"To Be Chosen"

OF GODS AND MEN

Chapter 21: The Better Man

            The darkness lifted suddenly, but Tarsus expected it this time.  The light was blinding, yet as his eyes grew accustomed to it the blur of bright colors coalesced into yet another familiar scene.

            To the left and right of him were church pews made of solid stone.  Tarsus’s gaze flitted over them and fell onto the lush red carpet he stood on that ran down the aisle in between them.  He followed it to the head of the room, where a familiar dais itched at his memory.  He had an inkling that he knew where he was.

            That inkling turned into confirmation as he saw what was on the dais: the great stone statue of the GodKing Malthus, standing in his warlike pose with arms stretched over his head and hands gripping an absent weapon. 

Sunbeams fell across the statue, and Tarsus looked up to see the iron lattices that served as the ceiling of the cathedral, and the floor of the magnificent crystal dome that towered above.  The dome itself sparkled like a diamond, yet was clear as the surface of the Crystal Sea.  Tarsus remembered its beauty; how it seemed to invite the sun to shine on it and share divine light with disciples of Malthus inside.  Yet the fullness of such divinity was too much for mortals to comprehend, and so the latticework at its base served to distill what beauty it could.

“You are not fit for this place,” Tarsus heard a muffled voice say from behind him.

He turned to find the bared blade of a long sword screaming toward his face.  Tarsus ducked instinctively, shutting his eyes tight.  He waited in a darkness of his own making, crouched and alert.  A moment passed that felt like an hour, and he felt no pain.  His mind caught up to his intuition, and he realized that he had successfully ducked the attack. 

Revelation, however, became distraction.  As the thought of dodging danger occurred to him, a thundering force collided with his chest, knocking him onto his back.  Tarsus quickly brought one hand up to shield the spot where he had been struck, while his other hand instinctively grabbed the grip of the sword at his side.  He opened his eyes. 

Looming over Tarsus, large and commanding, was a knight in white armor.  On his head, he wore an enclosed helm and on either side he bore the sunstroke of Malthus at his pauldrons.  This was a knight of the KingsGuard, and he held his gleaming sword to Tarsus’s chest, its tip scraping the leather of the sunsword’s tunic.

“Drake,” Tarsus said between belabored breaths.

The knight raised his free hand and removed his helm.  Drake’s cold eyes bore into Tarsus from on high, surveying the fallen man as a mountain peak looks down on the river valley below it. 

“There are no more impulses to overcome,” Drake said with authority.  “No more goodbyes to say.  You have come to the end of this.  Defeat me, and the sword is yours to claim.”

Tarsus drew his own sword and batted Drake’s weapon away.  He struggled to get to his feet, using the side of a pew to lift himself.  It had been a few moments now since Drake had kicked him; time enough for him to regain his breath and adjust to the shock of the blow.  Yet the more time that passed; even instants, the more his pain increased.  Every new breath brought with it a fiercer burning than the one before.  It felt like his head was wrapped in a cotton sheet, drenched in oil; some air came through, but most of it held fast on the other side of a near impenetrable wall.

Drake lunged at him with an overhead strike.

Tarsus brought his sword up to parry, and managed to block his old friend’s attack for a second time.  But Drake did not stop.  Further back Tarsus was driven, constantly on the defensive. 

HORIZONTAL SLASH!

Tarsus threw his head backward, avoiding the oncoming strike altogether.

THRUST!

Tarsus brushed Drake’s blade to the left with his own sword.

SPIN STRIKE!

The sunsword brought his blade up to block his right side.

KICK!

Tarsus felt Drake’s boot connect with his chest for a second time, hurling him backward.  His feet slammed into the small step leading up to the dais, and Tarsus toppled onto the slightly elevated platform.  He used the momentum of his fall to roll further back, quickly abandoning the spot where he would have landed had he done nothing.  The small roll meant the difference between life and death - causing an overhead swing from Drake to crash into the wood of the dais rather than his chest.

Tarsus settled on his knees and breathed…or tried to breathe.  His chest was on fire, and it was becoming harder and harder to take in air.  More than that, he knew he could not win this fight.  Drake was always the better fighter: the better man…in every way.  Even at his best, it was all Tarsus could do to keep up with the captain of the KingsGuard.  Now, hurt and barely able to breathe, he stood less than no chance at all.

“I’m going to fail,” he thought.  “I’m going to die.”

“I thought you were different Sunsword,” Drake said as he stepped onto the dais.  “When we were children, I mean.  I thought you were like me: driven and motivated.  Or could be, at least, with some pushing.”

RUNNING CHARGE!

Tarsus pushed himself onto his side and rolled out of the way of Drake’s attack.

“You were the only one who seemed to understand what becoming a knight of the KingsGuard meant,” Drake went on, turning slowly to face his prey.

            Tarsus tried to retort, but all effort had to be focused on staying alive: which, in this case, meant getting as much air as possible.

            “Tis a calling,” Drake explained, answering the unasked question.  “Like entering the clergy, or leading a rebellion.  Those who desire this life…truly…can settle for nothing else.”

            BACK HAND!

            Tarsus fell back again, streams of blood falling from his gaping mouth.  The force of Drake’s strike pushed him off the dais, back onto the stone floor of the cathedral proper.  He managed to pull himself onto his feet, his sword raised ineffectually before him.

            Drake stood still on the dais, looking on Tarsus with those cold, calculating eyes.  There was no pity in his gaze for the man who was once a friend: for the man whom he grew up with, and played with, and trained with.  As Drake looked on a bruised and bloodied Tarsus who could barely stand…barely breathe…barely lift a sword, there was only one thing Tarsus could see clearly: disappointment.

            “Don’t…” Tarsus managed to sputter.

            “I wanted more of you,” Drake said.  “I wanted you to have desire for something greater than yourself; to reach for the unreachable, as I did.  But in the end, you chose you.”

            “Cecily,” Tarsus breathed out in little more than a whisper.

            “If only that were true,” Drake said as he took a step toward Tarsus.  “But you did not take up her quest for her, no matter what you tell yourself.”  Drake took another step closer.  “You came on this quest for yourself.  You wanted glory.  You wanted to be exalted above other men.”  Drake took a third step.  “That is what you never understood.  Glory and greatness are not the same.  I chose to chase greatness, because to be truly great means to forsake yourself and serve others.  I work, and I train, and I fight…for Malthanon.  For the GodKing, and the KingsGuard.  For you and Finnian and every other living soul in Briarden.”

            Drake took a final step off of the dais and pushed Tarsus’s sword gently toward the floor.  He stepped in close and put a hand on Tarsus’s shoulder.

            stab.

            Tarsus felt the blade push through his belly, travel deeper into his gut, and pierce his back coming out the other side.  He softly exhaled what little breath remained in his body.

            Drake brought his mouth to Tarsus’s ear.  “To do is to be, and every moment of every day allows you to be what you do.  Now you die, Tarsus Cole.  Having done nothing.  Having been no one.  The few who loved you will eventually forget you, and you will pass from Arden leaving no footprint in the sands of time.”

            Tears stained the eyes of Tarsus Cole.  There were not many; his body had precious little left to give now. 

But his spirit was another matter.  It stormed with a torrent of emotions that he could not share for sheer exhaustion.  The anger at Drake’s self-righteousness – the heartbreak of his own failure – the guilt of choosing himself at every turn – these all railed inside of him with full furor.

            But there was something else inside of him: the only thing left to those who have lost everything.  There was resolve.

            “Goodbye my friend,” Tarsus heard Drake say.  “I wish this could have ended differently.”

            “It will…” Tarsus whispered.

            STAB.

            Tarsus found the weakest spot on Drake’s chest plate and pushed his sword through.  In fits, Tarsus forced the blade deeper and deeper into the body of Drake Mathix; pushing into the stomach, past bone and flesh, and stopping at the back.  He breathed in, and with the last of his strength he forced his sword through Drake’s back.

            There, in the cathedral of Malthus under the heavenly rays of the sun, two friends stood dying in each other’s arms, bound by the blades of one another.

            Tarsus let his head collapse then, onto the pauldron of his old friend.  He could not keep his eyes open, and before his mind could catch up with his intuition, it faded.  He faded…into oblivion.