A Legacy of Blades - An Epic Tower Fantasy

A raspy hacking came from the pile of corpses, this one surprisingly less crisped than the last several, cooked only to a mostly charred state. Most bodies, even this far from the epicenter, were charred beyond recognition. More groaning came from this pile alone than the rest of the blast zone combined.

The few survivors discovered scattered among the barbecue before this had been saved by virtue of the volume of bodies. Beyond a doubt, more seemed to be at play here, as if something had sapped the vitality from the flame itself, limiting its destruction.

As Anilith and the Grokar who accompanied her peeled away the outer crust, revealing the less thoroughly roasted interior, the hacking laughter came through more clearly. Unfortunately, the clarity of sound brought with it the full depth of the tortured groans. Pulling body after body from the mass, more lifeless than not, they silenced the screams and ended the unfortunate creatures' agony.

Even when it was done in self-defense, the knowledge that she had wrought such destruction, changing the very landscape itself, threatened to bring up what meager meal Anilith had scarfed down for sustenance that day. Her stomach roiled violently at the sound of every victim, and silencing their cries brought her little in the way of relief.

They wouldn't have needed the mercy if not for her.

That wasn't an entirely fair train of thought, as the creatures would have inflicted far worse upon Razhik, the Grokar, and her if Anilith had done nothing, but the mind does not always approach the more disturbed realms of emotion rationally. Each victim laid to rest merely piled onto the weight she carried, made worse for the terrible manner of their demise.

She had always prided herself on her efficiency, rarely making an enemy suffer needlessly when a clean kill was possible. There would always be moments when it wasn't, but that was the cost of walking the warrior's path. In a twisted way, there was an efficiency to this killing, her spell having concentrated the blast into a shockwave, eliminating much of the energy that would have been lost to the atmosphere had she not interfered. It was a harsh, brutal efficiency, aimed more at maximizing destructive feedback, rather than limiting suffering.

The only positive note was the wave being so efficient, most everything died before the pain even registered. Most, however, was not all, and Anilith stared at a stark reminder of the price of power. It was a small wonder that it made her sick.

She muttered under her breath as she went through the motions of her ghastly work. "Never forget what you did here. They might have killed you, but this…there has to be a better way. Nothing deserves…this."

The Wind and the Earth were silent, any additional sensory input blocked out. She'd find the lingering wounded quickly enough as it stood; she didn't need to experience everything at once. Similarly, she'd discovered she could block out Orion and the connection he brought. The turmoil she felt had begun to leak over that bridge, and she could feel the unbidden emotions of her friends as they processed her shame, the revulsion that ripped apart her psyche.

Power, again, came with a cost, and she didn't need to let her friends see how the devastation she'd caused reflected upon her inner peace. They already knew, she'd been too late to stop that, and the deep-seated sadness that had echoed back from Orion was laced with understanding, and the faintest traces of pity. It wasn't a cruel pity, as one might feel for these beasts writhing in their pained death throes, but it nourished her shame in a positive feedback loop.

Even if he understood the depth of her emotion, he couldn't truly grasp what she was grappling with—the disconnect between the path of a protector and the path of a conqueror, and the commonality between them.

"Remember, and learn the limits of your abilities. You've got two options here, Ani: embrace the power and abandon your path, whatever that might make you, or to follow the path of control." For the first time, she considered how greatly her power had grown over the last few months, and how that rampant growth had dulled the temper of her control.

A sigh forced its way from her as she thought of the person who'd entered the tower, a person she had a hard time identifying with still. "Gods, Tempy, if you could see me now. This place has really done a number on me. I…I didn't realize how much I depended on you before. So arrogant, thinking myself strong, thinking myself Chosen. I'd never have made it to that pit if you weren't with me." She shook her head with a wry chuckle. "Joke's on me, though, you aren't.

"Don't want to imagine where I'd be if I hadn't run into Orion here. I'm starting to think I owe Mingus more for that than any of the trinkets I got from our bargain. Tools are useful, but friendships really shape a person, shape their entire life, not just the way they approach a problem." Her Grokar companion, yet wreathed in Razhik's shaded mantle, made no remark as she continued muttering to herself. "Still, it's just another crutch, another sign of my weakness, that I can't stand and do this on my own.

"I was supposed to be special," she scoffed, "you know, Grodo? I know you're listening, even if you're too…polite? To say anything." The creature pointedly ignored her, just as she had tuned out the manic cackle. In her mind, there wasn't a doubt what it belonged to, and she had made it her mission to save releasing that monster for last. "I'm glad you made it through, though, and I'm sorry we couldn't keep you all safe. It's not right that so many of your people died for our plan, even if you did sign up for this. Or your chieftain did, anyhow."

Grodo glanced over at her, no acknowledgement in the gaze, and let out a simple, low croak before continuing the thankless, grisly work.

"He said, 'thank you'," a voice whispered from her shadow.

"Stop creeping around, Your Eminence, it's unbecoming for one of your stature," Anilith murmured, not turning to face the source. "Gotta be something you can do to make yourself useful, maybe go check on Orion?"

"Yeah," he replied, "Already did that, and the other Grokar are taking care of…the rest." After a pause, he added, "Say, feel up to naming the rest of them? Doesn't feel right to just keep calling them 'you' or 'big guy.' You know?",

"Yeah, sure," she snorted, "I'll see what I can come up with between mercy killings."

The pair moved away from the pile as the Grokar continued dissecting the abomination.

"Alright, sounds good!" Silence stretched between them for a beat before he asked, "You sure you're okay, Ani? I felt—"

"—Forget about that," Anilith snapped, before she deflated with a sigh. "I wish I'd known about that part of Orion's gift before the battle was over, can't take back what you felt there, but I'll be fine. Not every day you single-handedly slaughter a village in moments.

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"What's Orion up to, anyway?"

"Oh," Razhik began, "nothing much. Looting and sorting, sorting and looting. You didn't manage to destroy everything, even if you did scare the piss out of him with that little trick. I'm sure he'll be along shortly. You scared us all, if I'm being honest. The Grokar confide in me, you know, being their new King and all. Told me their view of the ordeal, and was that ever eye-opening."

Silence returned, only to be banished once more by the creature. "I'm not so sure he's ready to see what other surprises you might be hiding still. If you were holding that in reserve, I can't even imagine what other secrets you might still be holding onto."

Fixing him with a pointed stare, Anilith retorted, "I didn't even know I could do that, your Majesty, until I realized we were all dead and I needed to do something. You're welcome, by the way, and congratulations on the new subjects."

"Oh, we're waiting to make it official. Don't want to rush into anything, you know? But yeah, thanks for saving us from certain doom. Pretty sure I wouldn't even be here if not for you," Razhik replied, sounding genuinely pleasant, "but that's besides the point. It's not every day you get to have somebody save you from a problem that they, themselves, exacerbated. That's just getting to be a regular thing with you, though."

Razhik's lips curved up slowly into a smile that wasn't at all mischievous. "What did you do there, anyway? I mean, obviously, you did some kind of magic reversal mumbo jumbo, but it wasn't ever that effective when you were practicing in the Plains. Never seen you do anything quite like that."

The groans of the dying had nearly breathed their last as the two talked, taking a break from the morbid work, happy to let the Grokar carry on. The rasping, pained laughter, fainter now, carried on, stifled by the mounding corpses.

Anilith rubbed the back of her head as she considered his question. "I'm not sure I really know what I did. I was just reacting. Best I can put it is it felt like I was channeling, kind of like I do with my other magics, just more…internal. Like there was something in me that could help, needed to be expressed on the world."

"Yeah," Razhik said, nodding with saucer-sized eyes, "that makes perfect sense. You just did it. Got it." His expression softened, and his eyes shrank to a more normal size. "I do kinda get it, though, in all seriousness. I learned more about myself in that fight than I have in…well, let's just call it 'far too long.'"

"It was pretty alarming," Anilith said, "having your arm sprout out of my chest, even if it saved my ass. Having your entire…you…follow after it wasn't exactly the least bizarre thing I've seen in a while, either. I take it you figured something cool out yourself. Care to share?"

"Ooooo, well, after the first explosion went off—rude, might I add—I let the water work its magic on me and really thought for the first time in a while. I think, don't get me wrong," Razhik clarified, the scales of his face changing shades ever so slightly, "It's just that I don't often spend a lot of time thinking about myself, my abilities, if you will.

"Anyway, down at the bottom of the pond, I got to thinking about shadows and what they are to me, and pieces started coming together. They'd all been there the whole time, I think, they just hadn't ever clicked, like the shapes were just a little off. I started to see some patterns I'd ignored for, as I said, 'far too long.' Add in Orion's little mojo, and they almost started lining themselves up in my head, all those little pieces I'd overlooked."

"Wait, wait, wait," Anilith interjected. "You're saying Orion's…whatever he did…helped you figure out a new ability? That's…huh. Food for thought there, might explain a little."

"Girl, if you're gonna interrupt, I'm not gonna tell my story. Now," Razhik said, glancing around conspiratorially, "Magic's a personal thing, and talking about it with others, well, that's rare. Shows more trust than I think you realized back when we met. Annoying as it was, smart thing you did, getting the Tower's backing, wrong as it was of you to mistrust a King.

"My own flavor of magic has to do with shadows, but not shadows per se, more the absence of light. I won't bore you with the specifics, and trust me, they can be a bore, but suffice to say I figured out a long time ago that I could hide myself in this absence, walking in the space between the light." At a questioning glance from Anilith, Razhik held up a clawed hand. "Nope, no questions! It's my thing, and it doesn't matter if it makes sense to you or not.

"Anyway, I've only ever approached it from an all-or-nothing perspective, but what if it weren't? Why couldn't just some of me come out to play? You saw where that thought led, and it definitely gives me a little more freedom than having to go back and forth. That was always a drag and kinda made me not want to even bother using the ability in the first place, like when we met."

Anilith couldn't stop herself from asking, "What about the shadow skin you gave us all? That wasn't new?"

Razhik blinked for a minute. "What, the Shadow King's Mantle of Authority? I mean, I'd never done it before, if that's what you mean, but why wouldn't a King have a Mantle? It's really more for you soft-skins than me. Good way of marking allies though."

Anilith's eyes narrowed, her gaze painted with confusion. "But…you used the armor to attack from my position, didn't you?"

"…I did, didn't I? I mean, of course I did! All part of the plan, and totally something I knew I could do before I did it. A king has to protect his people, after all."

"People," Anilith retorted, "not subjects?"

"We're still working out the details, as I said. Anybody ever tell you, you need to really listen when people are talking? Gods!"

"You know what… never mind, just. Never mind."

"What? You do!"

As the two went back and forth, the cries around them ceased, and they looked up to see the Grokar all gathered around a point not too far away. It seemed they'd found the source of the intermittent cackle.

"Ah," Razhik said, forgetting their bickering, "I told them to find that…thing, but not to kill it like the rest. Not yet, anyway. Maybe it has some answers?" He looked at Anilith almost as if begging her approval for his actions.

"Well," she said, "only one way to find out."

As they approached, other sounds became more audible, and Anilith started to pick out faint words in the goblin tongue as the distance closed.

"…did you hear my chorus of screams, Tower? Did you witness the results of my offering?" The beast coughed, and Anilith could make his shape out at the feet of the Juggernauts. "Is it enough? Can I finally be reclaimed?"

Disgust roiled in Anilith's gut, the idea that anything could be as deplorable as this creature aiming the emotion, for the first time that day, at a target other than herself.

When she was close enough to see the beasts unfocused eyes, staring off into the distant heavens, she whispered softly, "It will never be enough, you will never be enough." She spat on the ground at the thing's feet. "Anything that lives for the suffering of others, that is an existence I will not suffer."

The creature's eyes refocused alarmingly quickly, locking onto Anilith's approaching figure. "You! You have brought me glory beyond measure, so astounding was the pyre!" A hacking cough sprayed blood into the air. "You, so ignorant of the rules, can't hope to understand the great workings of our god. I am enough, and I am witnessed, witnessed by all who you killed, thinking me a monster.

"I wasn't so different from you, once. None of us really are, just a circumstance of circumstance, a form to suit the needs of the moment. One day, maybe, you'll see. You'll understand. If you follow the path, find the secrets, you'll know."

"Maybe I will," Anilith whispered, "but you'll never know, not if I have any say in the matter. I hope this is the last time we meet, monster."

"I—"

Anilith plunged her blade into the monster's heart, and its eyes bulged.

With its final death rattle, one phrase escaped its failing body.

"It…is…enough."