City of IF

[Kalanna Rai]

Right here's the next installment...Enjoy.
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Chapter Five: Two Sides of the Coin pt 1

A Gallaen man might father only three children. A Gallaen woman might bare only one. This is the way the Divines keep balance in all things.
-The Ancient Writings of Balthis
-Balthis Damaldin High Priest of Vathos

Darith couldn't believe what was happening. Asalia's hysterical screams woke him, making him reach for a weapon that wasn't there. He'd responded to Asalia's pages summons in armor...but he'd sent the boy back with his sword. Still, judging from the way Callix bugled, it wasn't something he could fight with steel anyway. Sliding out from the entry tunnel, where he'd been sleeping, he found Asalia frantically dumping out Fallon's satchels.

"No! No! Blue crystal bottle, white crystal stopper! I know it's in there, he wouldn't forget that! Look, hurry!"

"That's not going to help Callix since we're all colorblind" Asalia snapped as she dumped the magical sacks out as fast as she could, piles of everything from food and waterskins, to dried lumps of something Darith had no name for rolling across the floor of the cave. It wasn't hard to see what was making them so frantic...Fallon looked like a stone statue.

"Right...look for the smallish round bottle with the star stopper! It'll have an R engraved on the side. Please hurry, he's getting too far away!" Darith looked at Fallon again.

Sliding over to his side Darith put two fingers on Fallon's neck, feeling for signs of life that were no longer there. Grabbing a bag he shook the contents clear, taking care to dodge to one side as Fallon's sword slid out of that particular sack. Nothing but sheafs of paper and other bits...including an ornate staff that looked like a deadly shepard's crook. "Not here." He turned to grab another bag, astonished to find Asalia had already gotten the last one.

She shook it hard in frustration and they all watched a smallish round bottle with a star stopper and engraved R fly across the chamber...and smash against the rock wall on the other side. They froze in mid breath as the tiny sparkles powdered their vision, the liquid within the bottle running uselessly down the wall. Asalia reached out to it pleedingly, as if by gesture alone she could bring it back.

Callix surged to his feet, head continuing the motion until it was flung straight up, a cry of such utter pain in his voice that tears sprang to Darith's eyes. Asalia was beyond tears, so utterly crushed she didn't even have the ability to make a sound. Darith looped an armor clad arm around her frail shoulders which were subtley quaking with pent up emotion. "It's alright...let it out."

"I...can't..." Her voice was strained as she choaked on a lump of unspent emotion that was locked deep inside. Callix's head hung low, his nose dragging the sand of the cave as he nudged Fallon once, then twice. A pleading whicker issued from him and something so soft that it wasn't audible to anyone. Yet Darith understood him, heard the word as plainly as a shout.

"Please." That was all any of them could say for several long moments.

Somewhere, in the very back of his mind, Darith kept expecting Fallon's amythest eyes to snap open and his dominating force of will to wash over them. For him to get up and dust himself off, ask them what had gone so wrong that they were acting like this for. But he remained in that one position, head to the side, hair covering his face, arms slightly twisted as if in restless slumber. Darith sniffed, his tears stopped flowing, and he stood.

They looked at him and he coughed. "Is there nothing else to try Callix?" The steed looked at Darith, fire burning deep in his eyes for a moment.

"What do you think I am? A miracle worker! Of course not..." His voice softened. "Very few things can bring a man back from the dead. Concentrated Revival Water, like what was in that bottle, can bring back a man who has just died moments before. Priests might pray to the Divines...but you'd need a vial of Gallaen blood to bring a man back that way. And the Gallaeni are gone now..." He turned and walked out of the shelter so that none would have to see him cry.

Slowly Darith began to scoop the posessions back into the satchels, sorting what they could and couldn't use. Some things were obviously broken, others obviously spoiled. Those that weren't, but that he couldn't place, he put in another pile for Callix to decide on. The food went back into bags, and the waterskins. Sifting through everything he was shocked at what all had been in five satchels.

Besides the food and water there had been one of potions and ingrediants, another full of books, papers, and handy items. The last, aside from the sword, had carried the shepard's crook staff and a pair of odd blades on the end of chains. Curious about them Darith had examined them closely, starting with the razor sharp edge of the blades themselves, and working his way back along the chain until he found some cuffs at the other end.

"You attach them to your wrists." Darith looked at Callix, pointedly ignoring the long shimmering wet patches on the sides of his muzzle. He slipped the cuffs around his wrists, just at the joint of his gauntlets.

"Like this." He was surprised when the cuffs snicked shut without leaving a visible way to get them off. Callix snorted in amazment.

"Well I'll be...they like you. They've Chosen you." Darith looked at the blades dangling from their extremely long chains. These things were ment to be thrown in combat, their weilder expertly controlling their arc and angle with a turn of his wrist and the flick of a guiding finger. Darith, who's experiance lay in heavy greatswords and thick bladed longswords, was out of his depth. Callix must have seen his expression because he nudged Darith's head with his velvety muzzle. "Don't worry...they'll teach you."

Across the room Darith watched Asalia pick up the staff and hold it a moment. Light came into her eyes. "I know how to use this...I know I do." Darith nodded to her.

"You should. I can't recall how many times I took you off to some secret place to teach you how to defend yourself. And for some reason the staff seemed to be your best suited weapon. I don't remember how you kept remembering...I know you didn't write it down in that book you had, but you did. You've been taking secret lessons from me for years." Asalia looked at him, tears still bright in her eyes.

"So I'm not a useless little girl after all?" Callix snorted.

"Of course not...I could tell that at a glance." Darith suddenly found himself nearly choaking as Asalia's arms wrapped around his neck and she began to sob onto his steel plated shoulder. Callix nuzzled her cheek. "Oh there there...Fallon never let something like this slow him down." For a moment both Darith and Asalia stared at the kession as if he'd lost his mind. Callix gave a snort. "I didn't mean his dying...no he's never done this before. I ment when a companion died."

"He didn't feel it when they died." The words were bitter and ill sounding, especially with the corpse of the man in question only a few feet away, but now uttered Darith could hardly take them back. The hurt looks his companions gave him cut him to the bone and he mentally flogged himself for the slip. Watching as they packed the last of the things, he walked over to the regular horses.

Darith felt so bad about saying that not because it was true...but because he suspected it wasn't. Darith was now convinced, even if he didn't know it, that Fallon had felt something. Belart had been able to feel one emotion...anger. Fallon, like Belart, had been able to feel one, well not emotion really...more like a sense. Fallon hadn't felt anger...he'd felt responsible. That's why he'd stuck around at Court. That's why he'd saved Darith from the Overshadowing master. That's why he'd gotten them all safely across the Barrier.

Fallon had felt responsible for them. It put a new light on the whole situation for Darith as he looked with new eyes on the half-brother that had so breifly, but so profoundly, touched his life. A smile touched his features, the first real smile he'd had since coming to this All-forsaken place.

He saw they had finished packing things away for the most part. Walking back over he glanced from the last thing remaining, Fallon's sword, to Fallon and back again. Reaching down with the tips of his new blades, he managed to pick up the sword. "Callix, Asalia, roll him onto his back. We'll bury him like a proper warrior." They nodded and, with grim faces and heavy hearts, the aligned Fallon in the manner of ancient kings.

He lay on his back, ramrod straight, with his sword clasped between his hands, hilt under his chin, blade curving down till the tip ended at his knees. At Darith's nod they bowed their heads, each saying a silent prayer over Fallon, even Asalia who prayed to whatever was out there since she remembered no names and no doctrine. Finally they turned to go, unable to stay in what was now a tomb. As the last one out, Darith spoke the last words.

"You, Fallon, were the bravest man I ever will know. You had no emotions with which to sense the world...and yet you used your mind to become a man that many people envied...and many thought kind if hard. You came into the Court of your Father, where every man was your enemy or would have been your enemy, and you stood alone without allies. I hope I can become worthy of calling you Brother...you truely were the better half."
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Right please stand by for the rest of the chapter.

[Kalanna Rai]

Right...like I said long multi-part chapters from now on...sorry but Enjoy.
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Chapter Five: Two Sides of the Coin pt 2

Asalia couldn't have sat on Stormwing's back and stayed there if she'd been glued. Her entire body was boneless with exhaustion and greif. He was dead...dead. She couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. Only a day ago, less, he'd been a young man in his prime, at the height of his power. Now he was a cold corpse waiting for the next scavanger.

Callix had kindly offered to carry her, even though she was unfamiliar with how to ride him, how to use his unique tack. After a few false tries, in which neither Darith nor Callix let her hit the ground, she managed to get her hands into the grips on the collar. Her legs though...Fallon had been far taller than she and the leg loops that had kept his kees bent and his legs dangling a bit had hers nearly fully extended. Well maybe not quite so bad but it wasn't nearly as comfortable as it might have been for him.

Callix also had Darith unroll several binding straps that kept the rider on his back, no matter how fast he moved. "It's for your safety Asalia...really. I can't keep looking back over my shoulder today...I've got to keep us safe." Darith had looked a bit put out at that Asalia had noticed, but she was too tired to do anything about it.

As they began to move, in whateve direction Callix thought best, Asalia tried to sleep. Tried to sleep and dispell the utterly mind-numbing bone-aching weariness that had taken up residence not just in her body, but in her very soul. Is this how he felt? How tired he felt? She couldn't help but wonder. Morbid curiosity she supposed but then maybe it was a good thing. Maybe if she'd asked Callix about everything in those bags, the kession could have told her about the Revival Water sooner.

I killed him. The thought shocked her awake more than the steady switchback wind, more than the padded jolts of a kession trying to be kind but too tired to do a good job. Tears began to squeeze out from her tightly shut eyes, freezing before they left her lashes. "Callix...I'm so sorry."

The kession sighed. "We all are dear, we all are. Darith's sorry because he didn't keep a vigil over Fallon like you did." Asalia heard the chink of Darith's armor as he jolted at the statement. She tried to open her eyes and look at his face...but the ice was hard and wouldn't budge for butterfly weak eyelids. "I'm sorry that I couldn't hold him, that I didn't know where he'd put that damned bottle..."

"And I'm sorry I killed him." Hot breath washed over her face as Callix came to a dead halt. The warm vapors, despite cooling quickly in the banshee winds, melted the ice holding her blind. As she opened her eyes she met those of the kession, filled with caring and compassion.

"You didn't kill him Asalia. Even had that bottle not broken I think it was too late. The concentration we had...well it would have been too weak in that amount. We'd have needed nearly three bottles more I'm thinking. It was just the only thing I knew of that would have had even a chance..." He nuzzled her gently. "I'm not assigning you blame...and I don't think he would have either. You need to stop eating yourself up about it right now or else it'll get you."

Asalia gave a chill giggle, like those giggles a mad woman might make. "Oh I'll stop. I won't even remember this tomorrow. I didn't write it down and...well I'm tired boys. I won't be able to stay awake all day or whatever passes for day around here. I'll wake up and be just fine." The kession shook his head.

"Curses are tricky things Asalia, especially when they get old and weak. Things slip through...like Belart being able to feel anger and Darith over there being able to channel his huge heart into his tiny will. You can remember certain things, like walking, talking, and that you can fight with a staff. Do be surprised if you wake up tomorrow and find you don't remember any of us...but you do remember Fallon."

The walking resumed and Asalia was left to ponder Callix's words. The kession made sense, as much as she didn't want him to, and she shivered not just from the wind. She'd never remembered any other deaths, not even the death of her Grandmother and, according to her old Memory Book, they had been very close. You didn't love her like you loved him though. The thought shocked her despite being all the more true for it.

She had loved her Grandmother like...well...a grandchild should she supposed. She'd loved Fallon the way she'd have loved a...well it just wasn't proper her feelings for him. He was her half-brother after all and while cousin marrying cousin might be tolorated they were too closely related for anything of that nature to have happened. Even as she remembered these idle facts from a book she was never going to see again, she couldn't reconcile them to the way her heart beat.

Fallon, despite not remembering him one day to the next, had stolen something she thought would always be hers. And now it was buried with him in a cold tomb, in a cold world where no light shone. Fitting in a way. They called heartless people, and certain untouchable maids, cold and now she truely was. Cold, numb, and dead almost. But she couldn't do that to Darith.

She couldn't be some foolish little girl and go and die of a broken heart when he needed her. And he did need her not the other way around. Sometimes all his logic got in the way of what her uncluttered mind could instantly see. Sometimes his head got in the way of his heart, his greatest strength, and that's when she had to rescue him. Besides...somebody needed to watch his back now that Fallon wasn't here.

And who better than herself? The sister he'd trained, who's heart was just as big as his. Who was just as stubborn as a mule, as willful as a small child in a sweetshop? She might not have a memory but that didn't mean she was without a Mind. Callix was right, the Curse had grown weaker. She wasn't the drooling idiot some of her ancestors had been, she could make her own choices in life. But making your own choices in life required that you be amoung the living. If she wanted to pull her own weight she couldn't will herself to death.

So she let go of it. It wasn't easy and it wasn't completely gone but in the same manner that she'd changed expressions she let the pain go. She said goodbye to the broken bottle and her hasty mistake. Said goodbye to the shock on everyone's faces. Said goodbye to Fallon...no not goodbye. She made him a promise, a promise that when they got back home she would hunt down those responsible and she would see too it that they paid.

As Callix's stride smoothed out, or maybe just the terraine under them smoothed out, Asalia found herself being slowly rocked to sleep. "I won't fail...I won't fail...I won't...forget..."
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Right there's more but I'm tired and you're just going to have to wait. G'night.

[Guest]

WOW. crushing to lose someone you love. I hope she'll remember the next day or as she awakes, she'll remeber what she tought before going to sleep. can't wait for the next chappy. :)

[Kalanna Rai]

And here's the last bit...Enjoy.
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Chapter Five: Two Sides of the Coin pt 3

Fallon stood in the spirit world, specifically in a space designated as 'his'. This was the space, a large box if you will, that had come into his posession the moment he came into physical existance. Such was the way of the spirit world, each to his own space. So why was another youth also confined within? The youth, with hair, skin and teeth so painfully white they transcended the definition of the color, stared out of steely grey eyes at the dark young mage across from him.

He flexed his wings, of the same brilliant shade as his skin and hair, with their golden bands. His only garmet was a simple wrap, a single sheet of cloth wound around and pinned over one shoulder, it's whitness though pristine seeming dingy next to his pallor. "Amazing, never thought I'd see the day when the mighty Fallon fell. And for what? Compassion?" The way he said it could have cut through steel.

Fallon himself did not look as he ever had in the physical world. Even when his heart had stopped, certain limitations imposed by spells in his clothing had concealed the truth. Now his face, his form, his entire self was perfect. The one perfect creation, the most perfect creation, the finest acheivment of the All-Makers. Next to him the pale youth seemed as comely as a cow next to a regal show horse.

His hair was the deepest of black, unmarred by blue or any other tint, a shade that made even Callix's coat seem grey or faded. His skin, while pale, was not the colorless void of the other. Instead it was a smooth creamy color and brought to mind the beauty of the moon's halo. His black attire was entirely usual save than now, on the shoulder not covered by his cape, a long black wing with golden bands swept magestically back to blend with his shadow.

Perhaps the biggest change though was in the aura that surrounded him. In life, on Terrinia and even breifly on UnderDark, Fallon had exuded a sense of magical power and uncomfortable silence...a stillness not many liked to linger in. He'd been a presence, ignorable until he chose to assert himself. Now the aura that whirled off of him was eldrich and surreal, clearly defining him as otherworldly. It had cowed Death itself.

That aura now lashed back at the pale youth, who's own aura did nothing to deflect it having long experiance with this sort of thing. The youth, though chilled to the core, was undaunted. "That's right, get angery at me. Let those 'emotions' you supposedly don't have out." Fallon turned and stared at the youth, his eyes boring into the pale form with all the unflinching hardness of chips of the gems who's hue they stole.

When he spoke his voice was soft and while, not flat, not filled with any nameable emotion either. "You would do well to keep silent." The pale youth stood, pale purple-pink lips pulled back from white teeth in a snarl.

"I won't keep silent Fallon! You threw it away! You gave up!" Fallon stepped closer, cloak sliding off his other shoulder with a silent ripple, second black wing appearing the moment it did. He did not need to mantle them since the pale youth did not stand taller than his nose. However, just that step made Fallon seem to loom over the white figure.

"I've yet to give up, I've thrown nothing away. If your talking about the present circumstances they couldn't be helped." The youth, stocky and more muscular than Fallon, less like a dancer more like a mercenary, went back to his indolent lounging. A sneer spread across his face.

"They could have been if you hadn't been so obessed with staying human. You should have just thrown caution to the wind and used all your resources. Not only would you have traveled across safely but..."

"I would have announced our coming to everything that lived in that darkness. Tell me Ceddon, how would you have had me arrive? Keep in mind that not only is the Orb there but somebody has been using it to extreme. What do you think they would do if they suddenly sensed a Gallaen in their realm?" Ceddon, since that was obviously the pale youth's name, opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

"So you're telling me this is all a ruse? That you went to the extreme of dying just to keep anyone from finding out you were there?" Fallon said nothing, indeed turned his back on Ceddon who had stood in surprise. "And you're letting those...companions you care so much about suffer as if you really had died?" He gave a short sharp bark of cold laughter. "You really are a heartless bastard arn't you."

Fallon's shoulders shifted and his wings twitched dangerously. "That isn't a tone you should be using with me...not if you want to enjoy any freedom at all."

"Oh I'll enjoy freedom alright. You're little jaunt to visit me in person has given me just the oppertunity I needed. Bye Fallon, mind the plants while I'm gone." Fallon didn't need to turn around to know that the youth was gone, fading out of spirit and into flesh. Only the flesh Ceddon was entering wasn't his...it was Fallon's.

One might have thought that Fallon was worried. Instead, as soon as Ceddon had left him, he looked at the shimmering tether that was still looped around his right wrist. Without saying so much as a single word, not that there was anyone to hear him, Fallon stepped out of his personal space and into the riot that was the Spirit world. As long as he held the thread connecting him to Callix travel wouldn't be so bad. If he lost it though, he'd rebound to his own space with a snap that might put him out of action for a while.
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In a small cave between too hills something stirred. The sound of popping bones could be heard as a body reconfigured itself to suit the whim of it's new owner. An aura indescribable poured out of that cave, scattering the scuttling things that had come to feed on leftover flesh. Striding out, alert and bright eyed in the darkness, a figure so pale it's skin was nearly luminous.

Ceddon tossed his head, his long bangs flowing back over his shoulder to rejoin the rest of his hip-length mane. He flexed his wings, once, twice, then decided against flying. Casting an glass colored eye to the sky he grinned at the ebon firmament. "You and me...soon we'll see which is tougher."

The clothing he wore, like the body he used, had once belong to Fallon. But like the body he wore, which now resembled him, the clothing had been altered. Afterall, what fit Fallon like a second skin would have been too loose in the shoulders, too tight in the chest, waist, arms, and legs, and several inches too long on all the limbs. Ceddon was shorter and his muscles much more bulky, not fat, while Fallon himself was fit and trim.

Shifting the cloak over both his shoulders, and making sure it stayed there by pinning closed the clasps just for that purpose, Ceddon added one last thing. The heirloom blade that Fallon had been given was buckled around his back for the same kind of over the shoulder draw Fallon favored. Although for Ceddon it was different. The sword itself had changed, of it's own accord, from the elegant lash-blade Fallon effortlessly weilded, to a serrated great-sword that just begged for bloodshed.

With a last gaze around, and a wet finger to test the wind, Ceddon began to run, each stride covering more ground than one of Callix's. The pace he set unmatchable by a mortal creature. Blazing off into the night like a fallen star, the wind howled in futile rage as it raced him and lost. It's only prize to carry away was the unearthly aura of violence that it managed to snag off Ceddon's figure.
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Fallon came to a halt. The string he followed led directly through a private spirit-space. Odd but not overly. Prophets, Visionaries, and others of that ilk, all lumped together under the name Seers, had thin spirit walls. They often allowed guests in...but Fallon, not knowing who's spirit-space he'd be walking into contemplated the outcome. What kind of trouble might lie on the other side of that thin wall?
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Well? What trouble?
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There you are folks, the end of this chappy. Hope you liked.

[dinranwen]

What kind of trouble indeed? That one I'll have to think about.

Nice Chapter, or should I say Three Chapters. I liked the way you've used your little problem to your advantage. Three parts in three different perspectives add interest and depth to the story that wouldn't exist any other way.

Good work, Dragoness. Very good work.

[Guest]

Ceddon, since that was obviously the pale youth's name, opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

I liked that part and the rest too. It's like all my stories mxd togther. only cooler. I think that fallon is he in heavon or hell. Well if his in heaven then it would be noting bad when his walking around. but if that is hell id be sespiciouse that might lead to a furnace or something with flames. :) Excelent work Rai. waiting for next chappy. :) O wait i see space so it means he has to proove himslef worthy of coming alive again or going to heaven.

[Kalanna Rai]

Actually there is no heaven or hell since Fallon serves no God(s). He's got his own space, and the ability to travel outside it, but he's not in any zone. Heavens and Hells are ruled over by certain gods, and only their favorites, or those they want locked away, are allowed into the zones of Heaven or Hell.

Complex I know but it'll all make sense in the end.

[Guest]

It makes some sence. so I only would wait in sispence until the moment to find out what will happen next to fallon. :)

[Mother Goose]

Good long chappie! And the story should get many new readers, with its shiny new front page.

Just to clarify: now that Ceddon is in Fallon's body, he will not be taken for Fallon, will he? It seems the body has changed completely, and will not be recognized as Fallon.

[Kalanna Rai]

Yes the body has changed completely but, as with any twin siblings, Ceddon bears a remarkable resemblance to Fallon. That aside they shouldn't be mistaken for each other...not since one's blinding white and the other is not.

Also the aura's should give everyone enought warning.

[JezSharp]

Hmm...ok so the type of trouble is in spirit form?

Perhaps a spirit that feeds on and preys on emotion, or that enjoys taunting Fallon with his greatest fear...or perhaps it could tie in with the girl who kissed him earlier (I have no idea how/why or if this idea would make sense as I know not what part the girl plays).

Really good descriptive work with interseting characters, it really is an excellent sg Rai.

[Kalanna Rai]

Thanks Jez...as for the mysterious woman...you'll see...She's going to play a big part...

[Guest]

Masterweaver wrote: At the risk of offending Phang: What is Shiznit?

The alternate form of ,"Shit."
'

[Kalanna Rai]

New poll is up...time to vote.

[Polokin]

Finally finished! I'm never reading that much to catch up ever again, Rai.

Anyway, I've really liked the story so far, with all the plot twists that tie in with the story perfectly, I'll be looking foward the the next, really long, chapter :D