This one's a bit short, but I thought I'd put it up anyhow. Thanks for the Reviews! More Please! Azurielle
After I jumped over board and stepped foot on Ruathym, as I have stated, I remember very little of what occurred after. It was as though I, Keledrial, had been locked away within my own mind and as much as I railed and screamed, I could not find a way out.
There was no way for me to tell what time had passed, or what had happened. I felt despair. Rage. I did not know what to do, for it was as though I was lost in a room with no exit and no light.
Then I heard my wife. Her voice cut through the darkness, and though I could not hear her words, I sensed the anguish ion her tone. She needed me. I knew that, and knowing it gave me the strength to redoubled my efforts. I fought, focusing all my will outwards until I managed to strike on a second sentience…Airk.
:Let me out!: I shouted at him.
:No!: His mental reply was curt and…distracted. I sensed a weakness, a division of attention that allowed a crack to appear in the seamlessness of the room. As air finds a way, so I used the crack to escape the prison he'd put me in.
Once more I inhabited my body, feeling the sensation of weight and strength. My arms were moving, but I was not fully in control…I still had no true sense of what was happening. I continued to focus on Airk, hoping to find another weakness to use. He paid no attention to me, though for his mind was fully engaged in the battle he was waging. He needed pay no attention to me, for the corruption of the magic within us gave him the strength…while it seemed to leach it from me. I could hear his thought, though…not as clearly as my own…but still my own. Confusing, no?
:Stop fighting, Eirik!: I heard him say it over and over. A sense of anger…and of sudden anguish. My hands were sticky…blood. Movement, lurching and sudden. A sense of a target. My arms came up high to bring down a blade. Then, once more, Rosealliele's voice found me. She was chanting…words to a spell I did not know. Airk's thoughts, filled with the incoherence of battle rage sudden cleared for a moment.
:Stupid woman…making us weak….interfering in battles. It was Lita I wanted, not her!: And with the upward motion of the sword, I wrested back my vision, saw my wife before us, her back to us…undefended…a target. She was bleeding already…there was blood on my sword. I battled with a surge of desperate fear and panic. Our arms froze as both he and I sought to move them in opposite directions. He still retained control of our voice and would not allow even a breath of warning out.
A second chanting reached my ears…a beam of black at the corner of my eye…my wife the target. At that moment I abandoned all struggles with Airk, save one. I took control of our legs…my legs and propelled my body forward, into the path of the beam. Then pain. Terrible, searing pain…lines of agony shooting through my very soul. Then the taste of blood in my mouth, and a collision with stone that felt almost comfortable compared to what the beam had done. There wasn't even time to scream as both Airk and I tried to retreat from the agony.
I knew I was dying. Blood in my throat told me that. What the spell was, I didn't know…and so couldn't know what to do about it. And just when the pain reached a critical point…where it seemed that the blackness of death was inevitable, I felt a soothing wash of energy fill me. The pain subsided…numbed, and it was as though I could no longer feel, my senses blanketed.
I stood, sword in hand, and moved towards a large pool of water, suddenly knowing that it was what I must do. Though my friends and family fought, I saw none of them…it was as though myself, alone, stood in the cavern, the pool before me, so still. Airk did not complain or fight. Water filled myboots and Airk was gone me…his thoughts, his influence, and every trace of his prescense, gone in one instant. I never looked anywhere but straight ahead, yet I felt he was there beside me.
Arcane words filled my mind as the water of the pool rose ever higher around me. Words of power that I knew would not be found in any spellbook. As it was when I had reforged the Fury of Battle and had suddenly known what to do, so it was now. I knew how to banish the pool and reverse its effects. Yet as I began to speak the words aloud, I suddenly felt I did not have the strength or even the desire to finish the rite. I knew that I had to raise the sword and bring it down, into the stone from whence the water came…but I couldn't. I started to falter. How could I destroy magic? Then hands closed over mine, and I looked directly in front of me…and saw Airk. I knew him for it was my mind's vision of what he should have looked like…blond and tall and wide, as any other Ruathen, but with bright green eyes. He brought the sword up, along with my hands. He raised it above the pool. In his eyes, I saw the determination to destroy the pool…the determination I lacked. There was challenge there, familiar as my own name. And as we had always fought, I sought to best him, even now…to prove that I was just as strong as he. I continued chanting once more, purging the words from my mind, and as I did so, I lent my strength to his. We drove the Fury of Battle downward as the last word escaped me to be forgotten. The strength of the thrust pierced the stone of the pool's bottom. I could feel the magic of the sword surging wildly as it sought to absorb the pool. Then, as a blade is sheathed, so the Fury of Battle seemed to seal the magic of the pool…and indeed, the pool itself. Quite suddenly the magic that had always hummed through the Fury of Battle vanished…and what had been leather and steel became stone. And all this happened in less than the time it took to draw a breath.
And when the moment after came, drawing a breath was something could not seem to do…not with the pain once more tearing through my body. Once more, the floor and I became aquainted as all consciousness fled.
Yet I was not unconsiouss for long. When next I awoke it was on a field. The grass was long and green. The sun shone brightly from a noon apex, and the day was clear as glass. The field was unbroken by trees or shrubs or any kind of disjunction in the conformity…and that included footsteps, or broken stalks of grass to mark my passing.
I was not alone. Two stood before me…one human, one elven. The elf was tall, his hair golden as the sun, his form perfect, strength evident in his pose. He worse a sky blue cloak about his shoulders and amulet about his neck. The amulet bore the familiar symbol of a crescent moon within a large circle. On his wrists were a set of battle guantelts that no mortal could possibly hope to replicate, for the power and perfection were unmistakable. From his appearance, the longsword on his belt, one might have mistaken the elf for a gold elven fighter…but I knew, and knew it instinctively, for I had met him before, that this was no ordinary elf.
Nor was the human ordinary, either. At twelve feet tall, the human's heavy plate armor seemed battered and bloodied by combat. A massive war helm hid his face, but his gaze upon me was a palpable force. In his hand, at his side was a large, black great sword, notched and stained from use. The symbol on his armor, of a sword wreathed in flame, encased by a shield was scarred, but still recognizable.
I fell to my knees before them, no wishing to offend either, as I lowered my gaze.
"My Lord Corellon," I managed to get out. "My Lord Tempus," Airk spoke, using my voice.
"Rise," Tempus demanded, his voice like thunder across the still field. "Face us as a warrior," he added. I did so, bringing my gaze up to meet them once more.
"Do you know why you are here?" Corellon asked, his voice far gentler than Tempus', but no less intimidating. I nodded, feeling I knew the answer.
"I am dead." Corellon smiled and shook his head.
"Nay…not yet. Your life is in your own hands now, and by your will alone do you live."
"Then why am I here?" I dared to ask.
"Because you have before you a choice before you can return to your mortal form," Corellon replied.
"Will you be Airk or will you Keledrial?" Tempus asked. Confused, I spoke once more.
"What do you mean? I am both."
"That has been true, but it can no longer be so, for the purpose requiring the merging is gone," Corellon stated.
"Purpose?" I wanted to know.
"Everything that has happened to you happened for a reason, Keledrial," Corellon explained. "You were born with the magical talent to channel the spell to remove the pool…you were born with the skill to remake the magic in the Fury of Battle…but had you continued the path of your life, you would not have had the knowledge of desire to do either. To help Ruathym, you had to become Ruathen. That is why your ship was wrecked. On Ruathen, Airk was created. In him was all the skill needed to reforge the blade, and the desire to see Ruathym saved from folly. But still you had to go further. Each adventure, even your choice in party members brought you closer to finding the Fury of Battle…your restlessness to reforge it. And finally, the call to bring you to use it. But the sword could not be wielded by any but a Ruathen…its power could not be released by any but a wizard of high mage ability…in short, a combination that would never have naturally occurred, was created…in you."
My mind reeled as I considered the ramifications of his words. What he was saying, in essesnce, was that all the major events of my life had pushed me to find and recreate one item and gain all of the skills and strength and desire to wield it for the one purpose it was meant for. There was a flash of anger…a sense of betrayal at being so used by the gods…at having my life so manipulated by them. But it faded quickly, for I knew that it was their right as gods to do so…still, it was hard to accept that so many terrible things had happened to me all to force my personality to split into two beings that could, together, accomplish one deed.
"But now that it has been done and Ruathym saved from the corruption of the pool, you must chose whom it is you wish to truly be…Airk or Keledrial."
"But I am Keledrial…and Airk, he's just a part of me," I insisted, afraid at that moment that to choose would mean that I would loose everything that accompanied the name.
"You must choose," Corellon insisted. "You have done the service we needed you for, and it is time now for a voice to be silent again…this time for good." I knew he was referring to the time on Evermeet when he had spoken to me by the river…the day I thought Airk was gone at last. In truth he had only been silenced.
"But why ask when you know that I would choose to be me?" I wanted to know.
"Are you so certain?" Tempus asked. I froze, for I knew that he was right. I was not so certain that I wanted to be Keledrial. It had not been so bad being Airk…I liked being a warrior…I liked battle and being strong. A part of me even liked being feared. If I was Airk, my responsibilities would vanish. No more Zelairwyn to worry about…no more teaching, or confining parents or position. I would be free to live my life as I chose to. There would be nothing to tie me down. But if I chose to be Airk, I would lose magic and the sense of power that only casting a spell and becoming one with the weave could give me. More than that, I would lose Rose and Sera.
:There could always be Lita: Airk thought at me, and for the first time I understood why it was I had always felt so fascinated by Lita, even though I knew her so little…Airk had been fascinated with her.
:But it's Rose that I love: I protested.
:Rose is weak,: Airk whispered. :I nearly killed her. She will make you weak. If you banish me, you will be the same sickly thing you were,: he warned. Dread filled me…and a war tore at me. I wanted to be strong…and I feared being weak. I wanted to be both…I wanted it all, but the gods, my gods had told me to choose. I had to. But I did not want to.
:Choose me, stay strong,: Airk cajoled, persuasively.
:But Rose,: I thought, anguished. How could I give her up? She was my light. She would never want a human…and if I chose Airk, she would fade without Keledrial.
:You'll be weak,: Airk warned, angrily.
"I don't care," I stated suddenly. "If I was meant to be weak then so I must be, but I'll not sacrifice Rosealliele for strength. That would be the true weakness."
"Then you've made your decision?" Corellon asked. I nodded.
"I am Keledrial Nightstar and always will be," I declared.
"And so you are, and will be as you were meant to be before we interfered," Corellon replied. Tempus nodded once, and they were gone…and so was Airk's voice…and I knew that this time he was gone for good.
And then there was only darkness, and a return of the pain.