The old man sits, his white hair matted with nervous sweat, his veined hands trembling. He used to be a fighter, I can see, even through his drawn, lined face and his bony arms.
He is a king aged and worn, doomed to be uncrowned before the doom that befalls us all takes him. He used to be a father, and even through this mask of solid marble he sees I understand.
His hands shake; mine are clenched fists that still bear the burn of his plea. He is done pleading. He waits. I stand.
I should have killed him the moment he dared to touch me. How dare he enter this tent, kiss my hands, and open his mouth to speak! How dare he draw breath in my presence still, knowing who I am and what I have done!
Who is he? An old man already crushed, defeated. A man who has come to beg for a rotting corpse. A fabled king, already fallen. Fallen, like all the men who have dared face me, fallen before I even deal the killing blow.
When mortality sighs and seeps away by the edge of my sword, the feeling is always the same. Defeat. Perhaps that is why this demon resides within me, the one that sleeps now and wakes at the dawn of battle, whispering with each stroke and swing of the sword and spear, laughing when my aim is true and men fall like trimmed wheat before me. Perhaps the defeat that I see in every foe's eyes is what drives that demon to whisper faster and laugh less each time, and the words are always the same. Immortality. In this world of mortals who are born into open graves, who dares to stand and grasp the hand of the gods, or die trying? Is there no one?
And the answer is always the same. No one.
And so this old man begging for his dead son almost drives me to madness. The whispers are like screams of spears and arrows in my head, asking, asking, answering, answering, demanding. This is madness, that I should allow this dying king any quarter over me. He is just like the rest of them, doomed as soon as they lay eyes on me, marked for death once I return their stare. In this timeless contest where I am always the victor, have I not destroyed the very fibers of the game? Can the beauty of this mortal life still be as great and wondrous as I claim, if there is and always will be no one?
Not one man has faced me without fear, without some terrible knowledge of his death by my hand. No one.
"Do you really think death frightens me now?"
But this old man—he is not afraid. He fears neither me nor death, which are one and the same. He waits. He knows his mortality, embraces it with every tick of his frail heart. And he has come into the heart of an enemy forty-thousand strong, and does not falter.
My mask almost slips then, and I turn away from those piercing eyes on that gaunt face. The calm of desperation has made this man the most honorable enemy of all the men who have faced me.
No. He is not the only honorable one.
"Meet me outside in a moment," I say, and move outside before my face betrays me further.
The body is there where I left it, wrapped in an old black sail. My fingers are shaking now as I uncover the face of the prince of Troy.
His name rings through my head as I turn my eyes away from the rotting, maggot-infested flesh of his mangled face. I hear my own voice, bellowing at the gates of a silent city, waiting for him to come out from its walls with just his name and a sword.
I did not even weep for Patroclus.
And with that one thought, the poisoned rage that had been tearing at me inside dissipates like a final burst of flame before a fire dies. Were my cousin alive, would I even allow him to see what I did in his name after his death? No…
No. Because it was not in his name. It was in mine, as every battle and reckless charge has always been.
I bow my head and let the tears fall on the black, bloodstained shroud. What am I but a mortal, like this dead man here once was, like Patroclus, like Menelaus, like every single soldier sent to Hades by my hand. What am I but a name. Achilles. If it is engraved in the histories of kings, and still remembered a thousand years from now…what use have I for it? I will have no memory and no need for a name at all. What am I…
"We'll meet again soon."
I cover his face.
"My brother."
I sit for a while longer, listening to the crackling of fires burning low and the steady lilt of the waves on the shore. The old man is waiting. I stand and go to meet him.