When Heroes Die

“And so Triumphant declared: ‘Come, heroes most mighty and Tyrants most dark. None shall be spared from the fullness of my wrath. No powers Above or Below shall save you, even should the Gods heed your call.’”

– Extract from the Scroll of Dominion, twenty-fourth of the Secret Histories of Praes

Arriving in Liesse was different from arriving in Laure. For one, Liesse was like a tourist’s destination in comparison. The pale white walls of the city loomed up ahead. For a city so comparatively small, they were a marvel to behold. Topping the walls were ornate crenellations that had been shaped to look like mated pairs of swans.

I hadn’t taken the time to draft a letter to the Black Knight yet. But it wouldn’t take long to write, and was something that I could do when we were making our exit from the Empire.

“Once we are within the confines of the city, I will see to the stabling of our transportation and then endeavour to establish contact with the local criminal underbelly. If the two of you could make the effort to find us acceptable accommodations for a brief stay, then we can rendezvous back at the city gates at the setting of the sun. Does this course of action agree with you?” Roland inquired.

“Sounds good.” I replied.

Max also gave his assent.

“We do not plan to remain in Liesse for the long term, only so long as it takes to acquire our prize. It may be to our benefit if we are seen to have wealth. It is plausible that an auction like this is invite only, and one may not be extended if we are seen as poor.” Roland continued.

We had decided that stealing the tomes would attract more attention than simply buying them out. Being merely another bidder with more money than sense would put us in less danger than annoying everyone at the auction, including the people hosting it.

It was highly unlikely that there was anyone who could outbid me.

“If I ignore what we’re doing, it’s basically a holiday.”

“That’s right girlie. We're staying somewhere nice for once.”

As we made our way through the gates, the wards pressed in on me from either side, stifling my sense of the world.

Max and I split off from Roland, then started to look for a place to stay. Liesse was scenic, with large cathedrals and towers rising up high in the air. We moved to the wealthier parts of the city first and went from place to place. The buildings here had slate tile roofs and sandstone walls, looking far fancier than the ones we had passed while entering. People eyed us distrustfully, we probably should have changed into nicer outfits.

To both of our mounting dismay, it seemed that all the rooms had already been taken.

Slowly, we started moving into the less well-kept parts of the city. Snow fell around us. I kept it away unconsciously, but that did not remove the feel of it from the edge of my effect. Time was passing, and we had little to show for it.

This wasn’t sticking to our original plan, but with every residence full, we had no other choice. Regardless of what we wanted, we did need somewhere to stay.

It wasn’t the end of the world. We hadn’t been staying in pleasant places over the course of our journey. It had been something I was looking forward to for once, though.

As our search dragged on, the feeling of salt poured on an open wound embedded into my metaphysical flesh mounted. It was so bad, that I was only vaguely able to focus on what people were saying around me.

We exited another guest house and were halfway past a tavern when I tripped, landing face first in a pile of mud.

“Fuck,” I grumbled as I climbed back onto my feet, then took a moment to clear off my face. I winced as shards cut into my efforts.

“How bad is it, Taylor?” Max asked softly.

“Terrible.”

He came closer and laid a hand gently on my shoulders.

“Let’s find the first place that has a bed. Doesn’t matter how nice it is, you can clean it yourself in a heartbeat. Then you’re going to rest,” he declared.

“Sounds good,” I mumbled back, almost delirious from pain.

That was when a ballad started up in the distance.

“— ere once was a Spider;

In a land far away

Who fought with a Lizard;

At the edge of the bay”

“Do you hear that, girlie?” The two of us paused to listen.

“And in the aftermath;

It found that it was numb

Looking over the fight;

The battle lost and won”

“I hear it,” I rasped back.

It was sung to the off-beat strumming of a lute. The voice had a distinctly mocking lilt to it. I could almost hear the grin.

“So lonely, the Spider;

That when met with a Fox

Did not make itself scarce;

Instead, climbed in the box”

The sound was distant, coming from down a narrow alley beside the tavern. We wouldn’t have even noticed it if not for the song. Looking, I spotted a run-down building with a sign on the outside. It took a couple of heartbeats to read it, with my vision spinning the way it was. Happy Endings. It looked like the kind of place that Roland would probably be visiting in a day or two to find out more about the auction. I wasn’t too keen on staying somewhere like it, but everywhere else had been full.

“Let’s check it, Taylor?” Max said.

“Not going to make the joke about the kinds of happy endings they offer?”

“Not the right time.”

I didn’t like the idea of staying in the maybe brothel, but it was better than returning to Roland empty-handed or staggering around like this much longer. Perhaps we could pay the bard with the money we were saving on rent to shut up. The noise was almost as grating as the feeling at the back of my head.

“Not noticing the plan;

Of the dastardly Snake

The Spider was tangled;

With web of its own make”

“Do you want to go in there, Taylor?” He gestured towards the door.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Alright then, girlie, let’s take a look.”

“The Eagle was then roused;

From up high in its nest

Summoned forth by its Name;

Blasting down on the rest”

We reached the door. Max reached towards the handle. As he was about to open it, the door opened on its own and a wiry man with greying hair hurried out.

“Calamity did strike;

With the theft of the Owl

The great beast did arrive;

A tragedy most foul”

“Do you have beds available?”

“I do,” he affirmed in a warm voice. “You can go in, I’ll be right back shortly.” I figured he was the proprietor.

The music cut off as he spoke.

The stained wooden floor creaked below our feet as we entered. My gaze roamed over the place, taking it all in. The majority of the floor space was taken up by cosy chairs and tables strewn haphazardly around. Directly opposite the entrance was a door, leading up to another floor.

On the right, was an empty stage.

That was the moment the place went to hell.

“You lot, again! How many times do I have to fight you? No matter. You will find to your misfortune that this time I am much better prepared. ” A man shouted from the left, exasperated.

We turned to face the voice. Placed carefully around the fireplace were three easels, each with a canvas pinned to them. The canvas on the third easel was still wet with paint. Between them stood a familiar figure wearing stained patchwork clothing.

The Arcadian Artist.

I started the process of reaching out, planning to strike at him directly. I winced at the sensation of the world fighting back. For a moment, my vision fractured into a sea of broken shards. Max had begun drawing sigils in the air. Both of us were too slow.

“I will make of you a gift fit for my Prince, and then the terms of my bargain will finally be met. Harmonize.” He declared, pointing to one of his portraits. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see what was on it from where I stood.

Sadly, I didn’t need to.

To my surprise, I could feel the intent of the word. It felt like the surface of a lake or the space occupied by a door. The meeting of two disparate places, existing but for a moment in unison.

In under a heartbeat, the world around us warped, melting like wax. The walls stretched further and further away, fading into the distance. The room began to fill with a thick, acrid fog that was dense enough to drink. The distance between us and the painter expanded, and the land poured upward. Like water coming out of a tap, only reversed.

The Artist was no longer in sight. Had he run away?

My blood ran cold. It was just the two of us, Max and I. While I wasn’t that worried about my own safety, if we didn’t escape then Max would almost certainly die.

“We need to escape from here. Let him get away. It’s not worth fighting,” I declared.

“You think it’s the start of a story?” he asked, thoughtfully.

“Definitely.”

I tried to shove against the effect and break out of it, to no success. There were well over a thousand souls pressing back against my attempt, all forced into it by the artist. He was awful at it, but he didn’t need to be good at what he was doing to overpower me with brute force.

I did learn something from the attempt. He was in here with us, somewhere up above.

“You pests cannot conceive of the true scope of my vision. Now you will be ground down by it.” A voice called out from all around us.

We could no longer see the walls of the place.

Next, I tried to determine if we were trapped inside a painting.

We both were and weren’t.

As far as I could tell, the artist had overlapped his paintings with the inside of the building we had been inside and was changing the place to match his conception of reality. The rules it was following were nebulous. I was reasonably confident he couldn’t just kill us, but he could mess with the laws of Creation to an absurd degree.

My stomach dropped.

“I… can’t break us out of this without killing the Artist,” I admitted. The words tasted like ash in my mouth. “We’re going to have to try to fight him. Maybe if you stay down here and I go on ahead?”

“Now Taylor,” Max sounded almost insulted, “I'm not leaving you to get fucked all on your own. We’re in this together.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I shook my head, frustrated. “He’s a villain. He can’t kill me. Sooner or later, I’ll just win the fight. I don’t want you to throw away your life for no good reason. You’re important to me.”

I suppressed another wince.

It was frustrating. I knew why he wanted to fight. He hid it well, but it was something I could read and it hurt, although it hurt in a good way. His daughter had died, and he hadn’t been there to fight for her. He didn’t want to not be there a second time, even if it was completely irrational.

“I always knew I would die fighting one day, Taylor. I’m not running away just because it might be today.”

I almost told him that he wasn’t my dad, but chose to shut my mouth. If we had a major argument here, it might just make him more likely to die to drive home the regret. That seemed like it would better fit a story. I just had to hope that I was wrong.

Once more, I tried breaking the effect, but was met with little success.

… The Artist must have killed so many people to make this work. There was no way he could even hope to contain me otherwise.

We are going to be in so much trouble.

There was no way the Calamities missed a fight between Named within the boundaries of Liesse that involved something like this.

More and more details filled in. We were standing at the bottom of a cliff face. In front of us there was a narrow, sinuous path cut through the cliff, a gorge leading above. The exit had long since disappeared.

The chairs were the last remaining signs of the building we had entered. They were blocking the way.

Then the chairs grew wings and teeth.

As they did so, I felt a slight lessening to the pressure being exerted against me. Each time he summoned one, he was weakening his own defence. Unfortunately, the point he was starting from was so strong it would take a significant effort to be able to win.

They, like everything else the artist had summoned, had the appearance of being painted. You could still see the brush strokes lining everything he made.

I tried to just kill it, but it wasn’t truly alive, and my attempt had no effect. Next, I tried to dismiss it.

My will slammed against his. Trying to contest him felt vaguely reminiscent of trying to contest the absence demon, only he was far slower and less unpredictable. Given time, I was certain to win.

I tried out a few more changes in an effort to kill the chair. Paint wasn’t alive, so by my will neither should the chair be. Paint couldn’t float, so they should remain still. Each time, he pressed back.

The chair drew close.

Then Max threw a fireball at it.

“No, don’t!” I shouted.

The Artist didn’t even bother to try to contest the attempt.

The chair caught light. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet informed Max of our little problem. Whilst the Artist’s creations were likely susceptible to fire, using it wasn’t a good idea here.

Because everything around us was painted as well.

Fuck.

“Yes, why don’t you set the very world you exist in alight,” The Artist cackled gleefully.

The flames started to spread. Hastily, I reached out trying to smother them, but was pushed back against once more. The chairs that weren’t on fire were drawing close.

I stretched out the space between us and them, buying us some time. The Artist didn’t try to stop me, but it didn’t matter either. The sheer effort of it almost caused me to black out.

“We’re committed now and on a time limit,” I rasped. “If we don’t escape fast, you’ll die just from the smoke.”

“I'm sorry, Taylor,” he sounded chagrined.

“It's okay,” I affirmed, “but we need to go now before the fire blocks us off.”

“Right, Girlie.” He agreed.

The two of us began to run, dashing forward and dodging between more of the chairs. One of them smashed into me. I fell, tumbling to the ground. Suppressing a wince, I reached out with my mind, vaporizing it with a beam of light instead. The Artist scrambled to stop me, but failed.

I felt a slight drain on my reserves. The attack was costly, but less likely to cause me problems than leaving the enemy alive. Unfortunately, I would need to be careful and not overextend myself. This wasn’t a fight I could win with brute force alone.

The flames were closing in.

I could feel their heat on my skin. Three more chairs were heading my way, and I climbed to my feet hastily. Dashing past them, I joined Max at the base of the path. He had blocked them off temporarily with a ward. I could already see the pale blue glow of his barrier flickering as the Artist started to break it down.

We began to jog, following the mountain path. Behind us, I could hear the quiet roar of the flames as the landscape was slowly consumed. The road split, going off in several directions. Picking one, we followed it, only to have it come to a dead end.

Backtracking, we chose one of the other branches. The path grew more narrow, closing in around us. Then, from ahead, the roar of a tiger could be heard. Painted claws scraped against my good arm, scoring deep, jagged cuts. I tumbled to the ground. It landed behind me.

I yelped out in pain, then dodged to the side as I sensed it leap once more.

To my frustration, I was too slow.

The tiger crashed into me, pinning me to the ground. On instinct, I tried transmuting it into a cloud of determination. The tiger disappeared.

This wouldn’t be an issue if you weren’t the person you are now.

I squashed the traitorous voice at the back of my head.

“Understanding. It begins to set in, doesn’t it? How far beneath me the likes of you truly are. You do not even warrant an Artist’s second consideration.”

Among all my other current problems, his voice was starting to grate on me. Couldn’t he shut up?

Max offered me a hand, helping me to my feet.

“Are you alright, Taylor?” Max asked, his voice thick with concern.

“No, I’m not,” I answered truthfully.

I felt feverish. I suspected that the tiger’s claws were venomous. It wouldn’t kill me, but it made concentrating even harder.

Max looked at me worriedly.

“We need to hurry.”

I could feel the dogged breath of the hells tickling the back of my neck.

We hurried, continuing our ascent. Wary now for attackers, we disposed of two more tigers as the journey dragged on. More dead ends, more backtracking. We were on a time limit and I felt the pressure continue to mount.

My vision started to swim.

“We - we can’t go on like this,” I said, my voice hoarse.

Max was panting beside me. I didn’t know how long we had been inside this nightmare of a trap, but both of us were being worn down.

“This bugger is really fucking us up the ass this time, isn’t he,” Maxime agreed.

“This place is like a labyrinth. It’s designed to waste our time. If we don’t find a way through soon, he won’t have to fight us at all,” I complained. Then, I realized what I had said.

This place is like a labyrinth.

Despite looking like a mountain, we were actually in a maze. And the best way to solve a maze, was not to enter the maze at all. Unfortunately, now that we were already inside, this revelation came a bit too late.

Still, the second-best way to solve a maze was to look over the walls.

Or, in this case, make a path of our own.

I tried to create a platform leading up, but was too dizzy to push through. It felt like trying to grab an eel lathered in oil.

"Max, can you cut a path up the side of the gorge so we can scale it?" I asked, wheezing as I did so.

Everything I tried kept slipping from my reach.

“Oh, the ants finally find an idea between them!” The voice gleefully declared.

“I can try, Taylor.” He answered. He didn’t sound particularly confident in his assessment, but I didn’t think we had another option.

“Then let’s try that.”

Max started to carve away at the side of the gorge, forming steps leading up. He had to alternate between many effects to do it, as the Artist kept countering his work. It was nerve wracking to watch from behind.

We started to climb.

It was precarious, but it was better than the alternative. This way, we could be sure that we wouldn’t find ourselves lost in another dead end.

It’s working.

Just ten feet short of the top and disaster struck. From above, a tiger leapt down, slamming into Maxime.

“No!” I shouted, my voice laced thick with horror.

This wouldn’t have been a problem if we had run into the Artist a year ago.

The force shook him free, and he went tumbling down into the crevice below. Before I realized what I was doing, I was hastily scaling my way back down. My fingers trembled. Tears ran freely down my cheeks.

He’s not dead. He’s not dead. He’s not dead.

Reaching the bottom, I found the scorched remains of the tiger. I passed it quickly, looking around.

Then I saw him.

His ribs stuck out of his chest at angles they were never supposed to be. His arms were mangled, and his face was mauled. There was a big, gaping chunk that had been chewed out of it. As I drew closer, he wheezed.

He was still alive.

“You’re not going to be able to save him, you know. You lack the necessary perspective.” The artist gloated.

I drew closer, doing my best to clamp down on my emotions. I couldn’t allow myself to feel right now, not while the situation was so dire. In theory, I knew how to heal. I had practised plenty on animals. We had never risked me trying it on a person, though.

I would try it now.

Trembling, I laid my palm upon one of his hands. Visualizing the changes I wanted to make, I started to push.

I was fighting against both the artist and the world in my attempt, but I wasn’t going to allow myself to fail here. Not like this.

“Girlie,” he choked out, a glob of blood making its way down the side of his mouth.

“Keep quiet while I try to save you,” I muttered, shoving my panic deep in a box.

“Promise me that… You will keep…” He hacked out another cough.

“I’m not promising you anything, Max. You’re going to live. You’re going to live because I am not going to let you die.”

The changes weren’t taking, no matter how hard I pushed against the Artist. It wasn’t just his resistance that was the problem, either. There was just too much to do, and I simply wasn’t skilled enough. I scaled back, trying to fix smaller things.

He’s not going to die, I won’t let him.

It wasn’t working. I was healing injuries, moving ribs back into place and repairing his arms. But I wasn’t fast enough, I could tell. Cancerous tumours started to well up on him, because of course I couldn’t just fix things, could I? Then, his eyes glazed over and his hand slacked.

He was gone.

“Your fate, just like his, has already been pencilled in.” The words registered distantly, but I wasn’t even paying attention.

Dazed, I sat there, not letting go. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to go.

I felt so empty. Like an important piece of me had been taken away.

The scorching caress of the inferno continued to draw close.

“Promise me that you will keep moving forward.”

Time seemed to slow for a moment.

His words came back to me. A haunting echo, a reminder that he was gone. He was gone, but I had made him a promise. It was an old one, made back when we first met, but I still knew what he meant.

I would make sure to honour his last wishes.

I wasn’t just one person among many aspiring to do better, but rather the Aspirant. Reaching for dreams, hoping for perfection. The impossible was only impossible until somebody had achieved it.

And I would make myself into the person that could achieve it.

In my head, a boundless expanse of nothingness appeared. Inside of it, innumerable figments suddenly burst into existence, almost like stars coming to life. Watching them reminded me of my swarm, from a place in my past that now seemed so very long ago.

They gained substance rapidly, details filling out. Puzzle pieces. That’s what they were. More than could ever be counted. Then, strings seemed to attach themselves one at a time to each piece, extending up infinitely to some point far beyond my sight.

Inside my mind’s eye, I looked at the shattered fragments of a great mosaic and stared.

How could anyone ever make sense of all of this?

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I had wanted to be a hero, hadn’t I? Seems that I finally achieved my goal. Just like every other hero, it started with an origin story.

That was also how it would end.

I didn’t know how I would do it, but I knew what I would do. Search high and low, from one corner of the world to the other. I would find all of these fragments of Creation, then piece them together into a new story.

One where villains couldn’t be born.

Because if villains have no origin stories, there couldn’t be villains at all.

There was an idealized Taylor out there, one living in a better world with happier people. She was only a dream, but one day that dream would be real.

I hated it, find my answer like this. But Max wouldn’t want me to give up on my dreams just because he died along the way.

It did nothing to lessen the ache.

Creation was broken. A broken land filled with people like me, and I would do my best to see that it was fixed.

I couldn’t do it alone. I knew that. But I didn’t want to do it alone regardless. Carrying the hopes and dreams of the future by yourself was lonely, and I was sure there were plenty of people who would be willing to share the burden. Some of them would be smarter than me, able to guide me to the right answer.

So I would ask them all to help, and have faith that it was offered in earnest.

The mantle finished settling on my metaphoric shoulders and with it, my sense of the world changed. Creation no longer felt like a hostile place, instead it felt like a home I had been invited into. I felt like a guest.

After so long feeling like I didn’t belong, it was like a breath of fresh air.

Only cost me my closest friend to earn that.

To my surprise, the Choir of Compassion hadn’t left in the aftermath. Instead, they seemed to treat my change of circumstances as an invitation of sorts. As if now that I had a Name and was allowed into Creation, direct exposure to their presence would no longer kill me. Parts of their aura started to seep into my own, changing it ever so slightly.

What are they even doing?

I focused on what they were doing. They sent back a mental impression that reminded me of my mother scolding me for tracking in mud on the clean floor after playing in the rain as a kid.

Rude.

I looked again, more closely this time. If I were to guess, it almost seemed as if they were…modifying the passive effect that I had on the world around me. Changing it so that I subtly influenced people to be more compassionate. The effect was very weak, so weak you would barely notice it at all. It wasn’t permanent either, only lasting so long as they were nearby to me.

And I was fine with that.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing to the world around me before, but this was almost certainly an improvement. So long as they didn’t give me a halo or make me glow, I was willing to call this a win.

And if they did either of those, well, I knew who to take my complaints to.

Calernia could use a bit more compassion. It was something that it was lacking. Something told me that the Choir wasn’t supposed to be doing this. That there were some arbitrary limitations imposed on them from above that they were supposed to be following that determined how much they could interfere with the world. Rules that I had… bent, for want of a better word. An effect like this should only be permissible to someone sworn to them.

I hadn’t even considered the idea that long term exposure to a demon could change an Angelic Choir, but the idea worried me.

I didn’t want to corrupt the Choir of Compassion.

This wasn’t a concern I had expected to have. Evidently, the Gods Above and Below had not designed this system of theirs to account for heroic demons, even if they didn’t care if I was here. If it was a problem, I knew they were capable of solving it without me.

It felt weird acknowledging that an issue may exist that wasn’t my responsibility to fix, but that was exactly what this was. It was completely beyond my ability to influence. If the Angels wanted me dead, they could just swat me like a fly. So I’d have faith that the Gods responsible for them would handle the matter as required.

For now, I would just take comfort in having their support on my journey as I strove to improve Creation.

And if any villains had an issue with the idea… Well, it wasn’t like they could report the empathy engine to its manufacturer for being defective. They might just be smote in the process.

They would probably deserve it, too.

Time sped up.

“Now that we are down to one, it seems almost assured that my victory is inevitable.”

The flames closed in and spots clouded my vision, but it didn’t matter, none of it did. Regardless of how hot the flames of hell became or what monsters emerged from the dark, I would persevere.

Eight incandescent silhouettes appeared over my shoulders, silently pushing me forward. One of them winked out. My head cleared out, the spots in my vision disappearing, and the wounds on my arm beginning to close.

I tried to see if I could heal my friend. Actually fixing his biology proved to be easy now, as if restoration was a part of my Name. It did help that the Artist didn’t even bother trying to block me. No surprises there, considering Max was dead.

It was futile. I could fix his body, but I couldn’t bring him back. Slowly, I closed his eyes.

I’d…deal with this later.

I’d promised Max I wouldn’t abandon my goal, I’d try not to let him down.

Reaching out, I tried to form staggered platforms leading up. What would have strained me before, felt effortless now in comparison. A staircase carved from light blazed itself into being before me.

The Artist tried to contest the effect, but it was like he was struggling against the current of a river. Creation was on my side here.

I focused on my sense of him and angled my construction in the same general direction. He wouldn’t be escaping alive.

Frustrated, I started to climb. I suppressed a pang of grief as Max’s body was swallowed by the flames behind me. I hated leaving it behind, but he would have wanted me to go on. Finally, I reached the top of the cliff. There was an empty plateau. In the middle of it was a mansion. It was just barely visible through ominous fog.

Hardening my resolve, I approached. I would win this battle. This one and all the ones that came after it. Then, I would do my best to build a world better than the one that I had arrived in.