The Stone In The Sword (3) “What do you mean?” “No more weapons to improve. Human make every axe, hammer, and sword magyck.” “You mean?” “Yes, Renda means Human is free.” Larmandi sat there thinking. He had made friends with many of the dwarves in the tribe, and had a great respect for Renda. He would have been completely happy to stay with these little people. Then he remembered his task with Grumdon, and his promise to follow through on it. “I need to find my friends.” “Renda knows that. Renda also knows why you traveled with other humans.” “Really?” “Yes. Now go and give Paladin Souls big beating!” Larmandi smiled. “Will I ever see your tribe again?” “Yes, we will see each other again before we die, on Dwarf Honor!” “Good luck with the tribe!” “Good luck with your fight!” Larmandi was given a backpack full of food and water and escorted to the cave exit. He waved goodbye to his friends as he walked along the forest undergrowth. Larmandi hiked for several hours before he stopped for dinner. He opened his backpack and looked inside. It was full of cooked politic bird. He laughed. Larmandi hiked for another week before he came upon a settlement of any kind. He wandered straight into the middle of the goblin camp. The goblins were a far more pleasant people than the dwarves, even if their bodies were twisted and malformed. They were respected as philosophers, thinkers, and writers. Most of the high learning in the realm was taught in the Goblin Languages, and there are several libraries filled with Goblin literature and poetry and thesis on the natural world. The goblins stared at the newcomer in awe. They rarely ever saw anybody because the academics couldn’t be bothered to leave their grand lecture halls coated with gold leaf, and the peasantry thought that goblins were twisted abominations from the Dark Realms and would kill goblins on sight. Goblins rarely had contact with other races. The only race that would spend its time with goblins, and that was the spirits of those long departed. Larmandi looked at the goblins and ghosts regard him with awe. A goblin sage hobbled into the camp center, leaning on an old moonlime tree staff. “Hello, and what brings you to our camp?” The goblin asked. “We do not receive many visitors in Deadtree Forest.” “I am Larmandi, son of Larson, blacksmith.” Larmandi told the elderly goblin, nodding his green, wrinkled head. “I was traveling with Sir Grumdon on a quest to kill the Paladin Souls.” The goblins, at the mention of Paladin Souls, became fidgety and disturbed. The scratch of quills painting poems and books silenced, and the goblin sage stared at the boy. “You are from the village that was near here, aren’t you, boy?” The goblin sage sputtered out. “My village is on the other side of the border with Haelbark, in Caolen.” “The Deadtree Forest also crosses the border, like Border Forest. You are in Caolen, near what was once the village of Lulen.” Larmandi watched the goblin with a wary eye. “Aye, that is my village. What do you mean by was?” The goblin reached for a pouch on his belt, and produced a sapphire from it. “The Paladin Souls had heard rumors of a boy who had the power to make many stones one.” The goblin croaked. “He followed the rumors to your village, and demanded the boy be handed over. When he could not be found, the Paladin took all those that would surrender prisoner and killed the rest. The village was burned and Paladin Souls returned to his Castle Chronos. The one survivor of the attack, a man named Larson, crawled for three miles to reach our camp. He gave me the sapphire and whispered ‘For my son, Larmandi’. He died almost immediately.” Larmandi looked around. “I don’t see my father’s ghost, though.” “That, my boy, is because ghosts are those that still have something to do in this realm. Your father did all he needed.” Larmandi thought for a great while. He looked at the sapphire in his hands, watching the sun’s last rays make the gem glisten like stars in the night sky. The sun came to rest behind the horizon, and the moon began its own celestial hike through the sky. The goblins had resumed to write their pieces, though now they wrote by firelight. The goblin elder stayed with the boy the whole time, long ears quivering at the slightest movement. “I need to find Grumdon.” Larmandi finally said. “I need to find him so that he can kill that Paladin Souls. Stars above, condemn the Paladin to burn in the fiery pits of the Dark Realms, and may whatever is left of his soul be forced to wander till Time itself ends!” The goblin elder sighed and shook his head. “Boy, you need to learn. The dark emotions you just released makes the Paladin stronger. I can give you a goblin tracker to find your Sir Grumdon.” “Thank you.” The goblin sage whistled and another goblin, followed closely by a spirit ran up to the pair. “Yes, o wise one?” the goblin and spirit asked in unison. “Hearlong, you will accompany this boy to find a knight named Grumdon.” “Yes, o wise one.” Hearlong and the spirit bowed, and left to get supplies for the potentially long journey. The sage nodded to Larmandi and walked back to his tent. Larmandi grasped the sapphire to his chest and cried “Stars above protect us!” Waymane and Larmandi stood over the forge, hammering away at the adamantite. It had gradually taken the shape of a sword over the several days they had spent in Jeukna. The sword glowed white under the intense heat, but they may as well have been trying to smith it without fire at all. Adamantite was known for its extreme hardness, and legend had it that once, a hero with a sword of adamantite had stopped a meteor with the sword of legendary metal. The armor had been completed already. It was impressive with its golden glow in the light, all the gems in the realm sparkling on the chest plate. The sword also sparkled with gems, each one glowing as Larmandi chanted. It was a long chant, almost ten minutes in length. Larmandi finished the chant, and the green metal began to glow golden with the magyck flowing through it. Larmandi, Hearlong the goblin, and the spirit Woandek, owner of the body Waymane was residing in had finally found Grumdon, Reumidi, and Waymane. They had shared stories of their journeys, of how Comettail helped Reumidi and the other two to escape with some skyrite, and how Larmandi had stayed with the dwarves to be a blacksmith. When Larmandi got to how he had visited the burnt remains of his village and what the goblin sage told him, everyone was silent. Woandek argued with Waymane about the ownership rights of his body. Waymane told Woandek he would get his body back when the time was right. When Waymane was asked when will the time be right, he only replied “Soon, very soon.” “So, this is the sword that will bring Paladin Souls to Death’s door.” Larmandi commented as he observed the golden mage knight sword. “Is there a name for this kind of spellblade?” Waymane looked at Larmandi. “The only name for this blade is Hope, lad.” Waymane told the boy. “And the only name for the armor is Determination. That is what those things represent.” Grumdon chose this moment to enter the cramped smithy. He saw that the sword was finished and he pushed the two aside and tried to lift the sword. “Stars above, this sword is heavy,” Grumdon grunted as he hefted the blade up with both hands. “I hope the armor isn’t half as bad.” “It’s not heavy,” Larmandi said to Grumdon. “Give it here, it’s easy to lift.” Grumdon gave Larmandi the sword, and Larmandi lifted it with ease using one hand. Larmandi had never been much of a swordsman, but the way he made the blade dance in his hands amazed Grumdon. As Larmandi set the sword down, Grumdon tried to lift the blade again, only to fail. “Waymane, what is this?” Grumdon bellowed. “What good is a sword that cannot be lifted? You old…” “Wait, wait! No need for foul language!” Waymane raised his hands in protection. “The sword is special! You can obviously see that!” “How is it special?” “It can only be wielded by a true hero. The same goes for the armor.” “Then why is it so that I cannot lift the blade?” “Because you aren’t a hero!” “Then who is the hero?” Grumdon cried. “Who could it possibly be! All you ever were was trouble! You hear me? Trouble!” “Calm down! Who was just lifting the sword?” Waymane asked the enraged templar. “Who was it Grumdon? Who was it?” “Larmandi.” Grumdon whispered. “Larmandi is the hero. But how can he be?” “Some are born with power beyond reckoning,” Waymane said. “And others have power beyond reckoning thrust upon them.” “I am not the hero.” Larmandi told them. “I am weak and dumb and a coward. Are those the traits of a hero?” “Larmandi, you are not those things.” Waymane said. “You are humble, loyal, and dependable. You are strong, brave and smart. If there is any doubt to this, just look to the sword. It has your name engraved on the hilt.” Larmandi lifted up the sword again and put it in the light. Upon its hilt of skyrite, glowing in a pure, white light, there were some words written. The words were “Hope. The sword of Larmandi, Hero among heroes.” Castle Chronos was bustling with ghosts doing tasks for their master, Paladin Souls. One ghost had a live squirrel in her hands, flying with all possible speed to the throne room. The doors were open, and the Paladin sat on his throne, his jet-black obsidian armor reflecting the light from the torches. “My lord.” The ghost said, giving the squirrel to the Paladin. “Ah, dinner.” The Paladin chuckled. He took the squirrel and dropped it into the eye slit in his helm. There was some squeaking, some crunching, and then all was silent as the Paladin swallowed. “Now that I am done eating, what is the news of the boy?” The Paladin asked. “He was reported to be riding to this place in golden armor, my lord.” “Where was he?” “Where the grasses die, my lord.” “When was the report?” “Two hours ago, my lord.” “Very good. You may leave.” “Yes, my lord.” The ghost floated out of the room, passing through the now closed door. The Paladin lifted up his infernal blade of obsidian to observe the gemstones reflecting the light. He called another ghost into the throne room. “Tell the guards not to interfere with the boy. In fact, tell them to guide him straight to me.” “Yes my lord.” The second ghost floated out. Paladin stood up and walked over to the large mirror the kept in the back of the room. His helmet reflected in the mirror. The Paladin sighed, and lifted the helmet off his head. His skin was blue, and his mouth was full of sharp, pointy teeth. One eye was almost touching his lip, and the other one was up near what was his hairline. He had no nose, only a hole in his face where the nose once was. His eyes were red as fire, and his teeth yellow as pus. His skin was wrinkled and had actually begun to decay in spots. The Paladin Souls placed his helmet back upon his head and walked back to his throne. He held his sword in his lap as he stared into nothingness. He was awoken by one of his servants. The servant was nervous and jittery, as if something was wrong. “What is it?” the Paladin demanded. “My lord, the boy is at the main gate! The guards are escorting him now!” “Very good.” The Paladin lashed out with his blade and caught the ghost right in the chest. As he pulled his sword out of the ghost, a white orb of spirit was stuck to the tip of the blade. As the ghost’s translucent corpse floated to the ceiling, Paladin Souls took the sphere and slid it into his eye slit on the helm. There was a sucking noise, and all was quiet again. “I just love desert.” The Paladin chuckled to himself. Larmandi walked behind the ghosts that were leading him throughout the castle. The ghosts were completely silent as they went through the hallways. Larmandi had tried to talk to them, but the spirits did not respond to anything. They just stared ahead, only turning when they reached intersecting corridors. The entourage arrived at two large, ornate marrowtree doors covered with gilt leaf. The doors opened as if they were reluctant to let the shining knight in. “Enter.” The Paladin said, his voice filling the entire room. “Enter, worm.” As Larmandi advanced towards the Paladin, he felt his resolve weakening. Paladin Souls was nearly ten feet tall, and his shoulders were set as wide apart, almost five feet from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. The once-human was a giant. The sword the Paladin wielded was huge, and could probably slice an elephant in half with ease. The gems in his chest plate sparkled against the blackness of the obsidian. “Who are you?” The Paladin bellowed, the room shaking with the force of his voice. “What is your purpose?” “I am Larmandi, son of Larson!” Larmandi cried, his voice somewhat cracking from fear. “And I am here to kill you for your crimes!” “Bloody knights…” Paladin Souls murmured. “So you believe in the greater good, the trial by jury, the civil liberties?” “What?” Larmandi asked, truly confused. In his little village, there was no leader or mayor. All the townsfolk had worked together. Crimes were never committed, so there was no such thing as a trial to Larmandi. “I do not care for your words, just draw your sword and fight!” The Paladin was surprised by this. He had never heard of a knight that wasn’t raised on these concepts. The Paladin pondered this new development for a moment, then he saw his chance. “So you’ve never heard of those things, boy?” The Paladin asked, in a mocking tone. “Good, because those are corrupt concepts.” “What are they?” Larmandi asked with curiosity in his voice, truly asking a question. “The greater good is something sentient creatures like to believe in. They believe that if we all work for a common goal, everyone in the world can be happy. That is impossible, though, because for one to be happy, another has to be sad or angry. There is a balance, you see. “Trial by jury is another biased concept, where they bring people away from whatever business they are doing to preside over the trying of a criminal. They are supposed to decide whether one is guilty or innocent, but they don’t care. All they care about is going home, so they just choose a side randomly. There is no justice done in that, is there, boy? People lose business, people are imprisoned wrongly, and everyone ends up hurt. “The civil liberties have to be the greatest illusion of them all. Take the free press for example. The free press can publish anything about anyone, even the king. Now, the king is not allowed to close the press, nor can he censor it. So, during the day, he smiles and waves to the people, and at night, he has the press house burned by guards to make it look like an accident. There are no civil liberties, boy. There is no Right except for Might. Might is Right.” The Paladin Souls had finished his explanation of his take on the world and how vile it was. He was pleased with himself, because he saw that the boy was thinking. Perhaps the Paladin Souls could bend, and then break this boy, making another dark mage knight. The world was the guilty party here, not the Paladin. The Paladin was simply a mirror of what humanity had become. Humanity did not like what they saw in their mirror, and did all they could to break it. “So Might is Right…” Larmandi was weighing the concepts off all he had been told. “Well then, if Might is indeed Right…” “Yes?” The Paladin inquired eagerly. “If Might is indeed Right, what is next, boy?” “Than it is Right if I kill you!” Larmandi screamed as he drew Hope, the blade flashing as it rushed towards the Paladin. The Paladin raised his own sword in defense, driving back the blade of light with unparalleled force. Larmandi was shaken by the blow, and had to regain his balance. The Paladin wasted no time in his counterattack. The Paladin Souls and Larmandi were locked in an eternal duel, one of an unstoppable force against an unmovable object. The ring of metal filled the hall as Larmandi and Paladin Souls fought. The Paladin made a foul blow to Larmandi’s head, stunning the boy. Larmandi fell to one knee to keep himself from falling over. The Paladin raised his sword to strike, and Larmandi raised his blade to defense. Their blades locked, and the two warriors were trying to knock the other over. Larmandi was still dazed though, and the fight was draining him of his energy. He could not focus on any gems to release the power in his sword, and neither could the Paladin. The power of their blades was to cancel the power of other blades out, making it a battle of pure physical might. The Paladin Souls let out an inhuman shriek, like a rabbit screaming mixed with the roar of a lion and the growl of a bear. The Paladin put all his strength into one last push, and succeeded in knocking Larmandi on to his back. The Paladin raised his wicked blade, the words ‘Deathmonger’ emblazoned on the reverse side of the gems “I have slain a thousand paladins, one hundred thousand dragoons, and a million templar! What makes you think that you can best me where so many others have failed?” The Paladin screamed, his voice losing whatever human sounds it had left, being replaced by a sound that was the combination of nails on a chalkboard and a baritone singer talking loudly through a megaphone. “What do you think makes you so different boy?” As Larmandi sat there trying to come up with an answer to that question, the Paladin brought his sword down like a galleon full of lead. The Paladin souls was three seconds away from making Larmandi into two half’s of a human when the earth shook with vehement force. Paladin Souls was knocked off his feet and his sword was sent flying across the room. The Paladin looked around to try to grasp the situation when a meteor, a small, baseball-sized one, crashed through the walls of the castle. That one meteor was followed by several other far larger than itself, like a mob of mothers running after a child. The walls were pulverized, and it could be seen from the remains of the throne room that the sun was setting. It could also be seen that there was an army. There were goblin magus waving their staves in a chant, and dwarves brandishing wicked battleaxes. The star sprites were there as well, clad in full skyrite armor. The Paladin barked an order to whatever guards were near in an unknown language, and the command was repeated down the hall of the skeleton of Castle Chronos. Guards drew their swords, and servants grabbed whatever sharp objects they could find. A meat cleaver here, some broken hoes there, and forks were a common weapon. The two armies charged each other, the ghosts putting up a devilish time for the aggressors. The goblin mages were able to finish their chant before they had to turn their attention to the dead army they faced. Larmandi felt his strength and energy return, and he stood up and jumped on Paladin Souls, driving Hope into the Paladin’s chest. The Paladin staggered, and fell to the ground, unmoving. Larmandi removed his sword from Paladin Soul’s chest, and drew his knife instead. The spirit knife, set with opal and sapphire. The knife that would free the Paladin from his bonds to the souls of humanity. The Paladin stood up, and let out a demonic laugh. “Fool! No one can kill me! The stars above will not let me die!” The Paladin roared, and charged at Larmandi. Larmandi thrust out with his knife, just barely puncturing the skin that was showing underneath the jet-black armor. The Paladin grunts again, but not from a physical wound this time. Dark energy began to flow through the blade from Paladin Souls to Larmandi. The darkness came only in little tendrils at first, like plant roots looking for rich soil. One tendril brushed Larmandi’s skin, and then the flow of darkness became a river, Larmandi writhing as he did his best to absorb the energy. He felt his control of his body and his sense of moral right diminishing. Larmandi saw the river of dark energy had ended, and threw the knife across the room. Larmandi drew his sword, Hope, for the last time, and drove it right through the armor, Determination, killing himself with one blow. Grumdon and Reumidi had been in the army of many races, and had fought their way to the Castle Chronos to find that they had arrived too late. The Paladin Souls still stood, his helm on the floor. They did not se him though, they only saw Larmandi on the ground, a look of peacefulness and determination on his face. Reumidi ran up to his corpse, tears in her eyes. She ran her hands over the body of the dead hero, and found an amulet, set with diamond, the gem of memory, and emerald, the jewel of voice and hearing. The amulet glowed to life, and an all too familiar voice rang out from it. “Grumdon? Reumidi? It’s Larmandi. If you are hearing this, then we won. I wish I had told you earlier, but I knew that I would have to die. The Paladin Souls couldn’t die, because all the darkness prevented him from finding the light. No blade could kill him. It’s just that a blade could save him. The knife is over at the steps to the throne, I tossed it after I had absorbed the darkness. A gift such as mine was dangerous, but I used it for Right, not Might.” “Why do the good always die young?” Grumdon cried as he wrung his hands at the sky above. “Stars above, why?” “If you are wondering why the good always die young,” The amulet continued, Grumdon blushing from embarrassment. “It is because, whether it is the stars above, some deity, or some abstract power, I think whatever is up there wants the world to be a good place, but it wants the world to understand that good comes at a price. I think that is what it means to do good. To make the sacrifices that others will not make. To make the decisions no one else will decide. To not take the easy way out. To be out of the ordinary, to be significant to others, leave this world a better place. Those are the true heroes. Goodbye, Reumidi, Grumdon. Stars above pray that we meet again in whatever lies beyond the darkness of death.” The gemstones stopped glowing. Woandek, who had been hiding, came our. The ghosts, realizing that their master no longer controlled them, began cheering and tore the last of Castle Chronos apart. It was like watching the destruction of the Bastille or the Berlin Wall. Everyone, the ghosts, dwarves, goblins, sprites, the two humans and the one spirit torn from its own body, put their heart into destroying the mark of darkness along the land. The work lasted for three days. Once the castle was destroyed, the ghosts had finished their purpose, they gleefully passed on to the next world. The star sprites called down a giant meteor over the spot where Castle Chronos once stood. The dwarves had made a headstone to place at this grave, and the goblin mages used their power to inscribe it. The stone read ‘Here lies Larmandi, Hero of heroes’. Waymane’s spirit floated off into the unknown realm of the next world, Woandek joyfully taking control over his own body. Woandek walked back to Haelbark, where he lived on the streets. One day, a man had passed, and there was a hole in his purse, gold pieces falling to the ground. Woandek picked up the gold and thought of buying himself a drink. He remembered Larmandi’s dying words, and then he ran up to catch the stranger. “Sir, excuse me, but you’ve dropped this…”
Copyright © 2008 Matthew James Parsons |