, relentless in her pursuit to save the city and her GodKing, only to die before she could succeed.  He felt the weight of the responsibility he had inherited, and awe spread over him as he considered it against the vow he had just sworn to Malmira; a vow he had every intention of keeping.

He lowered his gaze from the natural wonder before him, focusing instead on what he held in his hands.  He found the last vestige of the handle, crossguard, and shattered blade that had been the GodKing’s sword.  Malthir, once a shining beacon of its master’s power, now lay lifeless in his upturned palms: a shadow remnant of a dead regime.

The broken blade suddenly felt heavy.  Tarsus let his hands fall to resting, still clutching the fractured legacy he was meant to rebuild.

“Forget this foolish pledge of retribution,” a strange voice echoed from inside his mind.  As he looked down, a ball of light flew from his chest.  He followed it as it floated directly, purposefully, to a  spot a few paces away.  Then, the light took shape; a familiar frame, depicting a woman that Tarsus once knew.  Her face formed before him, clear and strong and aglow with purpose.  “You must reforge the sword, and take your rightful place as GodKing of this city,” the shade of Cecily Thorne commanded.

“But that is no fun at all,” another familiar voice sounded.  Another ball of light flew forth from Tarsus’s chest, though more meandering and lackadaisical than the first.  After indulging in its own flight for a few moments, casting spectral shapes in the air behind it until it found its mark, it too took shape.  A young man with playful eyes looked back at him.  “The power has cost you everything.  You deserve justice,” the shade of Finnian Pell denounced.

Tarsus looked from one specter to the other, back and forth, considering these glowing ghosts and their purpose for intervening.  He noticed the two of them only had eyes for him, not once looking in the direction of one another.  Yet they knew of each other – of that, Tarsus Cole was absolutely certain.  “Neither diminished life, nor exhaustive death can silence the two of you,” Tarsus said out loud to them.

“I am the power,” Cecily proclaimed ethereally, “overflowing inside of you.”

“Well, I’m no great power,” Finnian admitted saucily.  “Nothing so grand about me.  I’m just your…”

“I know what you are,” Tarsus interrupted.

“Then you know how much you need me,” Finnian jeered as that all-too familiar, easy smile from Tarsus’s memory spread across the phantom face.

“I do,” Tarsus agreed, offering his own smile back.

“Whatever you used to need, you do not any longer,” the hard voice of Cecily rang out.  “You have me.  I can sustain you, fuel you…for I am you, now.”

“I know that full well,” Tarsus returned.

“Then do what you are meant to.  What we are meant to,” Cecily said.  “Do your divine duty.”

“Why?” Finnian retorted.  “What does duty matter?  Duty is what led you here…alone and forgotten.  That is not fair.”

“Twas not simple duty that stranded you in the middle of the ocean of divinity,” Cecily argued.  “Your selfishness played a part.  Cecily should have been the one to take the GodKing’s place, but because of Adulatio you now stand in her stead.  Would you sully her memory by denying her the legacy she wished to leave behind?”

“But even Cecily was a pawn of the gods,” Finnian added.  “Malthus only wanted relief from his suffering.  He didn’t care who suffered in his place, so long as he was freed.  And Adulatio and that dark figure have something even more sinister planned.  You know this.  So long as the gods rule over men, and the power rules over the gods, no one is free.”

“The power has no will of its own,” Cecily corrected.  “My sole purpose is to serve my host.  And now, I serve you, Tarsus Cole.”

“So even the power is a slave,” Finnian jeered.

“I do what I am meant to,” Cecily said, her flat ethereal austerity seeming to falter slightly.  “Beyond that, I have no interest in what I am not meant to know.  And what made us, Tarsus Cole…is not meant for us to know.”

“It is meant for us to know!” Tarsus roared, a sleeping tiger awoken by a thistle’s prick.  “So long as we choose to ask.”

Cecily did not talk back, and from the corner of his eye Tarsus caught a glimmer of the light of Finnian Pell, shining more brightly than it had since taking shape.  He suddenly felt the warmth of Finnian’s approval, emanating from the shining face of the luminous imitation, and he was emboldened.

            “In the end, we defended a GodKing who had grown fat on his own power,” Tarsus charged.  “So fat, in fact, that for a thousand years he closed himself off in his tower...removed from friendship, companionship, even the worship of his own city.  All he wanted, all he craved, was to hoard his godhood for himself; like a dragon brooding over a treasure hoard.”

            “It is no secret that Malthus failed as both god and king,” Cecily replied coolly, “in every way.  Which is why he was made to suffer, and why you must not make the same mistakes.”

            “But can you do what Malthus could not?” Finnian asked bitingly.  “Should you be expected to?  The time of the gods helping men has long past.  Now they do as they wish, when they wish.  Why should you do any differently?”

            “The dark robed one may come for you,” Cecily proffered.

            “He hasn’t come for the others,” Finnian rebutted.

            “Lesser gods,” Cecily shot back.

            “Merrier gods,” Finnian retorted.

            “Enough,” Tarsus barked, turning an intent glare, on fire with purpose, to the phantom Finnian.  “I have no wish to follow in the footsteps of Malthus.  I want the people of Malthanon to thrive.  And I want to help them do so.  But I won’t stop there.  I will remember the people that Malthus forgot.  The people of Briarden, and Laros, and Goshen…I can help them all.”

            The ethereal form of Cecily nodded approvingly.  Tarsus turned back to face the pale lady, meeting her stern austerity with a cavalier grin worthy of the living Finnian Pell.  “But neither can I ignore the injustice of the gods on this world.  Of the elder forces on the gods.  They expected our mindless servitude, but to serve is to trust, and no trust should be given blindly.” 

            He took a breath.  His anger was growing so large that the pit of his stomach was on fire with the power, searching for a way out of him just for the sake of doing something.  Tarsus steadied it, locking eyes with Cecily and staying focused on her. 

“Something took you both away from me,” he continued, “and I will shake the very foundations of Heaven to learn what that was…and to see it punished.”

            “Even with all your power,” Cecily began, “you are no match for the elder forces.  They made the power.  They choose who wields it.  You are but an infant to them, opening your eyes to a world they have mastered long ago.”

            Tarsus turned from the specter of Cecily, placing a hand on the rampart and looking out onto a sea of clouds.  What had been a patchwork of white and blue only a moment ago had now been filled in with more solid, grey rainclouds; and with that turn of the weather, the city of Malthanon had disappeared.

            Tarsus knew that Cecily’s shade was right.  What’s more, she and Finnian knew that he knew that she was right.  They were pieces of him, and not one of them could now know something without all three of them knowing it.  As a resounding acknowledgement of that truth, Tarsus turned back to Finnian’s waiting eyes, and the hope that he had always seen there; the cavalier spirit that always made him feel that anything was possible; was replaced by the cold severity of Cecily’s warning.

            “It is hopeless,” the emotionless voice of Cecily decreed: a judgment, sentencing the three of them to this simple, static, unbending truth.

            And then the phantom Finnian cocked his head to one side, and what he said without speaking, was clear.  And that severity in his eyes; Cecily’s severity, wasn’t there any longer.

            Tarsus smiled.

            “We’ve been told that before,” Tarsus said.  “Told we’d never find the UnderIsle.  Told we were not worthy to recover Malthir.  Doomed to die with the GodKing in a plot hatched by elder forces, far and away much greater than ourselves.  Perfect forces that are infallible…or so we were told.”

            Tarsus turned back to Cecily.  The pale lady’s severity was softened by raised eyebrows of understanding.  She knew where he was headed.

            “We were only mortals then,” he punctuated.  “Not now.  Now, we’re…”

            “You,” the phantom Cecily clarified.

            “Me,” Tarsus reluctantly agreed.  “With the both of you as a part of me.  I am a god now.  Gifted with the power the do the impossible.”

            Tarsus looked back at Finnian.  His friend’s illumined face shone brighter for the wide smile it wore.

            “We can serve this realm as GodKing…for now.  While we search for the source of this power.  And once we find it, we’ll rid Arden of it entirely,” Tarsus proclaimed.  “For no man or woman should live in slavery.  We will free them, and ourselves, from bondage of the elder forces.  Even if those forces think our quest hopeless…especially because they believe it is hopeless.  We have proven them wrong before, and we can do so again.”

            For the first time since they manifested, neither phantom had anything to say.  They both seemed at a loss for words.  In fact, they were – Tarsus knew that.  So it fell to him…

            “There is always hope!”