SINS OF THE DAUGHTER, SINS OF THE SON
Chapter 2: Unblessed Souls
By Kurt1K
Mackay eyed the young German watchfully, fingers idly drumming on the grip of one of the pistols in his belt. He had been on the man's trail for over a year now, and nothing he had learned in that time inclined him to let his guard down no matter how low he appeared to have fallen.
Schtauffen looked to be about his own age with a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped build evident even in the loose linen shirt and weather-stained leather breeches he wore. Hair which was probably golden when it wasn't matted and filthy fell almost to his waist, and he wore a beard that hadn't been trimmed for months (and then roughly). All in all he looked more the crazed hermit than the professional mercenary – and worse – that he was rumoured to be.
The German rose slowly to his feet, eyes narrowed against the sunlight. He was about Mackay's height or a little taller, which still gave Lady Isabella almost half a head on him. She was watching the man appraisingly, and from what Mackay knew of her it was evident that the appraisal was not favourable. Schtauffen seemed to pay her no heed as he turned and started to make his way a little unsteadily down the wooded slope towards the small stream which ran some hundred yards from his shack. Lady Isabella gave Mackay a look which needed no explanation – Stay there – as she descended after him.
Mackay watched until she vanished from sight, one foot tapping nervously as he debated the wisdom of following them. In the end his sense of chivalry yielded the field to the combined forces of common sense and self-preservation, and with a sigh he settled in to wait.
****
He was aware of her presence as he descended the slope, could feel those cold eyes on his back. Determinedly ignoring her, he dropped to his knees by the softly tinkling stream and dunked his head in its cold, clear waters.
Though he had been more or less clearheaded since his exposure to whatever it was she had in that little box – and though a part of him knew just what it was, the rest refused for now to acknowledge it – he welcomed the startling cold of the water, purging the remaining fog from his mind and leaving… questions.
Many questions.
"I would imagine that you have questions," the Englishwoman said almost conversationally. He took the time to scoop a cupped handful of water to his lips and gargle it before spitting it onto the ground. Wiping his mouth off he turned his head to regard her out of the corner of one eye; she was settling herself on a mossy boulder a few yards upstream. If she found the seat uncomfortable – and he couldn't imagine that she did not - she didn't show it.
"What was that?" he asked softly. Her eyes narrowed.
"You know what it was, Herr Schtauffen."
He stood up, turning to face her fully. "I know what it felt like, but it can't be what it…" he paused, taking a deep breath, "It can't be."
Ivy shrugged. "If you say so." She reached into the folds of her cloak and withdrew the box again. Siegfried took a reflexive step towards her, his expression horrified.
She watched his reaction, twirling the box in her fingers. When she spoke the smugness in her voice was undisguised. "Your mind may tell you that it's impossible, Herr Schtauffen," she almost whispered, "but you know it's true. In your heart, you know it."
She smiled scornfully, "You should always listen to your heart, you know."
Siegfried took a moment to try to compose himself, suddenly aware that he was short of breath and sweating heavily. In spite of her arrogance, he knew Ivy was right. It was the Soul Edge – well, he supposed, a fragment of it in any case. He felt ill, nauseous. Is it happening again?
"How?" he croaked, sitting down heavily. Ivy's eyes fell to the box, still rotating in her fingertips.
"You were there at the end." she replied, "You should be able to tell me."
Unbidden, his thoughts flashed back to the fragmented memories of the end of the nightmare. Out of habit and instinct he flinched away from the recollections, but gathering his will forced himself to focus on them.
He remembered the battle, though it was so difficult to distinguish it from the many that had preceded it. He had stood at the head of an army of horrors, the battlefield a wasteland under skies heavy with smoke. It… he had carved a bloody trail through the armies of the Margraves of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, feeling the roar of the power surging through his blade – through himself – as it feasted on the souls of the slain. The memories, though strangely disjointed, were so vivid he could feel the weight of the cursed blade, scent the tang of blood in the air, hear the endless, mingled roar of battle.
He remembered the Soul Edge, exultant as finally, finally its seemingly endless thirst was slaked. Then, his own will – the desire which had driven him to seek out the accursed thing in the first place – had surged to the fore, and he had bent the power to his own purpose if only for a moment. He had summoned a vision of his father… and had, in that awful instant, understood the truth – about his father's murder, about his quest, about himself and what he had allowed himself to become.
Recoiling from that horrific realization and filled with disgust at himself and his own deeds, he had wrestled against the demon sword's malignant will as the battle stormed about them.
As he faltered his army seemed to falter with him, even as new strength came to their enemies in the form of a handful of warriors whose might gave the German soldiers new hope and who did not quail in the face of the lizardmen and other abominations which formed his forces. Some he had vaguely recognized, even through his torment; others were strangers to him. Two, however, had drawn his attention – or rather, his blade's: he had felt a wild rush of hatred and rage as Soul Edge's great eye fell upon the two women – one fair, one dark – and the sword's strength, fueled by its fury, had redoubled. Siegfried had felt his soul swept under the black sea of Soul Edge's hatred and Nightmare, wearied from the struggle but once again in the iron grip of his blade's will, had turned towards the two
It was then that the three warriors reached him, cleaving through his horde from the south towards his position. With a roar his monstrous ally Astaroth had charged to the attack, but one of the three had met his charge with ferocity belying his extravagant garb. The others had cut down the half-dozen lizardmen around the giant and made straight for Nightmare.
Even wearied from his inward struggle the azure knight was a terrible foe, but his opponents were skilled, swift and utterly determined. Either one he might have bested, but together they kept him from gaining the initiative, prevented him from capitalizing on any advantage, and gradually wore him down. It was a ringing head blow from the youth's staff that put him down, stunned and helpless, and a flick of the girl's slender blade that separated Soul Edge from his numbed grasp.
That separation – such a little thing, but something beyond his own strength – had freed his mind and soul almost entirely from the blades shadowy will. His mind was suddenly clear, as though waking from a long dream – or nightmare, of course. Though barely conscious, his senses – once again his own – were startlingly clear. He could still feel the sword, but now it seemed that it was the dream, his own perceptions the reality. He felt the blade unleash the power of the souls it had consumed to manifest the blazing figure which was its true form.
Inferno. The demon's name echoed in Schtauffen's mind as it rose over the battlefield, glorying in its newfound freedom and eager to bring ruin on a scale he as Nightmare had never approached.
He heard the girl's challenge, sensed the shift in power as her blade revealed its own true nature to Inferno. He felt recognition, and then – impossible - a shiver of fear from the hellish creature.
Before their battle had begun, the wounds he had sustained finally overcame his newly-mortal body and he slipped – not ungratefully – into unconsciousness.
He had awakened to kind green eyes and gentle hands, but that pain was in some ways worse than the rest and his mind shrank from the memory. He was certain that wasn't what Ivy had been referring to, anyway.
What had she meant? He replayed the events in his mind, but he could see nothing there to explain her assertion. He shook his head slowly. "I don't… I don't know what you mean." He sighed, his face dropping into his hands. "The sword was taken… I was freed from it…"
"Were you?" Ivy's voice now was low, heavy with meaning he did not quite understand. "Were you? Your… connection… was severed completely?"
"Yes," Siegfried replied automatically and then paused, raising his head. "No… no, not completely... I could still feel it, but it was distant, as though… I don't know exactly. As though it were a waking dream…"
"It wasn't a dream, Herr Schtauffen. Your bond was weakened, not destroyed. You knew when Inferno was defeated, did you not?"
Siegfried shrugged, "When I awakened I was told that-"
"No, no, no," Ivy interrupted him impatiently, the superior languor of her manner suddenly replaced by barely restrained manic energy, "I don't mean you learned of it, you knew it. You felt it. No?"
He stared at her for a long moment. "…yes. But… he was gone from the earth…"
Her expression became at once triumphant and predatory, her lips forming a savage smile which Schtauffen had to work not to flinch from. "Now do you understand?" she laughed, "Now do you see?"
"See what?" Siegfried asked angrily, shaking his head, "None of this explains where that," he let his glance flicker to the box, "came from."
"Herr Schtauffen," Ivy chuckled, her face alive with dangerous good humour, "you are entirely mistaken. Your tale explains it completely, if you know what to look for."
Siegfried frowned, irritated, "Assume that I don't know what to look for."
"Certainly. You bore the Soul Edge for over two years. Inferno's essence dwelt within you and your blade for that time, easily long enough to… make its mark upon you." She stood, pacing as she continued didactically, "Such a mark is indelible, you understand? Once so branded, you will bear it until you die."
Siegfried nodded grimly, guarding his horror from her eyes. In contrast, Ivy seemed to be warming to her subject.
"You were quite correct when you said Inferno was 'gone from the earth'. Chai Xianghua –who defeated it – did so in its native plane, the Void. A place of utter desolation, though that is not material to the point. She was able to destroy his form with the Soul Calibur, a spirit weapon which is essentially the Soul Edge's antithesis. She left that weapon in the Void when she returned, hoping – I assume – that it would prevent Inferno from ever recovering its strength. As you have seen, she was not successful – because she was unaware of the true extent and nature of Inferno's malignant influence."
She paused, turning to look at him almost expectantly. He frowned, running over her words in his mind. Much of what she said was beyond him, but he understood the essence of what she was telling him. So, by Inferno's malignant influence he took her to mean… "Its… bond to me?"
Ivy smiled coldly, her eyes narrowing, "Exactly. Inferno's taint has marked your blood, your very soul with a bond which cannot be broken. This means essentially two things: While you live, Inferno cannot be utterly destroyed; and, also while you live, you serve as an anchor for Inferno upon the earth. Inevitably, it will be drawn here.
"And so, you are the answer to your own question. How is it that the Soul Edge was not destroyed and has returned – however fragmented – to plague the earth?" Her eyes burned into his face, "Because it lives on, in its wielders. In you."
Schtauffen rose to his feet, his face darkened with the anger and confusion roiling within him. "You're lying," he snarled, "That can't be true!"
"Am I? You know better than I do that it's true. You've always known. You simply didn't understand what it was that you felt."
"LIAR!" he screamed. His mind focused all of his fury, all of his bottomless despair upon the woman in front of him. "You're lying! I remember you now," he snarled, "You were its ally! You're trying… you're trying to use me again!"
Ivy absorbed the accusation silently, dropping her gaze from his visage. He stood awaiting some response, his body taut with rage and his mind awhirl with confusion, desperately seeking an escape from the truth's deadly snare. It took her a long time to respond.
"Yes," she said quietly, "You remember correctly. I served it too - and my guilt is greater even than your own, for I did it by choice. I was deceived, and manipulated – but still, I made the choice." She laughed then, the sound hollow and bitter. "I was a fool. I had studied the Soul Edge for years, I thought I knew how it played its devious games, and yet I did not recognize what was before my very eyes. I was ensnared by the very thing I sought to destroy. Like you, I only saw the truth after its defeat. In this you are quite correct.
"But I promise you this," she continued, her low voice charged with deadly intent as she turned back to him, stepping close and locking her gaze with his, "I have now, as I did then, but a sole purpose: to seek out this accursed thing and bring it to ruin so utter that it shall never again darken the earth with its shadow. I shall destroy it completely; eradicate it as vengeance for those it has consumed and to protect those yet to come from its evil. I swear this on my life."
Staring into those cold blue pools he could not doubt that she spoke the truth, even as he heard a familiar edge to her voice that he could not quite identify. Simple guilt, perhaps, or something deeper… he wondered at it momentarily, before the clear implications of her revelation drove the thought from his mind.
"You've come to kill me, then."
He was not sure how he expected her to reply, but her laughter was about the last response he had expected. In light of the import of his question he found her mirth rather insulting. "What the hell's so funny?"
Ivy mastered herself, eyeing him with scornful amusement. "Had I come to kill you you'd be dead on the floor of your hovel, Schtauffen. Do you think I would drag you out here and explain the facts of your life to you for my own amusement?"
"I certainly wouldn't put it past you," Siegfried grunted, irritated by the logic of her answer as much as by her tone. Ivy shrugged.
"Perhaps I would, at that. In any case, Schtauffen, I'm not here to kill you. I am here to ask for your help."
This time it was Siegfried's turn to laugh. "You're asking for my help? You broke my door in, you threw me in the mud, you've abused me at every opportunity. Why in God's name would I help you?"
"Because this is important beyond your offended sensibilities." Ivy hissed. "Because you've been used. Because it turned you into the monster you feared you could be. Because you want it destroyed as much as I do."
He fumbled for a retort, but realized she was right. Again.
He sat down heavily. "Why me, then? There are other warriors out there as strong, or stronger. Good men and women, too… untainted…"
"If I wanted a good man I would clearly be wasting my time here," Ivy retorted sarcastically, "though I'd certainly be on the right track if I were looking for a self-pitying whiner. How low you have fallen. What does it matter why? How can you hesitate? You know what is at stake here." Her voice lowered, dripping with contempt. "Perhaps you are simply hesitant to leave the life," she spat the word out, "you have made here."
She shook her head in disgust, glaring down at him. After a long silence she turned to leave, but had barely taken two steps when he called out to her.
"You didn't answer the question. Why did you come for me?"
She did not reply immediately. When she did the venom had left her voice, replaced by a kind of flat despair. "I sought you out hoping to find an ally who understood, as I do, the measure and depth of the Soul Edge's evil – a man who would realize that there is no sacrifice too great in the pursuit of its destruction. Who else understands this but we two? Who will do what must be done, if we do not? There is nobody else. Twice now Inferno has escaped complete destruction because those who had the chance to finish it stayed their hands, out of ignorance or out of compassion. Twice it has returned to visit ruin and slaughter upon the world. It is a cunning and malevolent entity, Herr Schtauffen – it learns, and thinks, and plots. How many more chances will we have?
"I have learned that all of my studies do not guarantee that I can best the beast – or even recognize it. You perhaps remember that my own weapon gained its power from that demon; I trust my own creation, but even I cannot say for certain whether I can rely upon it in battle against Inferno. I need your help, Herr Schtauffen. It is not in my nature to ask. I do not do it lightly. But the stakes are too high. We – the world – cannot risk another failure.
"We are both tainted by our… our past deeds, it is true. But that taint, that experience, can give us the resolve - the will - to do what purer souls cannot."
She took a deep breath, her voice once again glacial as she concluded.
"I cannot force you to aid me, Herr Schtauffen. What I need from you, you must give willingly. I will waste no more words trying to persuade you. Come; don't come; the choice is your own, for once. I will not wait long for your decision." With that she was gone, her footfalls fading as she ascended the slope, leaving Siegfried to his thoughts.
He sat in silence for perhaps a minute before climbing heavily to his feet and ascending in her wake. In the end, he realized, there was no choice. The irony almost made him laugh.
****
It was Mackay who spotted him emerging from the woods. He bent towards Lady Isabella, whose back was to the man. "My lady…" He gestured at the German, noticing with faint alarm that the man's demeanour had changed from its earlier listlessness; there was grim purpose to his stride and a harsh set to his features. The young Scot unconsciously rested one hand on his pistol-butt as he approached.
Lady Isabella half-turned as Schtauffen neared, watching him sidewise as he climbed up on to the cart before she swung up into her saddle. As she guided her mount past the cart Schtauffen leaned towards her.
"You said your intent was to destroy it utterly." He said, his voice level, "I assume, then, that you mean to destroy it," his eyes flickered to Mackay and he hesitated before continuing, "anchors and all."
"When all else is done," the Lady answered quietly, "Yes. There is no other way."
Schtauffen nodded slowly, his mouth quirking into a grim smile. "So, you would have returned for me eventually."
"No," she replied smoothly, matching his expression, "not eventually. I would have come back down after you in five minutes."
With that she spurred her steed down the path, leaving the young mercenary gaping after her.
****************
Author's Notes: Oh yes, the romance is a long way off…
A thousand thanks to all my reviewers (that's eight thousand thanks!), who really make it all worthwhile. You rock.
'Herr' by the by, is the German equivalent of 'Mister'. My apologies for any confusion, but I wanted to get some use out of my old high school German…
Again, I hope you enjoyed. Keep safe and be happy!