Chapter Two:
Entirely Reprehensible Umbrage
A sword.
Someone was pointing a sword at his chest, point-blanc, and at an angle that left no room for doubt in anyone's mind—it was meant to be a killing stroke, if just the right wrong move was made.
Aidan stopped short, feeling the tip of the sword press into the heavy black material of his thick uniform frock-coat; he recognized the intent of the blade's owner, and did not move. He knew enough about swords and fighting with swords to see danger when it was anywhere near him.
This most certainly felt like danger.
Weapons.
He had them nearby, and so did the delegation's guards, and the magistrate's guards—but he had the distinct impression that drawing weapons now would be a markedly bad maneuver. It would be far too easy—
But slowly—very slowly—when he noticed that his assailant had not yet moved, he raised his head, keeping his arms carefully loose at his sides in an amenable, non-aggressive position of near-submissiveness.
The first sight that he had of his assailant included a black-garbed torso and a black-gloved right hand that held the sword. It was a gorgeously-made sword, too: fashioned in the modes of the old days, with a roaring dragon of chiseled steel winding around the hilt, and onto the blade itself. Aidan had not seen a weapon of such caliber and make in quite some time.
In fact…
Then he heard a low, breathy bit of a chuckle.
Immediately, his eyes shot the rest of the way up to his antagonist's face, and he felt something inside of himself turn to ice when he had seen it. At that exact same instant, everyone else in the delegation stopped behind him, and various reactions went up from within the group.
All of this—from the sword's introduction to his coat-front to everyone's general realization of the danger before them—took place in a mere matter of seconds. Aidan vaguely heard the cries of horror and fear, the indignant protests and exclamations that were made by his compatriots.
But most of his attention was riveted on the person that held the sword.
"Consulate Lysander—a lullaby to your undertaking for the moment?" said a voice of low tenor: a voice that was both sinisterly velvet and sandy in tone, with the edge of a most cultured Inner Rim accent.
It was a man who stood before him, pointing that lethal weapon straight towards his heart—a man, or so Aidan guessed.
The form and voice were certainly human enough, though the man's entire figure was shrouded in a heavy onyx-hued, cloak-like robe that draped around him like the wings of a bat. His features were concealed by the face of a disturbingly realistic yet expressionless silver mask; within its almond-shaped eye holes, Aidan could see two glittering orbs of the purest hue of white-sapphire staring out at him, gleaming and mocking him in their menacing light.
He didn't blench.
"Who are you?" he ground out, trying very hard to keep the growl out of his voice. No matter who this man—this thing—was, Aidan could not afford to jeopardize the precarious balance of the situation.
The sinister figure in black stood between the Tyrellians and the Hyperion Ascendant, and Aidan had now seen the dim outlines of more dark figures, moving furtively on the docking bay behind the man.
He hadn't come alone, this antagonist. He had brought friends—there was a plan here, and Aidan was disconcerted by it.
Who would dare? Why? WHY?
Immediately after he had spoken those words—who are you?—the man had given his coldly light little chuckle again, and twisted the sword a bit: digging the tip of its blade marginally further into the front of Aidan's coat.
"I'll be asking the questions here, today, I think."
Aidan gritted his teeth together, and glared at him, thoughts whirling through his mind. No one had moved.
Stealthy movement that he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye alerted him to the reason behind this—there were other dark figures within the twilight shadows now, and they had surrounded the entire delegation. He could see the gleam of the dying sun upon much more than a paltry few sizeable firearms and blades.
Inwardly he winced, and cursed the mutual disarmament laws that the empire had imposed upon the planets that were at peace with one another. The rules of engagement were stridently enforced—no shooting until fired upon—
"Listen to me, whoever you are," he finally said, in a very controlled tone of voice. "I don't know why you've imposed yourself in our path, but you ought to know one thing—regardless of your exalted plans for our fate, you are interfering with business of the empire. Our delegation is expected to depart from this space-station now. Keeping us here will only bring you a large amount of trouble."
"Well! Perhaps it just so happens that trouble is precisely what I came here looking for!" mused the man in black, and his blue eyes gleamed wickedly behind the blankly staring silver mask.
Aidan could not see the brightly self-exulting smile—but he could feel it in the weight of the man's gaze. Inwardly, he seethed.
"You see? I know of your mission, Consulate—"
—There was another twist of the sword against Aidan's chest, and this time, Aidan flinched, though barely perceptibly, as he felt the razor-sharp metal point begin to jab into his skin through the coat—
"And, please, for Fates' sake! Don't flatter yourself by thinking that you are informing me of something that I don't know, when you say that I am impeding imperial matters-of-state! I am very well aware of all of that. The fact of the matter is, however…well, I just don't care about it a single bit."
He made a sudden, fluidly smooth swiping motion with his free hand—the hand that wasn't holding the sword—and Aidan coiled to react, expecting some strike against either himself or someone else within his group.
But no such thing occurred.
Then Aidan watched with growing disbelief and fury in his eyes, nearly choking him with roaring angry emotion, as the every single one of the Tyrellian and the Caraesthirian guards dropped to the ground, with a clatter of weapons and thud of falling bodies. They were quite dead.
He whirled to glare at his opponent again.
"You killed my guards!"
Again, the man's cold, pale eyes smirked.
"It was their time to die," was his careless rejoinder. Before Aidan could respond, though, he continued, in a much more serious tone. "I have no desire for pause or preamble today, Consulate. I too have a very strict schedule to keep, and dallying here would prove to be…oh, most unfortunate! For all of us, I think."
He gave a shrug that was somehow both dismissive and elegant.
"My business lies with you, this evening."
There was a pause then, and the blue eyes regarded him with such a strange, gleaming light that Aidan wished he had never woken to face the day that morning. This was just too much. First he had been ordered to carrying out a mission that he had no desire to be a part of—then there had been the supercilious officials that he'd been forced to deal with that afternoon—and now he was facing this strange attacker—
Who was a magic-wielder.
Only then—at that precise moment—did the world-rending and terrible truth finally dawn within the consulate's whirling mind, striking him with its shocking reality as anyone else might have struck him with a blow. This man, whoever he was…he was a wielder of magic. No one used magic in this galaxy. No one.
No one…
Yet he had killed the guards with some sort of unseen power. There was no other way to explain it. How else…?
"I was wondering, however…immediately previous to coming to meet you here…" continued the man as he stepped back a bit, removing the blade from its position at Aidan's chest so that he could cradle it within both his hands: running one nonchalant, black-gloved fingertip along its smooth, paper-thin edge.
Then he flicked his eyes up to meet Aidan's glaring gaze, and Aidan felt his skin prickle with irritation at the arrogant, mockery-filled expression within them.
"…Are you really as good a fighter as they say?"
The gall! The unmitigated presumptuous—
Aidan bit back a very ungentlemanly rejoinder to that, choosing to state instead—
"I cannot answer that myself, sir—the veracity of such an opinionated statement would depend entirely upon the informer."
He flexed his fingers.
Slowly, slowly…don't let him see…
"Those who would know gained their knowledge from my blade."
It all happened in a blur of motion.
Aidan's hand went to his side and vanished inside his coat pocket for a fleeting instant. Then it reappeared and his arm shot straight out in front of him, as he took aim with his sniper's blaster at the masked man.
But just as he swung his arm around, the man struck out with his own arm—which bore a thick black leather gauntlet that was lined with a row of sharply curved and wickedly sharp-looking spikes on its outside edge. Before Aidan could react, the man had slammed his arm against Aidan's hand, and the blaster-pistol's barrel was caught in the black iron spikes of the gauntlet.
With one swift jerk of the man's wrist, the weapon was deftly wrenched out of Aidan's grasp, and he found himself staring into his opponent's eyes, at much closer quarters. The man had lunged forward at the onset of Aidan's attack, and now he had a diabolically-curved dagger held perilously near to the consulate's throat.
The ice-blue eyes glittered with a dangerously calm insanity. "I didn't say that you could go, Consulate…" their owner said, in a singsong tone.
Then he stepped back, whipping the dagger's blade away from Aidan's throat. At one widely sweeping gesture of his cloaked arm, the entire mob of people moved back— all but scrambling to get themselves as far away from the unpredictable, masked, faceless, and nameless madman as they possibly could.
Aidan narrowed his eyes, resentful of the fact that his blaster was now lying a good seven paces out of his reach. He had other weapons concealed on his person—but what good would that do? If he tried the same trick again…
Who knew what this lunatic would do?
He, however, was the Consulate of Tyrellia, the chancellor's right hand. He was responsible for these people. He was responsible for carrying out the chancellor's orders, and for maintaining order in the spheres of influence that he held as his own.
He couldn't possibly—
"I've met the pitiful souls whom you've used as pin-cushions, in response to their defying you," the man continued. "They speak…very highly of your skills."
Gasps resounded throughout the crowd.
Aidan felt himself go cold inside.
What?
But he squared his shoulders, and willed calm upon himself. Looking into the sharply chiseled, exaggerated features of the silver mask, he spoke.
"Let us pass. We have no quarrel with you."
The man laughed, coldly and derisively.
"I do believe that you are entirely missing the point, Consulate Lysander! Of course you don't have a quarrel with me! For all you know, we've never met, or even so much as inhabited the same planet at the same time. For all you know, I could be the Patriarch himself, behind this mask."
A gesture of the gloved fingers to the silver face.
"You'll never know. But I know—I know that you haven't any reason to meet with me today. I, however…I have reason to meet with you, sir. And you shall not pass until I have gained what I wish."
So that is what it is!
"What is it that you want?" Aidan spat, thoroughly disgusted at the implications of that last statement. This man wasn't just a magic-user—he was a pirate who used magic to get what he wanted from the unsuspecting world. "Is it ransom that you so desire? An imperial carte blanche, perhaps, to ensure that you and your activities remain unchecked? There isn't anything that you could possibly want on that ship—nor do we possess anything on our persons that you could use for your own gain. We are a diplomatic delegation, and—"
But the man was making a tsk-ing sound behind the mask.
" 'A diplomatic delegation'? Consulate…"
Another tsk, and the cloaked head shook back and forth, the blue eyes taking on a disapproving glint. Aidan was all but squirming with impatience.
"That was a stupid thing to say! If there was nothing that you wanted to protect on that ship, you wouldn't have stopped here, halfway in your trek across the galaxy! Stopping denotes that there is something that you wished to take care of on your ship, and my friends and I are—well, we are rather curious people. For my own part, I wanted to meet the great Tyrellian Consulate in person. Do not lie to me, sir. It won't work."
"Then what do you want?"
"A fight."
This was ridiculous.
He had already wasted a good, precious five minutes engaging in a pointless battle of the wits with this man—he had been jabbed in the chest with a very sharp sword, and had his neck pass entirely too close to the blade of a unnervingly well-concealed dagger—and now the man was demanding a fight of him. The day had started out bad. And now it had slipped down from bad to worse.
"Perhaps you will allow me to clarify myself, outlaw—"
Aidan ground the words out in a low growl—no longer wasting time on diplomacy or benevolence. He had ceased feeling magnanimous about two minutes into their undesirable conversation.
"My business here does not include battling with petty rogues and enchanters who claim that they alone have the right to deal death to whom they wish! Our business is for Tyrellia, and we will be allowed to pass."
"Concerned because you don't have a weapon?" was the man's taunting, condescending response to that. "Here—I have a spare!"
Aidan barely had time to react, again.
The man's arm moved within the heavy cloak that he wore, and then, all at once, a broadsword came flying at Aidan: whistling as it traced a deadly path through the air. And then Aidan caught it deftly in one hand.
The man regarded him with a satisfied expression.
"Very good."
"No," was the firm reply that Aidan gave, as he came to stand in a warily defensive position: the sword gripped loosely between his two gloved hands. "I don't want to fight you."
The ice-blue eyes turned glacial and dark. "There are other men on that ship, Consulate Lysander…" the masked man reminded him, with a menacingly calm tone. "And you have a choice, here and now. Either prove yourself as a man, and fight me now—or stand by and watch as I destroy your ship and every single living thing on it. Fight, or allow others to suffer."
He trailed off, and made a blasé gesture with one hand.
"…You're an honorable man, aren't you?"
Behind him, the Hyperion Ascendant's second officer grabbed Aidan by the shoulder, and hissed in his ear, incensed—"Enough of this, Consulate! Do not listen to this—this madman! He can't possibly—"
The masked man's head swiveled with a kind of eerie slowness, and his eyes focused with a vague, twisted sort of amusement. "I can't possibly do anything of the sort? Is that what he was about to say?" Then he laughed heartily, as if some great joke had just been made.
Aidan shrugged the grip of the other man off, and gave a single, curt shake of his head. No, the glare in his narrowed eyes said. No.
This is my battle.
"I scarcely see how my fighting you will end in any sort of satisfaction on either of our sides," he said, trying a different tactic: veiled distorted logical argument. If that was how the man preferred to make his own statements…then perhaps he would understand Aidan better if he used the same reasoning.
He spread his hands out to either side of himself, in an open-handed, innocuous motion of peacefulness.
"Whether it is you or me, one of us will win, and will get what he most wants—and the other of us will be defeated, and will quite possibly die."
"Truly spoken, Consulate—but my reasons for challenging you are my own—and they will be revealed in due time," the man responded quietly. He averted his eyes from Aidan's…for the first time since he had made his appearance before them all. Then he looked back again, and the resolution in his gaze had returned.
"Fight me. Now."
Aidan felt as if his mind was about to snap.
"I—don't—want—to—fight—you!"
That set something off in the other man.
"I didn't ask what you wanted!" he snarled.
And then he lunged at Aidan.
The blade missed its intended target by a fraction of an inch as the consulate reeled back from the vicious, deadly-swift blow. But Aidan had endured many years of strenuous and complicated training—and he knew well how to engage in a man-to-man duel. Rearranging his grip on the hilt of the broadsword, he corrected his footing and swung his arm around, so that the blade of his sword connected with that of his opponent, when the man bore down on him again.
It was as if the beginning of the duel—the first clang on the swords upon one another—had shattered the sort of spell that had fallen over the people that stood aghast behind Aidan. All at once, everyone began to scramble to get out of the way: shrieks of fear from the ladies and shouts of anger from the men, calls for more armed guards and other exclamations went up on the air.
But it was too late.
Consulate Lysander and the sinister masked figure had already begun their fight, and stopping them now was impossible. All everyone could do was simply attempt to get out of the way as fast as they could.
Which was a very wise thing to do.
Back and forth across the wide marble terrace that fronted the docking bay, Aidan parried and blocked each one of the man's blows—putting in a few well-aimed strikes himself, from time to time—while the man attacked him with the speed and brutal viciousness of a lunging cobra. He seemed to be everywhere at once! His movements were so swift that Aidan could scarcely keep track of where he was, and the increasing darkness of the twilight sky wasn't helping matters at all.
Where is the light?
Then the man was lunging forward, his sword driving immediately towards Aidan's throat, and Aidan was forced to reel back—straining to maintain his balance as he attempted to regain his footing.
Too late, again.
He stumbled back, only just able to keep his defensive grip on his sword, and then something smacked into the back of his legs—the first few steps on a stairway that led off the docking bay's main terrace. Aidan fell against the stairs, and simultaneously fended off yet another blow from his masked opponent. Bit by bit, he managed to fight himself to his feet again—and the battle continued up the stairway.
From the onset of the duel, Aidan had been deeply startled by the man's incredible prowess in the art of fighting.
There was scarcely five sword-wielding fighters left in that galaxy—if there were indeed even that many. It was rare—no, more than rare—to find a being capable of handling a broadsword with any sort of skill.
And yet this man…it seemed as if he had been born with a sword in his hand! He was using every single martial arts technique that Aidan had ever learnt as a novice in the Tyrellian court…and more. Aidan had never heard of—much less seen—some of the moves that this man had deployed upon him.
Yet, in spite of this, his opponent was unable to bring Aidan down.
Their skills had set them into a stalemate.
Ah, but his opponent had made a most extraordinary mistake, for he had forced Aidan up onto the stairway, and now Aidan stood above him: braced half against the wall as he fought to maintain his balance. One wrong step and he would plummet from the unguarded edge to who knew what sort of deadly fate. His training held, however, and he quickly analyzed the situation.
Rearranging the position of his hands on the hilt of the sword, he changed his stance from defensive to attack mode. The masked man stood a few steps lower than him on the stairway, and his footing was precarious.
It would be easy, if he could do it…
Aidan righted his own footing, and then—after he barely evaded a vicious slice from his opponent towards his booted shin—he bore down with the flat of his blade, in a crushing blow.
With a growl-like grunt, the masked man fell back a step, fighting to recover the ground that he had lost after being forced to defend himself against Aidan's attack. Taking advantage of this, Aidan came down after him, and they neared the base of the stairway again.
Finally, alarms had started to go off around the docking station! If reinforcements arrived quickly enough, the whole mess would be over very soon—
Then everything went wrong.
Again.
Both Aidan and his opponent had been distracted from one another by the wail of the space station's sirens and the flashing red lights of the alarms, but the masked man had recovered more quickly from the surprise of the loud noise, and without a moment's pause, he suddenly grabbed hold of the long frock-coat that Aidan wore—and pulled.
Hard.
And then they were falling—falling—falling down through empty space. The side of the docking station's walls whizzed past them, and Aidan could hear the wind whistling in his ears with a terrible high-pitched howling.
NO!
Then—BAM!
Something immense and hard came up underneath them, without warning, and the impact of his gravity-bound body against its metallic surface caused the breath to rush swiftly out of Aidan's lungs. He didn't have time to lie where he was and recover himself, though—the man was already attacking him once more.
Aidan fended off a series of lightning-quick stabs and blows towards his chest and shoulders, putting in a few lunges and parries himself, and then he caught a more detailed glimpse of his surroundings.
Fates!
They had landed on the broad, sloping roof of an enormous transport-speeder—which continued to move, even as they fought on! The surface beneath his feet was made of some sort of incredibly shiny and sleek metal—and it was so slick that he could scarcely keep his footing, even with his traction-geared boots. The masked man dealt him a stunning blow to the stomach with a roundhouse kick, and Aidan stumbled back, wrapping one arm about himself. The air burned like fire in his lungs, and stars were bursting in his vision—he couldn't breathe!
With a snarl, he gave a retaliating blow, and the masked man was sent to one knee by a solid smack of Aidan's sword against his gauntleted arm.
Protected as the arm was, the force of Aidan's blow still carried a bone-crunching clout. Immediately the masked man raised his arm again, catching Aidan's sword within the curved spikes that lined the outer edge of his gauntlet. Aidan knew what was coming before the man had even moved—and so he was ready to react when the man's arm twisted, jerked, and then threw the sword off to one side. The weapon went spinning towards the edge of the speeder—
And they both dove after it.
It was Aidan who had the advantage this time. Falling with flawless acrobatic skill onto his hip, he slid across the roof's curve and used the momentum of his movement to catch up to the sword. Once he had snatched hold of its blade—taking caution to grab onto its tip and not hold it flat, where its sharp edges would slice past even his thick leather gloves—he lunged to the other side, and wrapped his fingers around one of the protruding ribs of the roof's structure.
But the other man did not try to stop his own downward plunge. Aidan felt a huge, falling weight collide with him, and saw the oncoming rush of heavy black material—yet nothing latched onto him. Shock stabbing into his mind, he snapped his head downwards, and watched as his dark opponent slid past him: coming to land, with a heavy clang, on the speeder's platform-deck.
Clinging for dear life to the side of the transport as it continued to hurdle along through the air at breakneck speed, Aidan only just saw what the man did next—and even then, he was filled with infuriation.
His eyes seeming to glow white-blue through the mask, the man raised his sword and saluted his opponent: giving a slow, mockingly-deferential nod of his hooded head.
Then he leapt off the transport—
And landed, with cat-like ease, on yet another portion of the space station's docking bay area.
An inarticulate, strangled exclamation found its way out of Aidan's mouth, and he looked up, then down again: scrutinizing his current situation within a split second. Alas, there seemed to be only one option for him now, and though it greatly displeased him…well, he couldn't exactly let things end as they were.
Not now, at any rate.
And so he relinquished his hold on the transport's side, and made his own leap down onto the platform, following his shadowy opponent. When he landed, however, and looked around himself…
There was no one in sight.
"That…doesn't make sense."
His voice—quiet as it was when he uttered those words—seemed as loud as cannon-shot in the immense silence that had suddenly wrapped around him, hanging like an almost tangible, heavy presence in the twilight air. Aidan felt tiny chills running up and down his spine, setting his nerves on edge; there was nothing around him, no one to be seen. But he somehow couldn't believe…
The masked man had demonstrated a keen focus and fiercely tenacious will during their battle. Aidan was a fighter himself, and he knew that such battles were not ended so abruptly. So quickly. So easily.
And yet the cloaked figured had disappeared.
What was there to be done now?
Surely, the villain had gone off to somewhere else on the space station, and was doubtlessly terrorizing someone else now, along with his mysteriously shadowy comrades. Aidan didn't even have to listen carefully to hear the sirens that were still going off all over the enormous floating structure—danger was yet about, and there were lawless, unscrupulous characters lurking about in the dark.
Quite obviously, Chief Consulate Aidan Lysander and the Hyperion Ascendant were fated to have a difficult time leaving Caraesthir.
Now that he was no longer under attack, his senses returned to their normal functions, and he gave a cursory glance to both himself and his surroundings. The greatest damage that he had sustained during the duel was from his landing onto the transport-speeder: most likely a few bruises here and there, but those were injuries that weren't even worthy of note. He was standing along on the wide terrace, as the sun died in the horizon, causing the entire sky to burn with a blood-red luminescence.
He still had the sword in his hand.
Needless to say, his first impulse was to drop it, to fling it away from himself as if it had dealt him a violent electrical jolt—because it belonged to a faceless coward of a pirate, of course!—and return to his own party, with nary a glance behind himself. He hadn't allowed the villains to land upon the space station; he hadn't invited them to confront the Tyrellian delegation there. His responsibility lay in escorting the Princess Odette safely to her wedding. There was no more than he needed to do here.
And yet—
He turned around, sharply pivoting on one booted heel, and his hazel eyes narrowed: glinting darkly in the sunset's glow.
No. This was wrong, all wrong. He had to do something; his loyalty to the Empire demanded that he take action, that he invoke his rights as Consulate and demand the capture, trial, and summary punishment for the nameless wraith-like figures who had dared to interfere with imperial matters.
It was his duty, and if he ignored the call of duty—
He rearranged his grip on the sword, and glanced around himself again. The masked man had vanished from sight, but something in the back of Aidan's mind told him that if the man's aim had been great enough to necessitate an attack on high-ranking visitors to a major imperial outpost…
The trouble was not yet at its end.
Across the terrace from him was a huge opening in the station's wall. Too large to be a mere door, it had to be some sort of loading bay—and the sharply astringent scent of molten metal and superheated combustion gases, coupled with the deeply reverberating crashing and thudding noises from within, revealed the place for what it was. His duel with the masked man had taken him several levels down on the space station, away from the more sophisticated and refined upper-class living quarters, to the industrial area. He was standing in front of the smelting plant.
Well, there had to be at least one person somewhere within the place that could direct him as to how he might find his way back to the upper levels.
So inside that door he would go.
Keeping a firm grip on the still-unsheathed sword—though he didn't realize it—he strode towards the gaping black mouth of the metal-smith's warehouse. Gusting blasts of hot, dry air hit him repeatedly as he stepped through the towering doorway, moving step by step into the shadows that were only relieved by the glow of the molten metal and the showers of sparks that went up in the air from time to time, as the gargantuan mechanical drills and blades did their work on the metal.
It was dark within.
Very dark. Almost too dark.
He took another step, and then he was entirely inside the doorway, surrounded and cloaked by the crushing shadows. The sweltering heat of the air prickled against his skin, arid and almost blistering, and—as he glanced around again—he noticed that he could see absolutely no living being within sight. There were no workers moving about within the darkness, no overseers or taskmasters tending to the enormous pulleys, levers, forges, and engines. There was nothing but fire, steam, and shadows.
Aidan's jaw clenched as he simultaneously shifted his grip on the sword that he held in his hand, and his eyes flashed in the dark.
Oh, this was just too convenient.
The masked man had to have passed this way—there was no other escape route that he could have taken, from the terrace. He had to have come inside, to have stood on the very ground that Aidan's feet were now resting upon.
There was no other way.
Somewhere within the forge, there would be an exit to the upper levels: the place where the fiery underworld-like warehouse would connect to the more aesthetic portions of the space station. The masked man had expressed an interest in the Hyperion Ascendant—
But that was before he insisted on challenging you to a duel, Aidan reminded himself, curtly, cursing his own oversight.
—Whatever case, however, Aidan found his entire mind seized by the sudden desperate determination to once again take control of matters and regain the day's order. He was responsible. He was the man-in-charge, not this faceless brigand. And if the Hyperion Ascendant, the princess, and the other Tyrellian delegates were in danger, it would be Aidan's duty to reach them and see them to safety.
That left no space for delay, no room for question.
Wherever the masked man had gone, Aidan would follow, for their interests seemed to lie in one and the same thing: winning over one another. The masked man had his aims; Aidan had his. And Aidan Lysander would see himself thrown into the deepest, darkest dungeon within the imperial palace before he let a filthy, unscrupulous, nameless pirate manage to get the better of him.
A stairway lay directly before him, revealing itself suddenly as he rounded a bend in the iron-plated catwalk pathway that led through the forge. It wound up and up, in sharp and almost unnatural angles, to a distant doorway, through which he could see the faintest glimpse of light. He had found the way out.
Hastening his pace, he quickly reached the steps and sped up, taking two—sometimes three—steps at a time. His heartbeat began to match the steps that he took, thudding within his chest as he ran up and up and up, coming closer and closer to the waiting doorway and the light beyond it—
Then he was at the doorway—
And slamming himself to a halt—
So that he could turn his gaze down to the center of his chest again, where his ribcage came together, and glare stonily at the sword-point that had once more managed to jab him there, held steady by its owner's arrogantly confident hand.
Aidan heard a low, amused chuckle.
"Leaving so soon?" said his antagonist's voice: soft yet mocking. "We haven't finished our previous business, Consulate."
Aidan took his eyes from the sword-point, and slowly lifted his head, bringing his scornful hazel eyes to meet the icily derisive blue eyes of the other man.
"Leaving was the last thought on my mind," he confessed, lightly.
The masked man's eyes flared wide, and he made a sort of ah!-ing sound of comprehension—scarcely more than a hastily expelled breath—and he moved backwards with lightning speed, heavy black robes swirling and snapping: taking the two strides that were needed to move him out of the way of Aidan's sword, which Aidan had swung at him in a wide, slicing arc.
The blade missed the other man's black-cloaked shoulder—but he brought his own blade to bear then, forming an immediate one-handed strike to counter Aidan's blow. Yet again, Aidan saw the smile in his eyes. "Indeed; very good!" was all that the masked antagonist said.
Then they were off again, fighting like two enraged sand-dragons.
Down the stairway they went, lunging and stabbing at one another with fierce and relentless abandon, neither seeming to care—anymore—whether or not they damaged and destroyed anything and everything that was in their path. Sparks flew as Aidan's sword crashed into the metallic railing of the stairway: sent there by his violent blow towards the masked man's shoulder.
But the black-robed villain evaded the strike, yet again, falling to one knee on the staircase with a grunt as he parried Aidan's blade with his own. The swords scraped savagely against one another as the two combatants pulled apart: both man attempting to read his opponent's posture and mind, to ascertain where the next attack would come from, and how it would be dealt.
Aidan knew that he was at a disadvantage, being on the higher step on this staircase. It was much too narrow for him to manage, and his trying to maintain his balance took up so much of his concentration that he couldn't properly guard his lower legs. Taking an enormous chance, he placed one hand on the iron railing—taking care to hold his sword in a protected grip—and vaulted over it, coming to land in a perfect crouch, one level below.
Looking up, he could just barely see the form of his antagonist silhouetted in the fiery air above. The masked man stood motionless on the parapet overhead, sword clenched in his left hand, his preternaturally pale eyes glaring murderously.
"So you've decided to play the game that way, have you?"
Cringing at the imperious voice that called down to him, arrogance and mockery ringing in every syllable of every word, Aidan gritted his teeth and replied—
"This is no game! And I take no amusement from it!"
Blue eyes glinted behind the mask, and the black-cloaked shoulder gave a careless bit of a shrug, as the man responded—
"Pity."
Then he slashed at the air with his sword, and leapt over the railing himself, landing on the same lower walkway that Aidan stood upon, in precisely the same manner that Aidan himself had landed. The hooded head quirked to one side, and Aidan felt a smirking gaze fix itself upon him. With a disgusted glare of his own, he stepped backwards, once again assuming a defensive position.
Before they could cross swords, however, the man paused.
"I have to admit, Consulate—I'm both surprised and delighted to find a fighter of your particular caliber. No one knows how to use swords anymore, these days."
Aidan narrowed his eyes.
"Yes, well…" he ground out, through his tightly clenched teeth.
What kind of lunatic made casual conversation on the conventions of the present day and age whilst engaging in a mortal duel? This was purely, insanely ridiculous!
"I trained hard."
"Old-fashioned methods?"
SLASH.
Aidan ducked to one side, and returned the strike.
"No. The chancellor insists that members of his personnel are well-versed in nothing but the best of martial techniques."
SWOOP.
The masked man lunged aside to avoid Aidan's perfectly executed drop-kick, and brought his sword down to the iron grating of the catwalk beneath their feet, almost catching Aidan's lower calf with his sword blade.
"You are lying, Consulate."
The blue eyes smirked into Aidan's own.
"The old ways of the blade and the mind have been defunct and ignored for decades, and you know it as well as any man! You didn't learn any of this on your precious Tyrellia—every move you make is versed in the ancient arts!"
No.
Aidan felt his blood run cold.
No, that's impossible…no one could know…no one…
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
Suddenly they had locked swords again, and were staring directly into one another's faces—and close as they were, Aidan could catch no identifying feature in the face behind the sinisterly gleaming silver mask that concealed his opponent's face. There was nothing alive and human about it, but for those eyes—
"One thing I'll ask of you at this moment, Consulate Lysander," hissed the man's voice, in a tone that was suddenly much lower, much more serious, and much deadlier. "One thing, and none other, now…"
And then the spiked gauntleted arm flew up from the man's side, and hit Aidan full in the chest, ramming its wickedly curving edges against his ribcage—angled so that they lay flat against his coat-front and would not stab, but rather bruise with force. Aidan stumbled backwards, and the man bore down on him.
Suddenly, Aidan felt himself loosing his balance, and only when he had landed hard on his side did he realize that he had been shoved off the stairway—which ended in an abrupt sort of drop-off into open space—and onto a flat, moving surface. The man jumped down after him.
"Lie to anyone else. But don't lie to me."
KA-CHUNK!
With fortunate lightning reflexes, Aidan scrambled backward—
Just in time to avoid the gargantuan, peculiarly angled wall of metal that slammed down onto the surface that he had fallen upon.
With a sharp screeching sound, the blade punctured through the sheet of metal that was rolling along the conveyor belt, while another of its kind performed the same action scant inches behind his head. Eyes flaring wide with both surprise and alarm, Aidan fought himself to his feet and then stared at the scene before himself: realizing with sudden clarity the danger that lay before him.
They were in a metal-smith's warehouse.
They were standing on a conveyor belt.
And above them, waiting to come down at precisely-timed, deadly intervals were a long line of giant guillotine-like blades, each sharp enough to slice through thick sheets of metal like a hot knife through butter.
Oh, this just wasn't fair.
The masked man looked up—as if he, too, was just realizing what kind of predicament it was that he had gotten them both into—and took note of the blades as they came down again, slid back up, came down again, slid back up, ad nauseum. Then he jerked his head back to look straight at Aidan, and the cool, challenging curve of the lips returned, along with the glitter in the eyes.
"Well, isn't that interesting…"
"Isn't it!" Aidan growled, as they simultaneously lunged towards one another—effortlessly avoiding the blades as they crashed downwards again.
The duel seemed to have transformed then, in the face of this new challenge: it was no longer a vicious, angry battle between the antagonist and the antagonized.
It was a contest.
Equally matched in skill as in size and experience, Aidan and the masked man fought on down the conveyor belt, dodging the slicing blades and stabbing at one another. Finally, the masked man bored of the challenge, and leapt from it—Aidan followed—
And they landed on the edge of a vat of molten steel.
Streams of the white-hot metal poured down from robotic dispensers above, sending deadly splashes spraying at the combatants, yet the two men continued to fight. Neither one was willing to give up; neither wanted to surrender, and, truth be told...the duel had now become a game, and they were both too engrossed in it to end.
Aidan avoided the masked man's booted foot—set in front of him with the obvious intent to trip him into the burning inferno of the vat—and aimed his own kick, forcing the man back a step or two. Sweat dripping from his straggling hair into his eyes, he quickly drew his arm across his forehead, and pressed forward with dogged determination. But then the masked man dealt him an unexpected blow.
One movement of the gloved fingertips—
And one of the insulation pipes on the wall nearby tore itself free, and launched itself towards Aidan at a violent speed.
Aidan whirled, bringing his blade around so that it hit the pipe as it went past, forcing its inertia to work against it, so that it slammed past him instead of colliding with him. Clearly annoyed by that, the man gave a growl, and then raised his hand, palm outward: snarling a harsh string of words in an ugly, guttural tongue.
Light—bright green shards of pure light—spouted from the black leather palm, and blasted into Aidan like a ton of plasma. He flew backward, sent to his hands and knees by the force of the blow, and was unable to recover for a moment. Then, he lifted his face again, and glared into the eyes of the other man.
"Do you plan on killing me? Or do you intend to simply play?"
"If you want what is best for you—and your crew—Consulate Lysander, I would suggest that you stop asking questions, and continue fighting. My blade will not stop simply because yours does."
The masked man swung at Aidan's head, stalking forward again. Aidan didn't have time to get to his feet. He could only react.
BAM!
Power burst forth from Aidan's hand now—but it was blindingly blue, opposing the burst of green lightning that had emitted from the other man's fingertips—and the result was immediate and stunning.
The masked man obviously hadn't expected that particular sort of retaliation. Taken off-guard, he was blasted back as well now, and landed hard on the ground. Aidan scrambled to his feet, and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword—
Too late for much of an advantage, however.
The masked man recovered from the blow that he had taken, and was on his feet again in a rush of heavy jet-black robes.
But his sword wasn't in his hand now.
They both spotted the fallen weapon at the same moment—it had landed on the very edge of yet another catwalk, some fifty feet below. Aidan anticipated the masked man's next move, and rushed forward just as he lunged to the side—
Over the railing they went, yet again, but this time Aidan crashed down onto a level that was slightly above the spot where his opponent's sword had gone. The masked man retrieved the weapon and glanced up, quickly. Aidan saw his pale lips curve into a diabolical little bit of a smirk. What was he going to do—?
"Get down here."
The masked man's black-gloved hand shot up from his side, out in front of him—its fingers making a sort of grabbing movement—and a burst of that same green light sprang forth from his palm, illuminating the enormous dark chamber with a glow that was far more intense than even a powerful bolt of lightning.
Burning through the air, it ricocheted off the catwalk that Aidan stood upon, and the catwalk began to buck violently. It was as if the huge blast of power had given the metal walkway a life of its own, transforming it into a huge and volatile iron cat that twisted, arched, and jerked: its joints and supports groaning ominously. Aidan fell to the side, grabbing onto the railing just in time to keep himself from being thrown like a rag-doll into the air. The catwalk continued to lurch and writhe, with a sickening kind of erratic roughness, and his vision began to blur. More white-hot bursts of green power battered his precarious perch, and he knew that it wouldn't be long before he didn't have anything to hold onto anymore; the metal could only withstand so much strain—
"Stop it!"
"I don't think I will…" came the singsong voice of his opponent.
Aidan gritted his teeth, and risked a hasty glance over his shoulder, to the darkened space behind him: the place where the catwalk met the stairway that led down to the next level. But even as the thoughts were forming in his head, the masked man seemed to have read them. Immediately, there was a huge explosion of light, and the stairwell simply shattered, as if it was a pile of matchsticks that had been dealt a devastating blow by a gargantuan battering ram.
The catwalk ceased its roiling motion, and became utterly still. Aidan pulled himself to his feet, after a moment's hesitation, and stood motionless. There was hardly any sound in the air at all now, but for the eternal pounding of the blades on the sheet-cutting conveyor belt and the hissing of steam through the air. He dared to move his foot, inching it forward by the very tiniest degree—
And the catwalk gave an enormous groan—
The slatted grating beneath him jerked, and then tilted precariously to one side—
As the entire thing slid downwards by a heart-stopping foot and a half, and caught itself on the wall again with a bone-crunching crash. Then everything was still. Aidan scarcely dared to breathe for the next few seconds that ticked by, seeming slow as centuries. He could feel the masked man's eyes on him: watching, observing—gauging his reaction—and waiting, as if they were both uncertain of what would happen next.
Finally, the cold voice spoke again.
"I'd advise not trying to avoid me either."
Narrowing his eyes, Aidan bit back an acid retort, saying instead—
"I wouldn't dream of it."
A musing sound from the masked man, as he twirled his sword with a kind of expert dexterity in his left hand, contemplating it casually.
"Indeed. Shall we continue?"
"Must we?" Aidan snapped. "You've had your fight—you've seen what I can and what I can't do—and now I've had enough. Go your way."
The white-blue eyes flashed, catching a gleam of the ruby-red light from above, and Aidan gripped the hilt of his sword tighter, waiting for the next attack.
"I haven't gotten what I came here for yet, Consulate. And don't presume to think that a demonstration of your martial skills is all that I came to this place in search of—I might have said that, but I certainly didn't mean it."
In a split second, he had vaulted off the ground, and had leapt onto the catwalk behind Aidan, crouching there like a huge, human-sized panther.
"And now we shall end this."
They lunged towards one another at the same time, and the duel once more transformed; it was no longer a game. It was a duel to the death. Both opponents were furious at having been faced with each other's equal skill, and both were deadly intent on winning. No quarter would be given now—no witty banter could take place.
They fought at close quarters, swords swinging and feet scuffling as they moved in a lightning-fast, graceful blur of steps. The crash and clang of the sword-blades upon each other was rhythmic and dazzlingly-quick: the music for the perilous dance of their battle. Neither of the two men gave ground—at one moment, Aidan was forced back by a kick from the masked man, and in the next moment, the masked man would retreat in the face of a savage lunge from Aidan and his sword.
Then the masked man lost his patience.
BAM!
He flung his arm out to the side, smacking the hilt of his sword into one of the chains that were now the only things holding the catwalk aloft. The rusty metal links gave way, snapping instantly—and the catwalk lurched to the side again. The surface beneath their feet had a dangerous tilt now. Aidan kept his balance, and whipped his head around, staring at the masked man in sudden consternation.
"You're going to get us both killed!" he snapped.
A shrug of the black-cloaked shoulders.
"Only if we fall."
Aidan snarled and regained his footing, bearing down on the other man with a relentless fury. This had gone on long enough. Every move he made caused his ire to rise, inch by inch, until he was nearly blinded with rage and irritation. He was the Consulate, and no one defied him! This was an imperial outpost, and no one defied the Empire! Pirates were the scum of the galaxy, and this particular pirate was a pariah among cowards, who used magic to further his own demented and craven ends, and hid his face so that he could continue to pursue his black-hearted craft—
BAM!
The man lashed out once again, even as he was being driven back by Aidan's assault, and yet another chain snapped; the catwalk began to slid down—
"NO!" Aidan bellowed.
A red haze filled his vision, and he forgot all proper rules of martial conduct, pushed aside all caution, and simply rushed at the masked man, who was taken off-guard by his furious lunge and could not recover the ground that he had lost. Back, back, and back they went: closer and closer to the edge of the catwalk, where the stairway had hung, ere its demise. But Aidan was past the point of considering this.
No more.
Then, at the very last moment, when Aidan made the mistake—in his haste to end the battle—of moving too fast and leaving his sword-wrist unguarded, the masked man struck out: slamming the sword out of Aidan's hand. The weapon went flying over the edge of the railing, swallowed instantly by the darkness.
But this helped not at all. Aidan wasn't going to cease fighting now, even when he was unarmed; the masked man was not going to see victory. With an incensed growl, he rushed forward a few last steps, overwhelming his opponent, and as the edge of the catwalk came up behind him, he pulled his arm back—and hit the man with all the force that he could, across the mask.
CLANG!
The mask went flying, too.
And Aidan froze in his tracks.
No.
The man—whose face had been whipped to one side in reaction to Aidan's blow—stopped as well, eyes closed as he registered the fact that he had been exposed.
All was silent.
No…it…it can't be…!
Then Aidan found words again. His voice—when he spoke—was low, disbelieving, and very, very unsteady.
"…Lucius?"
Slowly—ever so slowly—the suddenly unmasked face turned, and the pale features that were half hidden by a haze of longish, unruly jet-black locks turned towards him. The head raised, and the white-blue eyes focused on his again. Their owner gave a little bit of a silent, breathy laugh: a rueful expression etching into his features, and the two men stared at one another.
Neither spoke.