MASK OF THE CHILD
A Dark Souls fanfiction by MungoJerry
- Chapter 4 -
Gough
When Ciaran's trio neared the colliseum once again, there appeared to be some sort of commotion amongst a portion of the people she had sent to find Gough. They were gathered in the ruins. When she approached they stilled, and one of the healers approached her, running and nearly stumbling.
"My Lady!" she cried.
Ciaran's heart sank. "Be calm. Take a moment to collect yourself," the girl was young, and appeared near weeping, "Honor the Godmother with your bravery." Ciaran quietly cursed the princess Gwynevere in her heart for abandoning her people. "Tell me what's happened." She glanced at the knights, who refused to meet her gaze.
"Lady Ciaran, we found Master Gough!" the young woman clutched at her talisman, knuckles white.
"Has he…" Ciaran didn't finish.
"We found him in a tower up the stairs. Oh, my Lady, he's alive!"
Ciaran felt a wash of relief, then asked, "Then why are you so upset? Is he not responding to healing?" How badly was he injured? Could he not move? What if he'd been attacked by Artorias?
How had he been so near for so long?
"He seems to suffer a blindness that won't be healed," the healer collected herself, "but otherwise seems of sound body."
"Where is he?" The blindness sounded worrying, but Ciaran needed to speak to him at once.
The knights again shuffled uncomfortably, and the healer seemed ready to cry again.
"He… he won't come with us!"
Ciaran thought perhaps she had misheard. "What."
The healer covered her mouth, and one of the knights moved forward to rest a hand on her shoulder. The white robed maiden tried to continue, "He, he said…"
When she trailed off the knight turned and finished for her, "My Lady… Master Gough insists on staying in Oolacile."
"He won't be moved!" another knight piped up.
"We tried everything to convince him, Lady Ciaran," the first knight said. He hesitated, appearing to swallow, "I believe he is… ah.."
Ciaran held up a hand to stop him. She didn't need to hear anymore. "Where is he?"
The knights directed her up a flight of stairs, to the forced-open door of a crumbling tower. A few knights and handmaidens stood on solemn watch outside, refusing to leave their master. Ciaran sent them downstairs to the others, then collected herself and stepped through the mossy doorway, wondering briefly how Gough had managed to come to this place. He must've climbed the walls. The height would've given him a hunter's vantage across the landscape, a clear view of the sky, as he watched for wicked black wings.
It was said the fearsome Kalameet was the last of the true dragons. She and the caravan had seen no sign of him- it was part of the reason she'd come thusly prepared. Had Gough felled him after all, his final hunt over?
The giant knight sat amid a pile of stones and gear, looking more weatherbeaten than she was used to. The tough hide of his arms looked cracked and dry in places, and his armor needed cleaning. Something seemed to have flowed out of the eye holes of his deeply grooved helmet, or was it over them? He held a blade in one hand, small enough in his hands, and carved at a rock. The sound of scraping filled the space as she stood there.
She opened her mouth to speak several times, clenching her fists, feeling a different emotion fuel each attempt- anger, frustration, bewilderment- before giving up. She stepped closer and lowered herself to her knees, resting her hands on her thighs with a sigh, and watched him carve. The material was more wood than stone, she realized, and Gough artfully carved the lump into something more suggestive than representative, somehow managing to make it appear gloomy.
He found a kindred spirit with the Giant Blacksmith for more reasons than a shared heritage.
She stared at her metal scaled hands for a while, idly smoothing the hem of her robes, before she tried to speak again, but she was interrupted.
"You did not choose the brightest for your squad," she could practically feel his deep voice in her bones.
She had not expected that. "What?"
He stopped carving and reached up a forefinger to tap at the eye-holes of this helmet, implying the source of his supposed blindness. Ciaran stood up and looked closer as Gough leaned down- some kind of hardened, amber colored material had been poured over his helmet and left to cool. It looked like some attempt had been made to clear it, but it was a poor one.
"Resin?" she asked, "How did this happen?" She didn't bother to ask why he hadn't taken care of it properly- Ciaran knew well his vow to never remove the helmet Lord Gwyn had bestowed. Perhaps it could be melted off?
Did it matter all that much? She had long suspected he didn't make much use of his sight as one supposed. Not in a helmet like that, anyway.
"A little bit before the situation matured, someone- I suspect young miscreants, gods have mercy on their souls- must've poured it on my helm as I soundly slept."
She sat back down, "You're getting old, then. Maybe I really should leave you up here."
"Do you have hopes of convincing me otherwise?"
"Maybe."
"Hah!" he barked a laugh. Anyone unfamiliar with him would've started at the sound. As it was, he disturbed what few birds remained in the nearby trees into flight.
"I suppose I should expect nothing less," he began carving again, "I've been out here for a great while, you know. Even before this current misfortune."
Ciaran knew that. It was Gough who'd alerted Anor Londo that something was amiss, and when Princess Dusk herself sent for aide, they'd responded quickly.
They'd sent Artorias.
"Is it restful out here?" Away from the city, barracks, monarchs.
"It was." He stopped carving again. "I know it matters not, but I am sorry all the same for all that has happened. I was- I am- utterly powerless before the things you now choose to face."
Ciaran looked down at her hands before getting up and sitting down closer to Gough, leaning against her gentle friend. As wise and stoic as Hawkeye Gough was, she could not imagine what it must have been like for so many days, bearing witness to the city's decay. Hearing Artorias suffer.
"Put such things out of your mind. Even your shoulders aren't broad enough to carry their weight." Even if some irrational part of her did want to blame him for not trying, and for that she hated herself.
"You should go home," he said gently, "he'll need you there." All of them did.
"I can't."
"He said the same thing."
She turned away as if struck, then stood abruptly and stalked to the rampart, staring into the crumbling city and the great chasm below.
"We must ascertain the fate of our ally, the princess."
"He said that, too, more or less."
"I have to see it for myself," she said in a harsh, almost whisper, gripping the edge of the stone wall.
Gough set his tools down and straightened, restings his hands on his knees.
"Gough," she turned back to him, "you must have heard what happened, even if you couldn't see it directly. You must know something."
The great, helmed head seemed to sag slightly before meeting her general gaze again. "So, it would seem this, too, is another of my sins. I should not have suffered the girl's whimsy so patiently. But, what else could I do?"
"You knew her," it was a statement, not a question. It seemed everyone here had known her. What should've been seen as a boon managed to annoy.
"Yes. It was she who made this poor attempt at restoring my sight," he tapped his helmet again, "I implored she... end Artorias's suffering, but her will was her own. It seems the fruit of human stubbornness is fearsome, indeed."
End his suffering. The thought chilled her. "You really think she could've done it?" She found the idea offensive.
"Yes. She was an undead on a journey, and such undead grow powerful if they do not hollow. Hrm..." at this last he rumbled.
"You do not think she was the sort Master Gwyndolin and that awful serpent spoke of, do you?" she and her fellow blades- those that remained- had heard rumors of it in snatches- a farseeing plan that involved the winnowing of powerful undead humans. Details were murky, but what suggestions there were painted a loathsome picture. Sometimes, deep in the night, the suspicion would return to haunt her. Even a faint feeling of misplaced shame who's origin she couldn't place. But this supposed plan was supposed to extend beyond her own long lifetime.
Perhaps Gough had the right of it after all, retiring out here.
"A powerful, undead human," she said it more to herself than Gough, stepping slowly along the rampart wall, trailing the claws of her gauntlet across the lichen. If undead grew powerful enough, retained their sanity long enough, was that what became of them? Elizabeth had supposed the woman had found some other way, a dangerous option to the predicament that had presented itself, but what if it was just a key to some lock that all humans had bound up in themselves? Was it not this that Lord Gwyn himself had feared, sacrificed himself to quell?
But she was dancing around her real question, the suspicion lurking purposefully out of sight, because she wasn't sure what to do with the answer. So she deferred to practicalities.
"Gough, what else can you tell me? If my party faces… her again.." she trailed off.
Gough sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck, "As a wandering undead warrior, she appeared to have acquired many talents, but knowing them wouldn't help you, facing her as she is now. If I had to guess, I would suppose that she may have succeeded where these doomed souls of Oolacile had failed."
"Succeeded?" Ciaran stepped closer to him, hands at her side, "At what?"
"Harnessing their... humanity. To their own ends," he grunted at the last, "Ends indeed…"
Then, it was as she feared? She decided it didn't matter anymore. She stepped up to Gough and rested both hands on his enormous one.
"Gough, promise me you'll return to Anor Londo. They'll need you, too." Artorias and Ornstein, those who remained in the kingdom. She gazed up at him, "Please?"
He slightly tightened his fingers and brushed a thumb lightly over her gauntlets, "If you yourself return, then I will consider it."
She gripped the flesh of his hand harder, "Then, I will see you again soon, my friend." She patted the hand and turned, walking purposefully for the door, as if to resolve how she would purposefully return through it. Despite the obvious risk, there was no point in consciencing failure. When she reached the doorway Ciaran stopped and turned, "Hawkeye, what of Kalameet? I've seen no sign of him since arriving."
Gough stared at her for a moment, then began to laugh quietly, slapping his knee once and ending in a few barks she could feel in her chest. "Ahhh… hah. Haaah… I dare say I proffered assistance, but to tell it plainly-"
Ciaran stared, taken aback by his sudden mirth.
"She slew him."
Ciaran paused briefly at the threshold of the colliseum before descending the stairs into the rest of the Township. She stood at the lip of the chasm swallowing the town, considering what lay below, wondering how big a fool she was for going. If she should have brought more men. Or less.
More knights wouldn't have helped against that creature. She shuddered involuntarily and turned back to the three knights at her back. If she ordered them to return, would they even go?
Gough said the woman had slain Kalameet. She'd practically stalked away, Gough's chuckling chasing her down the stairs. Impossible. One undead against the thorn of Anor Londo? If it was true, she should be pleased at the death of their longtime enemy, but she resented the undead's apparent power.
Then again, being undead merely meant you had the double-edged luxury of learning from your mortal mistakes. Ciaran wondered how many tries it must have taken her.
"Come," she gestured to her party, "We must ascertain the fate of Princess Dusk and the monster of the Abyss."
They moved quickly through the township's stumbling, skewed architecture, passing walls covered in dying creeper. Wordless, Ciaran made short work of the bloated horrors as they passed through. She took point- one of the knights providing ranged support with a dragonbow, the other played defense with a spear and heavy shield, and the third brandishing a longsword. Stone arrows splattered cancerous skulls, pierced the gleaming eyes of hexing witches. Tracers cleanly separated thigh from hip. Spear and blade ripped into lanky shoulders.
After dispatching one group, Ciaran looked more closely at the disjointed bricks beneath her feet. She'd stepped in something. Crouching down, she reached a shaking hand toward the tacky blue substance. Almost touching it, she could feel the cold reaching through her gauntlets. It was a trail of the familiar blue ichor, she realized. Two trails. One older, heading to the colliseum, and the other moving further into town. Down. The knowledge of the older's origin squeezed her heart, and a wave of fear threatened to break.
Artorias had been suffused with this wicked material. If even Artorias- a warrior of unbending will- had met defeat below, what did that bode for her small party? She held in a sigh and straightened. He had always been bull-headed, on his own at least.
She would just have to be wiser. They weren't there to engage. If they could retrieve Dusk, they would. If not...
"My Lady…" one of the knights caught her attention and turned to stare into the town behind them. "We are being followed."
Now she did sigh. She thought as much. That possibility was one of the more convincing reasons to bring the knights. Not that she couldn't deal with the dark cloaked man on her own, but even she was not immune to being distracted and taken by surprise.
Perhaps she should've killed him, after all.
"Stay focused for now. If he becomes a problem, we'll deal with him."
They moved on, spiraling deeper into the sunken ruin.
It was not that Dusk wasn't afraid. The animal desire to live cried out, protesting at her predicament, blinding her senses as shifting layers of angry darkness, like rough fur, enfolded her. Dusk had always been an empathetic child, Elizabeth had said. It was what enabled her to rule with such a fair and sensitive hand. But she knew her sort of understanding went beyond what was normal.
So it wasn't fear, now, that drove her into a fetal position- crushing her legs to her chest, chin tucked and soaked with tears- but sorrow. Nostalgia. Urgent, obsessive need.
Loneliness.
Raw, sharp emotions stripped her heart bare until they were all she knew, as if she were an empty vessel who existed only to house them. Time was counted in the variation in their spectrum.
So she felt every subtle contour of twisting confusion as it passed through Manus in waves, at the appearance of the lights like dim green stars in the cavern. The lights were dispersed through the body of a creature, its form subtly mirroring that of the beast. A mane of thick, waving filaments lined a head with an elongated jaw. The eyes were clusters of blue-green, pin-prick rosettes scattered across the head.
Manus roared in challenge, tail lashing, and the other answered in a guttering cry, shaking its head. All other abstractions were stilled in the presence of the newcomer. They approached each other, circling, spiraling closer and closer til they were cheek to cheek, heads low. The beast- Manus's- jaws slowly opened, emitting a low whine as his myriad red eyes glowed bright. He inhaled his glowing reflection's scent, taking its measure, readying the dark power of the abyss. He snorted, stamped a twisted staff the size of a small tree.
He halted in recognition.
Not alone. Another. Another. Begat of the dark. Manus's head cocked as he read the nature of his visitor.
Female.
The nostalgic need changed to a much older one, and the beast's whine became layered with a basso rumble as it pushed its muzzle into the other's neck. The female's neck elongated as it twisted under the beast's chin and buried its face in his chest. How long it had been alone, woken to senseless torture at the hands of strangers. The phosphorescent, maned head of the intruder sniffed hard- once, twice, each breath sounding like a gust of wind. One of Manus's own fur-like filaments extended to gently stroke the other on the nape of its neck, still rumbling.
The other became still as glass, even ceasing the constant motion of the glowing filaments, its maw slowly opening, lips lifting over marching lines of glimmering teeth.
Dusk was still connected to Manus when the other gave a skull-splitting, sustained roar and tore into his chest, tackling him to the ground, the mane digging and ripping into the storm of abyssal essence with the burning hostility of vengeance, and so felt every howling echo of pain and betrayal, till she was enveloped in cool light and blessed silence.