Lee Sin and Kindred
He stopped to listen.
Lee Sin had felt magic before. He'd borne the brunt of it more times than he could count. He'd fought through the midst of battlefields ravaged by it. And he'd wielded it himself, as he well remembered.
But for all the magic that had been in his life, he had never felt anything like this. This silence.
He stood in a deep mountain forest near the border of the Freljord. The day before, it had snowed. The ground was thick with the white, the trees heavy.
To Lee Sin, 'silence' was a word that other people used, an illusion created by those whose senses were closed. The truth was that in this bustling world, now matter how quiet it might seem, there was always something there to hear. Hiding in the silence, the serenity, that other people thought they heard, there was always a verb that was other than being, which, to the man who really listened, gave the lie.
Thump.
Thump, thump.
With each fresh load of snow falling from high branch, with each heavy footstep, the quiet seemed to grow deeper. As though, somehow, the noise itself augmented it.
He breathed in, and then out, listening to the slow, rhythmic, ever-present pulsing of his own body.
He would never experience the total absence of sound. But silence, he realised suddenly, was a feeling. It came from you, not only from without.
His senses expanded, drinking blissfully from the well of emptiness.
It was in that first true silence that he felt it. A presence.
At once, he realised that it had always been there, that he had always been aware of it in some way. Only he had never had the chance to perceive it. Like a shadow hiding in the shade of the clouds. Suddenly, for the first time, the clouds were gone, and the shadow remained.
"Come and talk with me," Lee Sin spoke quietly into the trees.
The answer came, and the voice with which it was spoken seemed almost to speak into him. He heard it not with his ears, and he could not tell from whence it came. But he realised suddenly that he knew it, or he knew the two halves of it. The one that was soft and gentle, the other that was hard and sharp.
"We have spoken with you once before, Absolved."
There was another thump as, like a drop of dew slipping from a petal, a fresh load of snow fell to the forest floor.
Lee Sin waited for a long time, but the Kindred did not speak again.
He began to walk, his bound feet crunching softly. The village that he had been sent to investigate was not far away now.
"You are one now," Lee Sin whispered into the air, knowing that he would be heard, "You were not before."
"It is not only We who have changed," came the reply.
As he walked, he became aware of the magical emanations of which he had been warned. They came like a chill setting suddenly into the heart, and he knew at once that the Council had been right to send him.
He began to rouse his body, sending warmth from his centre through to the extremities, preparing them for the battle which he by no means desired, but which he now knew to be inevitable.
The words of the Kindred remained. And Lee Sin remembered.
The flames blazed fiercely about him once again. Again his nostrils were filled with the terrible stench of his own flesh burning. His physical body screamed, endlessly screamed.
He remembered the long conversation he had then with Death, with the Kindred.
His path turned upwards, and he climbed, sliding easily between the cold, sharp branches of sleeping trees. He was close, now.
He reached the summit, and the village lay before him, a ramshackle collection of buildings constructed of wood, with frozen hide layered without for added protection against the elements.
It was too quiet. They were waiting for him.
Knowing that there was no need now for stealth, Lee Sin treaded his way calmly down the slope. As he entered the midst of the buildings, he was acutely aware of eyes watching him secretly, even, he felt, fearfully. Perhaps there was still some hope, then.
A figure waited for him in the cleared centre of the village. By the sound of his breathing, he was a man, but Lee Sin could not smell him. A servant of the Cold, then. His body would be formed as much of ice as of flesh.
"She said that they would send a warrior," grated the man as Lee Sin approached, his voice like glaciers grinding against stone cliffs.
"She sends her greetings."
Something stirred beneath the snow.
Immediately, Lee Sin bunched his legs and leaped. As he did so, the ground where he had been standing erupted.
Even as he sailed through the air, he began to hum. His mental image of his surroundings grew crisp and clear.
Snow and ice filled the air, and in the midst of the storm a colossal shape reared.
He landed lightly on the roof of the village hall.
Ice giant, he thought, coolly.
Between its enormous legs, smaller figures emerged. Human, but so far gone in their devotion to Lissandra as to be almost completely one with the Ice. In their frigid hands they carried wicked spears and bucklers.
No expression showed on Lee Sin's face. He made his decision immediately. Deal with the biggest problem first.
He felt the Kindred at his shoulder.
Once more, he jumped. The giant was looking around, searching for him, its vision clouded by the falling snow that it itself had thrown into the air.
He landed on its smooth head. Without pause, he knelt, and unleashed a flurry of punches. If he could destroy the head, he knew, then the creature's animating force would dissipate.
His fists, trained over hard years, scarcely cracked the surface.
A huge hand cast its shadow, descended towards him.
And grasped at nothing.
Lee Sin ran with fleet feet along the giant's arm. At the elbow he jumped, and flew, foot first, towards a small house. There was a crack, and he punctured the wall.
He rolled, and came up in a surprisingly warm, comfortable room. A family of terrified eyes regarded him from one corner. He felt their fear.
"Go below," said the Blind Monk, knowing that every building in the Freljord was built with a deep cellar, to which the inhabitants could retreat in the case of ice storms, some of which could rip houses to pieces in a matter of minutes.
Something about the calmness of his voice, the underlying current of goodwill and kindness, evident to them even in their petrified state, roused the villagers. The father stepped forward, and tore a great bearskin from the floor. The trapdoor into the earth lifted outwards. He ushered his family through, and disappeared beneath.
The first of the Witch's thralls leaped, with inhuman agility, through the gap in the wall that Lee Sin had left. It came for him, and behind it others of its companions piled through as well.
It was the work of a moment. Lee Sin became aware of a faint whistling. A small smile twitched on his face. He jumped backwards, and disappeared through the trapdoor.
The giant's fist crunched down and obliterated the house, along with its unfortunate allies.
Lee Sin descended into the depths. There was a shuddering, as the giant rained down more blows against the frozen earth. The cellar would not last long in the face of such treatment: it would only be a matter of time before the roof caved in.
But he knew that the cellars would be connected to one another, in an intricate underground system. In the Freljord, no family would ever be trapped beneath the wreckage of their home. It was just another testament to the remarkable tenacity and ingenuity of these people.
Lee Sin heard the retreating footsteps of the family to his left. He would protect them by heading another way. The thralls would sense him, and follow him. He went right.
The depths of the earth were quiet.
"You know the true nature of Death, Absolved," spoke the Kindred. "You have tasted it, as none but we have tasted it."
The moment roared back at him. Teetering with one foot over the abyss. Not knowing whether he would choose to fall. He felt again the fear of Death, the Wolf. And he felt again the peace that it would bring, the Lamb.
Every shred of his physical form had begged for Death, for release. But something in him had been stronger even than that desire. Something that glowed at the core of him, keeping the darkness at bay.
It was compassion. A compassion that was growing in him even as his corporeal form burned away. It was growing beyond the wish merely to atone for his crime. It was greater than that. It was for its own sake.
He had stepped the other way.
"With you we can be one, as we were meant to be."
There was movement in the tunnel behind him. He turned to face it.
They came in a fury, and he met them. A spear tip shot towards his chest, but he deflected it easily, and his elbow caved in the ribs of his attacker. As it fell, he stepped left, avoiding another thrust. He shattered a buckler with a roundhouse kick, his foot crashing unimpeded through it and into the head of its wielder.
As they died, the Cold in the hearts of the thralls fled, and with their last breaths they breathed a sigh of relief. They lay back and gave in to the blessed dark, Lamb's feathered shaft nestled in their breasts.
He fought and fought, and at last the tide of assailants waned, and ended. He stood in the midst of Death, and took a long breath, a prayer for those whose demise he had wrought.
There was a distant scream. He understood immediately. With the thralls eliminated the servant of the Witch would set the giant on the villagers to draw him out.
Of course, there was no question but that it would work.
Lee Sin set off at a run. He found a trapdoor easily, and burst through it, into daylight.
The giant turned to face him. A lifeless figure fell, bonelessly, from its enormous hand.
It began to stride towards him.
Debris from the door pattering to the ground around him, Lee Sin reached behind him, and dipped his hands into the pouch at his waist.
Yes. He had chosen to live, to endure for the sake of others.
And he was not ready to meet Death just yet.
He began to run towards the giant, feet so light as to barely mark the snow as he passed.
His fists burst into blue flame, and he leaped.
Lee Sin stood in the silent forest.
"I understood, then," he said, remembering, his voice barely a murmur. "In Death there is always some fear, some uncertainty. It never goes away. But it is in accepting that fear and choosing to go on all the same that peace is born…
"Like light and dark, the Lamb is inseparable from the Wolf, and the Wolf from the Lamb."
He smiled, and he held out his calloused, scarred hand, palm to the sky.
"Yes, Kindred, with me you can be whole."
A faint touch, a slight weight. Only for a moment, and then it was gone, like it had never been.
But Lee Sin was not alone. He knew that he had never been alone.
And, until his body returned to the earth, he never would be.