“Please, champ. Ya gotta lissen to me.” Brint swiped a hand over his mostly bald pate, looked nervously around. The witchlights over the trainer’s table gleamed from his scalp, but did little to illuminate the rest of the locker room. “I been with ya now for a dozen year, an’ ya done me right, no doubt.”
“Look, I’m not retiring, that’s it.” Dale carefully applied ointment to the blisters on his legs. “I hope this isn’t about tonight’s bout.” He motioned to the burns. “This is just thermal splash off the floor. You know that happens with fire.”
“No, it ain’t just about tonight, but tonight’s a good example. Ya roughed him up pretty good out there.”
“It’s a rough business, Brint.” Dale set the ointment on the table beside him, cocked his head slightly. “C’mon, what is this all about? Really?”
“It’s like this, champ.” Brint started to pace. “I’m havin’ trouble getting ya bouts. Plenty of folks want to see ya in the Arena, even fans outside the Magic Line, but no pros want to take the chance. Tonight’ll only make it worse, I think.”
“He’ll live.” Dale shrugged out of his duellist robe, let it fall around him.
“Just. He’ll be months recoverin’, if’n he recovers at all. You know magic is in a down cycle, and that’ll make it hard for the therapists.” He stopped, faced Dale. “I think ya oughtta take some time off, let things cool down a bit.”
“Brint, you know what tomorrow is?”
“Tomorrow?” The stocky manager shook his head, stumped by the change of subject.
“Twelve years ago tomorrow my father was murdered by a wizard, right in front of my eyes. I hate magic, and I hate people who use magic.” Dale swept a dressing robe around his shoulders. “The day I kill that man will be the last day I use magic. Meanwhile, if I scare a few wanna-be wizards into getting real jobs, more the better.” Burning eyes belied his smile.
“I remember now. Sorry, champ, but that don’t change things. Maybe that’s what this guy wants to talk ya about.”
“Who?”
Brint shook his head, shrugged. “I gotta go. Ya need to think hard about taking a year off, to settle this in your mind.” He waved at someone out of sight down a locker aisle and headed out the door without giving the duelist a chance to respond.
Dale was nonplussed, but also amused. Brint would not walk out permanently, of that Dale was sure. Letting someone in the locker room, now that was what Dale found disturbing. Still, he was also curious. He craned his neck to see who was there.
Outside the locker room Brint, hurried down the hallway to the Bornea Street exit and into the falling night. Margette, Dale’s long time girlfriend, was waiting in her carriage for the manager. She leaned out the window, worry fighting eager hope on her face.
“What took so long?” She raised a hand. “Never mind. Did you convince him?”
“Ya know how hard-headed he is. I’d lay odds against it.” He shook his head, a concerned frown magnified by the evening shadows. “When’re ya gonna tell him?”
She sat back into the shadowed carriage box, hands caressing her growing belly. "Goodbye," she said and signalled the driver.
Brint shook his head again, walked off into the gloom.
Back in the locker room, Dale was having trouble believing his ears.
“Say that again?”
“I know where the man who murdered your father is," the old man said, "I will take you to him, tomorrow.”
“But only if I help with some kind of ritual, first? Are you insane?” Dale looked closer at the old man’s wrinkled face. He found something familiar there, but could not define what.
“You’ll never find him otherwise.”
Dale decided he was through with the fellow's crazed audacity.
“I’m warning you, you’re skating on thin ice with that talk." He stood up and threw his greatcloak around his shoulders. "I’ve heard all the scams before.”
“A man rode to your father’s farm before a storm exactly twelve years ago, murdered your father. The last thing he said to you was ‘My name is Gyles. Remember it.’ Yes?”
Change swept Dale away with chilling speed. The old man, who called himself the Keeper, used a magic driven coach to carry them both to a cracked and crumbling tower deep in the hills east of the city. Perched on a ridge of bedrock, the tower stood watch over a road long gone. Dale recognized it as the tower from his dreams. Morning sunshine revealed incredibly weathered stonework that looked older than the rock supporting them. Inside, the watchtower was a single buttressed space, nearly as run-down as the outside. Two black horses waited restlessly.
“Let’s get to this ritual, old man.”
“Put this on.” The Keeper held out a black, hooded robe. “Then mount up. Starting your journey of revenge from here will confirm your participation and complete the ritual.”
Unable to speak further through roiling emotions, Dale obeyed. The two men galloped from a gate that seemed hardly more than a larger crack in the tower wall. Lightning flashed and boomed as a storm swelled behind them.
The old man was silent through the ride, which suited Dale. Half his life he’d desired this, dreamed of this, readied for this. Now that life narrowed to a tunnel before him, no room for qualms, regrets, or discussion. Perversely, a long forgotten nursery rhyme ran over and over through Dale’s head. The sing-song melody played counterpoint to their hoof beats and filled Dale’s mind.
Round and round, Vengeance bound.
Old Man lies, Black Man rides. . .
Hours later, they galloped through village gates, scattering nobles, townsfolk, and barefoot slaves alike. Dale seemed to mystically know where he was going, so strongly he could almost smell the smoke and feel the heat of the smithy.
“Hold that still, boy.” The blacksmith smiled down at his son. Glowing steel and blazing forge painted the smithy in warm orange tones.
“Sorry, Paw.” Grimacing, Tom gripped the tongs with all his strength, steadying the metal on the anvil. “Ready.”
With a chuckle the blacksmith hefted his hammer. Lightning flashed and cracked close outside when the hammer fell. The workpiece shattered, spraying sparks and glowing shards of steel.
“What happened?” Tom looked around, still clenching the tongs. By some miracle neither the boy nor his father were injured, but smoke was curling up from a dozen places around the smithy.
“Hush, son. Go out the back, now.”
“But. . .” Tom pointed to the incipient fires.
“Now!” Anger twisted his father’s face.
Tom recoiled from the unaccustomed tone and ran through the storeroom to the back door, but stopped when he heard a stranger’s voice. Fearful, but curious, the boy crept back until he could see his father facing a cloaked and hooded figure.
“Don’t let my son see you,” Tom heard his father say, “just let it end here.”
“No deals, Gyles. No mercy.”
“Do it, then, before I forget why you’re here.” Gyles raised his hammer.
“Death for a murderer!” the stranger yelled, and thrust out his hands.
Blinding flashes of lightning arced between the men, a dozen flashes in the space of a few seconds. Tom ran to help his father without a thought to his own safety, stopped short when he saw the charred and smoking corpse. Any pretense of saving his father died at the sight, but another desire rose – revenge. Tom faced the man who’d murdered his father.
“You’d better kill me, too,” the boy said. “I’ll hunt you down if you don’t.” His voice was clear and cold.
As his emotions cooled, Dale began to grasp what had happened. Standing over the man he’d just killed, Dale knew he’d just restarted a cycle of murder. Had his own father done the same decades ago? How long had this been going on? He looked down at the boy and felt he looked at himself.
“I would if I could.” He threw back the hood, words coming without thought. “My name is Dale. Remember it.” The boy crumpled to the ground then, crying. Dale left the smithy and rode out of town, eyes blind to the fearful townsfolk. Behind him, the old man drew his glowing symbols around young Tom.
Outside the village, Dale let the horse have its head. The life he’d struggled to build from the wreckage years ago seemed now to be a tower of saucers and goblets crashing to the ground. Nothing could go back to being the same. Somehow he’d been manipulated into murder, but how, and why, and who were mysteries. Though he knew better, he entertained the thought that this might all be a bad dream, like he used to have as a kid back on the farm in the Faded Lands.
“Dreams,” he muttered and reined in the horse. “Towers and murder. I remember.” He threw off the black cloak and turned the horse back the way he’d come, back to the Tower.
It was sunrise when Dale finally reached the Tower again. The Keeper was waiting for Dale in the dim chamber of the greatly changed Tower. Ages had fallen away from the newly smooth stones, and gaping cracks had once again become gateway and arrow slits. Dale dismounted and confronted the Keeper.
“You tricked me.” Dale’s voice was dead calm. “Why?”
“Tricked?” The Keeper stepped back into deeper shadow. “No. You got what you wanted.”
“I think you got what you wanted. Tell me why.” Dale was prepared to magically force the truth, but watched as the Keeper struggled against answering and lost.
“To charge the Tower,” he said woodenly. “You don’t want to know the rest.”
“Yes, I do.” On a hunch Dale asked for the truth. “Charge the Tower with what?”
Cloaked shoulders slumped in defeat. “Magic. This tower generates magic for the whole region.”
“From murder?” Dale knew death had powerful mystical consequences, but no wizards today knew how to tap into that power. None today. . . “How long has this been going on?
”
“Longer than I can tell you. Now you should do as your predecessors have – go, try to make a life in the years you have left until the next cycle begins.”
“I refuse.”
“Twelve years from now, that boy will be a man.” He pointed at Dale. “I’ll lead him to you and he’ll murder you in front of your son.”
“I refuse to continue this abomination. I’ll have no child.”
“Too late,” the Keeper said with a chuckle, “the Tower has seen to that.”
“Impossible!” Even as he spoke, Dale guessed the meaning of Margette’s recent absence.
“Then I’ll do what I should have done earlier. I’ll go back and kill that boy”
“You can’t. The Tower will not allow the cycle to be broken.”
Dale sensed that truth as well. “Then I’ll kill you.”
“Could you?” The Keeper raised his right hand to point at Dale. “I have five times your magical experience. You don’t think I’d just let a child destroy me?” With his slightest hand motion, the air in the dark chamber spun into a hard wind.
“Ah, air is your discipline,” Dale nodded. “Funny how all the blowhards and braggarts are drawn to the wind, isn’t it?” He stepped within inches of the Keeper so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice over the wind. “Yes, I think you’d let me kill you. In fact, I begin to believe you have no choice.” With the motion of lifting a cape and swirling it to his shoulders, Dale raised a wall of glowing ice closely around them, blocking out the wind. The Keeper backed away until he was pressed against the curved ice.
“You’re right, I can’t stop you,” he said. “But if you kill me, you become the Keeper, servant to the Tower.”
“What are you leaving out, liar?” Dale snapped his fingers, generating a spray of force to flip the Keepers cowl back. Like the tower, the Keeper was no longer old. Puzzle pieces started coming together in Dale’s mind.
“No lies,” said the Keeper. “To you, I can’t lie.” He straightened his robe. “I was like you. I couldn’t accept the inevitable. Now I’m the monster who helps destroy lives so magic can go on.”
“Like me? I doubt it. I hate magic.”
“Then you have time to find some way to stop this.” The Keeper smirked. “You wouldn’t be first to try, but what choice do you have? You might get lucky.”
“Twelve years.” Dale stroked his chin thoughtfully, backed up a step to give the Keeper a little room. He carefully watched the Keeper’s face, saw relief rising there. “A lot could happen in that time.” He turned around, opened the ice before him with a wave and stepped into the dimness of the Tower. Before the Keeper could follow, Dale spun around.
“What do you do for twelve years?” Dale nodded his head at the surrounding Tower. “I mean, you don’t live here, obviously. And you do have a lot of time on your hands.” He raised his hands in question. “Tell me that you searched for a way out. Tell me you didn’t waste the fresh years my father died to give you. Tell me you spent them learning how to end this abomination.”
Puzzlement ran over the Keeper’s newly young face. He opened his mouth to answer, but no lie would come. His eyes went to the luminous ice around him. Dale watched fear come to the Keeper as he guessed what was next.
“Wait,” he cried, lunging toward Dale, the wind howling instantly into hurricane strength.
Dale forcefully intertwined his fingers. The ice followed the motion, grew fangs and caught the Keeper in its grip. The wind died as the Keeper screamed.
“That’s what I thought.” Dale clamped his hands into a double fist and crushed the Keeper. As the man died Dale felt the Tower take hold.
“You and me, now,” he said to the darkness around him. “I knew you wouldn’t let him hurt me.” He spun slowly around, using witchlight to examine the interior of the Tower. “There is a way to end this, or there wouldn’t be this elaborate deception. After all, why is there no magic in the Faded Lands unless the Towers there failed somehow?”
“No matter how long it takes, I’ll find the way to destroy you.” He waved off the witchlight and swung back into his saddle. “This is your final generation.”
There was a way to break the magic of the Tower, there had to be. It wouldn’t be easy and the Tower would try to stop him, but Dale was confident he would win in the end. For the first time since his father’s death the young man felt purpose beyond revenge, tasted hope instead of bitterness, and discerned his new path through the chaos.
As Dale rode away from the tower he hummed a familiar tune.
Round and round, Vengeance bound.
Old Man lies, Black Man rides.
Good Man dies, Little Boy cries.
Round and Round, All fall down.
The End
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