Two Went Up
Long after the event had occurred, the effects would remain. In fact, hundreds of years would pass, and still the sense would remain, as strong as it had been the first few days afterward. It would linger and hang in the air and refuse to dissipate despite the ages that would pass, despite the endless infinity of time that would work to wear it away. Even after a terrorist group had bombed out the entire city and nuclear radiation had eaten away every last remnant of the building, the mental stench of one woman’s death would cling to the air about the spot at which she had met her end.
The story would pass – had begun to pass, in fact – from city to city, from planet to planet, from Generation to Generation… Most stories of this nature, as time went on, would grow into fantastic tales of horror and intrigue, while minor characters became major and accidents became heroism. Usually, the longer a period in between, the more the truths of the story had faded and legends took their place.
That cannot happen here. The thought was not a bitter resolve. Nor was it a passive reflection that Gena made as she sat at the epicenter of the maelstrom of power that still echoed in this place. The fact had resolved itself in her mind as she recalled the event that had occurred. This story cannot evolve into a tale of horror. It is already that.
The lingering sense of what had happened brought back images of what had occurred in a way that nothing else could. Visions flashed into her mind, vivid, clear and real.
The dark stairway to the roof. Running up, running up, this is too slow, a flash of blue light, now on the rooftop. The clouds are still glowing a bit as the sun sets behind them. Old buildings loom out of the dark streets to cut rectangular edges along the horizons. The only break in this regularity… there she stands.
Gena pushed the image away. I don’t want to re-live this. She stood and paced to the spot in which she had landed. Teleportation was still new to me then. She recalled the strange sensation of the Sword wrapping itself around her as she slipped from this world into another and then instantaneously back, but in a different location. As she reached the spot, she surveyed the skyline in the early afternoon sunlight. I don’t think anything has changed in a year. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me… Only for three of us was this event of any lasting significance. She turned slowly, taking in the view until she faced the same direction she had landed in a year ago.
She sparks slightly; it is a threat. She knows. She knows a little of what is to come. A flash of red, and her Sword is drawn. A flash of blue and mine is drawn as well. She advances. I will not be goaded forward, nor will I fall back.
Pulled back into the present, Gena frowned, and her head sank slightly into a bowed position. I knew what she had done. I knew she was wrong to do it, and that it was harmful to her Sword; all the Swords, perhaps. I knew what they wanted me to do. I knew what had to be done. … I still know, but knowing does not make it any better for me. I stood here. I resolved to fight to the end. I gave in to fate – was it fate, though? – and resolved that no more lives could be lost and no more pain could be endured…
She looked up again, taking in the scorch marks scattered at random about the flat roof. The other had advanced, taunting with evil memories as she came, alluding to Gena’s short-comings and fears.
"Welcome, child." She sneered out the words with a mocking smile and sauntered another step forward. "What, we meet again? Will you fight this time or turn tail and run as before? You intend to fight me with those wounds still open?" The flash of red light – is it from her or is it simply my eyes reacting to pain? Everything spins… But I have trained. Stand. Stand up. I must endure the pain for a moment. Then, perhaps, I will over-come her and heal myself. "Oh, poor child, did that hurt?" The words are garbled from pain, but I am prepared. See? Already she cannot maintain complete control over them. Perhaps I can tire her out –
Gena called to mind the month of training she had submitted to. Wounded in a previous fight with the Yellow and Red Keepers, she had feared ever being able to defeat them. If a Keeper maintains control over a wound she creates, she can prevent it from healing, and cause considerable pain at anytime she chooses. Her Sword knew that as well as she did, and the object of the month of training had been to callous her to the pain of the wound she had sustained. Her own Sword would press on the wound until Gena nearly fainted, but slowly she built up a resistance to the pain and was able to fight despite the lancing pains that would shoot through her.
A red ball of fire – this one is not an illusion from pain – and she attacks. I am not ready. I need more time. There is no more. The Yellow Keeper dead, the White Keeper free, but too weak yet to oppose this one, the others ending their time, unwilling… I cannot do this alone. The scenery spins and I land on the far side. She is surprised. Good, she did not expect me to keep on through the pain. "You would continue? My, but you’ve developed a stubborn streak. The Yellow Keeper did not have that, or perhaps she would not have died. Neither would she have died if you had managed to develop this streak earlier, perhaps…" She lets that taunt hang in the air. Flashes of memories distract me from the fight, I push it away.
The memories of the Fourth Yellow Keeper played vividly in Gena’s mind, heaping guilt upon guilt. The Red Keeper was right; I could have saved her, had I done what needed doing sooner. The Yellow Keeper had sided with the Red Keeper, hoping to gain what the Red Keeper had achieved: longevity. Gena had fought them both, individually and as a pair when they decided she was a threat to their plans. That last fight had been their down-falling for several reasons. After that fight, the Yellow Keeper had finally listened to her Sword and realized what she was doing to it. She abandoned her quest and turned on the Red Keeper.
"You were right. But I cannot stop her now. I tried. I failed. You must. You are the only one strong enough..." Her dying words echoed in Gena’s ears.
The other effect had been Gena’s discovery of the Sword’s Mountain, and the White Keeper. The thought of this threatened to bog Gena’s mind down in another long, confusing tale, but she pushed it away for another time’s reflections. Deal with one thing at a time. This threatens to overwhelm by itself. She finally gave up fighting the flashes of memory that came to her as she paced about the building. I came back of my own free will. Perhaps the memory will help me to understand.
The fight begins. We feint and jab, testing each other, looking for limits and weaknesses. Neither appears. Distraction, as the door opens and several Ageless pile in to see what there is to be seen. She will kill them… She has found a weakness now; I will have to defend them and myself. She fires, I shield them. Perhaps I can make them leave. They refuse the suggestion. Now I must fight again.
Lightening sparks, fire flies, Swords flash in half-light of the advancing night. A flash of insight, passed to me by my Sword, and I have side-stepped, slashed, and the red of her uniform is no longer only dye. I push; oh, how I push; and at last my wound is free of her control. The pain, a constant irritant for the past month, at last abates. But hers has only just begun.
Already, she has spun to meet my charge, almost before I realize that I am attacking. My Sword has a mind of its own, and a passion for the fight. Even while I am caught up in the joy of life, its only thoughts dwell on the pain of death.
But I am not here to seek death. I am here to prevent it. The Ageless, gathered on the outskirts of the battle -- their minds echoing that childish exhilaration one gets from doing something dangerous that one ought not to do -- their deaths must be prevented. Their deaths and the deaths of all like them. Yes, all Ageless, all mortals -- even all Keepers and all Swords -- are depending on the outcome of this battle. All these lives depending on me; I, who dares not kill.
But already my Sword has made a mess of her. She bleeds, staining her uniform with unevenly dark patches of blood. She staggers back from blow after accurate blow. It seems her Sword no longer defends her; perhaps it has seen its opportunity to free itself. She collapses, at last, exhausted, weak from the loss of blood. I fall back, exhausted myself. My vision clouds as sweat pours into my eyes, and a lack of oxygen blackens my sight. I find myself leaning on the wall surrounding the roof. Cool air flows over me, along with a flood of relief as I realize that my horrible task is almost at an end. All that remains is to aid her Sword in escaping her.
I turn to my task, as much as I despise to carry it out, and --
Gena broke out of the memory, as the horror of the sight overwhelmed her. She found herself leaning again on the low wall, half-turned, facing the spot, the epicenter. I can't do this. Why did I come here? But, try as she might, she could not wipe the image from her mind. Why were they even here? How could they not know the danger they placed themselves in? At last, she gave up her fight, and the image flowed over her once more.
I turn to my task, as much as I despise to carry it out, and there she lies, the Ageless -- the Fool -- standing over her, sword in hand. Already, before my vision has cleared enough to see him, his sword has risen, has begun its decent, I dive, I scream, I cry out for salvation from what is about to take place.
But already, the act is done.
Again, sparks are flying. Red sparks. And blood. Red blood. Glowing blood. The Ageless are ducking back, gasping, hiding, fleeing. They cannot flee far enough on their feet to escape what is to come. No, these Ageless cannot; those people, down on the street below, they cannot; not even the children playing in the sunny dawn, half a day from here, will be able to escape. My Sword reminds me, even as the first real bolts of lightening begin to flash, that I am capable of escape. But, no, I cannot. I cannot flee now. All this pain, all this death that is about to ensue, that is what I have come to prevent. And so, now, prevent it I must, even if it means that it is the last thing I do.
Lightening fills the sky, spreads toward the neighboring buildings, but I call it back. That which does not heed my call, I pull back. Soon, instead of a planet-wide thunderstorm of Red Death, a tornado of fire fills the sky above me. It reaches past the outskirts of the atmosphere, past the orbits of this planets moons, past the neighboring planets. Finally, in the cold dead of deep space, it diffuses itself to float among the stars.
Meanwhile, pain wracks my body. All I can see is a wall of red all around me. Stinging, burning, tingling, searing; even my Sword cries out in anguish. A streak of white flashes through the red; grayish white. And I know I have not been able to save them all.
Eventually the firestorm dies down. An hour passes, maybe two. Still all I can see is red. At last I raise my eyes from the stained uniform, the still body, up past the unmoving shape of the fool who caused this terrible ache that seizes all my muscles. Night has set in fully now. Darkness fills the sky. Lights blaze about the city. Sirens roar nearby. Voices chatter excitedly. And through all the terrible din of noises, whispers flutter up into my ears; rumors born almost before the story is complete.
I stand, shakily. I move past the body of the Keeper. I move past the body of her assassin. I move past the huddled Ageless that shy further back at my approach. I move past the police officers and fire men rushing onto the roof. I move past the noise and the lights and the whispers of frightened minds that sound loudly in my head...
Gena slid her back down the wall and sat on the cold cement of the roof. The landscape blurred with the memories, but then Gena realized that it blurred also with the tears in her eyes. I should have stopped him. For the millionth time, the litany of self-incrimination played itself through her mind. If I'd been quicker...
If she'd been quicker, then what? Then the Red Keeper would now be wandering this planet, Swordless, lifeless. Oh, yes, she'd have maybe a hundred more years of life before her; but she would lose her youth as her body aged at a normal mortal rate. And her mind would be empty, an echoing void where once a Sword lay closer and more trusted than even her own thoughts.
Would I really have been doing good, to take her Sword away? Gena rose to stare out over the city one last time. I guess, she thought as she turned to leave, I guess I will know in a thousand years...
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