The chill had ceased to be a feeling; it had become his constant state. It dwelled within his bones pained his chafed hands and clattered in his lungs with each inhale. The plain linen garments were a jest, against the mountain storm stuck to his flesh by sweat and thawed ice that now solidified into a fragile crust. He had departed the domain of tests. Stepped into the world of repercussions.
The descent from the chasm was a slip, over unstable scree every footfall triggering small landslides into the fog beneath. He proceeded on reflex gripping the river stone firmly his knuckles turned pale. It was the evidence that it hadn't all been a dream.
He navigated around a wind-carved rock buttress and there on a level desolate ledge gazing out over the infinite descent of the valley a person stood waiting.
General Clement Duncan remained motionless as if carved from the mountain's shadow itself. His spiked featureless helmet was inclined enough to watch Alexander's trembling unarmed advance. The ebony armor absorbed the gray light while the massive sword, blacker than a night, without stars was lodged tip-down into the stone ahead his hands placed atop its hilt. He did not exude threat. He exuded a calm certainty.
Alexander halted twenty steps the breeze tossing his hair across his eyes. He remained silent. His vocabulary was exhausted. He had shed those words along, with his armor.
When Duncan's internal voice appeared it lacked the raspiness of the cave. It was softer, nearly reflective. "You abandoned the Ring."
It wasn't a query. Alexander offered a rigid nod.
"You passed the gap without the quiet to protect you. Without your swords to mark you." The featureless helmet examined him from his feet to his weather-beaten face. "You stand before me in your form. Not as a Herald. Not, as a supplicant. Who are you Alexander Magnus?"
When Alexander finally spoke his voice was hoarse and rough. "I'm not sure."
Duncan acted for the time. With a movement he pulled his sword out of the stone. The blade was silent. "That " the General remarked, "is the truthful response."
He refrained from adopting a combat posture. Instead he started moving steadily and purposefully. "The Angel will renounce you. You have breached his command. The Trinity shall not be sealed by you. The conflict will persist. The Abyss will keep its memory alive. Continue to invade."
Alexander remained firm gripping the stone in his hand as his weapon. "I understand."
"The mortal realms will damn your name. You possessed the ability to stop their terror. You decided to allow it to persist. You opted for their agony."
"I'm aware."
Duncan halted, standing ten feet distant. The emptiness of his face revealed nothing. "My Queen will find this… both intriguing and disappointing. She extended to you a partnership, in the quandary.. You have opted for the tangled lonely route of the observer. It is the difficult journey. It grants no honor, no tranquility, no solutions."
"What does it provide?" Alexander inquired, his voice carried away by the wind.
"The next moment " Duncan remarked. ". The decision it contains."
After that he launched an assault.
This was not the precise strike of the cave. It was destruction. The obsidian blade flashed a cut of obliteration meant not to injure but to eliminate. Alexander stood no chance of blocking it. He lunged backward crashing onto the ground as the blade sliced through the spot he had occupied the very air appearing to split with a tear.
He tumbled, hastily rising as Duncan launched a follow-up attack, a descending slash that could have cut him to the core. Alexander dodged sideways the sword slicing through stone where he had stood carving a polished mark.
He wasn't battling. He was enduring. A desperate awkward escape dance. Duncan was, like a phenomenon his motions efficient, persistent lacking fury or emotion. He embodied the fulfillment of an outcome: Alexander had dismissed every option; thus he was an irregularity. Irregularities were eliminated.
A backhand strike struck Alexander in the ribs. There was no clash of metal against flesh. Instead a sharp chill pierced him a numbness that robbed his breath. He faltered, panting, sensing the vitality, in that region of his body just… shut down.
The blade doesn't slice skin. It severs reality. The understanding was dread.
He dropped to his knees. Duncan loomed above him the black sword lifted for a downward blow that would cut him off from the entire world.
Alexander glanced upward at the expressionless helm. No foe appeared to him. Instead he perceived a mirror image. The final outcome of a journey of obedience. Duncan embodied the weapon, free, from hesitation from decisions from identity. He represented what Alexander had nearly transformed into for the Angel. And what he still could become for the Abyss should he yield to someone 's control.
He possessed no edge of honesty. No weapon of brilliance. Just a rock.
As Duncan's blade started to drop Alexander remained steady. He unclenched his hand showing a river-polished stone. It was plain and grey.
"This one " he murmured, his words swallowed by the breeze.
He didn't toss it. He merely lifted it a firm fragment of a loud vibrant, aching, stunning world.
The dark blade paused. It lingered a fraction away, from his forehead its chill frosting the perspiration on his flesh.
Duncan remained motionless a figure brimming with latent aggression. The quiet lingered, interrupted by the gusting wind's wail.
Gradually the General stood up erect. He drew his sword back. With his hand he reached up and for the first occasion took off his helmet.
The visage below was not monstrous. It was a man's face, pale and stern carved with wrinkles of silent weariness. His eyes were a weary grey. He appeared older, than the mountains. He appeared… human.
"You've selected a stone " Clement Duncan remarked, his genuine voice a rough baritone, faded from lack of use. He regarded the stone in Alexander's hand as though it were the most sacred artifact, on earth.
"Yes."
Duncan slid his sword into its sheath on his back. The action was definitive. "In that case my duty is fulfilled. The trial has been succeeded."
Alexander gazed, bewildered temporarily forgetting the cold and pain. "Test?"
"The Angel examined your loyalty. The mountain challenged your determination. My Queen examined your beliefs." Duncan's weary gaze met his. "My mission was to evaluate your decision. To observe whether when deprived of all—authority, meaning, self hope—you would hold on to something, within the world you say deserves saving. Not a principle. Not a command. An object." He indicated the stone. "You held on."
He. Moved toward the end of the shelf gazing across the expansive fog-covered valleys. "The conflict isn't between light and shadow. It is, between the desire to perfect and the desire to persist. The Angel aims for a quiet triumph. My Queen desires a eternal battle. Both represent absolutes. Both in their manner reject the ordinary mortal existence that is… this." He indicated the rock, the breeze, the land beneath.
He glanced back at Alexander and in his expression there was a trace of what could be respect.. Perhaps pity. "You have selected the path. The precarious agonizing magnificent realm of reality as it stands. It is the difficult position to maintain. You will be despised by both factions. You will possess no army, no crown, no assurance."
Alexander gradually with effort rose to his feet. "What is wrong, with me?"
Duncan indicated the rock. "That one. Then the following option.. The subsequent one as well." He put his helmet back on the expressionless emptiness coming back. "My Queen won't chase you. You're no longer a pawn, in her game. You are now a factor. A variable. You've become… intriguing."
At that moment General Clement Duncan, feared scourge of the Abyss moved beyond the brink of the ledge. He didn't tumble down. Instead he appeared to step into the wind his figure fading into a vortex of darkness and fog which was carried off by the gust.
Alexander stood by himself. Trembling, wounded, with nothing, in his hands except one stone. The Guardian had disappeared. The trial had concluded.
He had not defeated an enemy. He had not seized a treasure. He had merely decided to stay within the painful breathing world.
He gazed at the stone in his hand out, across the immense merciless stunning terrain. Beneath him lay a village that dreaded him realms that would loathe him a protector who would abandon him and an underworld queen who would consider him simply "intriguing."
He took a deep, shuddering breath of the thin, free air, and began the long, slow, painful walk down.