The Edge of Memory - Aikura

[Aikura]

-For My Designs-

A beautiful sparse rain of gently falling leaves filled the air, its pallet running the spectrum from russet to burgundy, gradually feeding the growing carpet of detritus on the forest floor. A solitary figure stood idle but alert amidst this most seasonal of showers. Hooded and masked and with blades at the ready, his stance was firm, his eyes searching his surroundings for the shadow he could not see so much as feel. At his back was the cave, within which now lay the corpse of his target, a signature of his success.

The light-filtering canopy above seemed to colour the forest air in an amber haze. The figure’s eyes were momentarily caught by a leaf descending lazily before him, a fleeting distraction cutting his otherwise unbroken focus. As the leaf costively joined the red-brown sea at his feet, the other figures appeared silently around him. Three, four, five, they stepped out of the shadows, all hooded and cloaked, and armed. He looked around sharply at the group, betraying a flicker of bemused surprise. He had not expected so many. The situation he had recently found himself in was quite contrary to all his prior expectations and assumptions. But as it would unfold, the illusion of choice would gradually be stripped away, and his path would inevitably be clear. Thus would he fall through the hourglass.

“How was that then?” He enquired, swiftly salvaging some composure. I stepped forward from the group, a broad, knowing smirk playing across my face. “Not bad.” I said teasingly. “Getting better.” I looked carefully to his reaction, always analysing his body language, anticipating his next move. That flicker in his eye, it was a kind of manifest uncertainty, though not fear per se. His armour had earned some new scars, and trails of lightly seeping blood betrayed the fresh gashes on his arms. It had been a challenging kill, and the execution had not been the cleanest, but he had overcome. For my designs, it was more than adequate.

I had watched this one for a long time, planted my agents around him, furtively directing his growing affinity with the shadows. By now I had trained others, and I would train many, many more after this one. I would be unmatched as a mentor, pushing my apprentices harder, and they would reap the rewards. Perhaps this one would be the greatest of them. He had shown initiative above the norm, and I would now groom him for a larger purpose.

My unwitting new apprentice spoke again. “You still have not told me why I am being followed.” My smirk never fading, I could not help but relish the words that now escaped my mouth. “Suffice it to say, you have already been picked.” This remark met with a soft chorus of snickers from the surrounding company. It is curious how swiftly the words came to me, like reciting mantra. “You will be tested again. In the meantime, train and hone your skills.” I said. “We are watching you.”

Again the figure glanced down at the forest floor—if only momentarily—as his mouth began to form the obvious question. When he looked up, he was alone once more.

[Aikura]

-The Oath-

It was obvious now. With each day’s passing, the realities of the choice we had made were becoming increasingly apparent, to the extent that we could no longer deny what was happening. Our lives were changing, and us with them, perhaps irrevocably so. It is for this reason that we took the oath. It was not something either of us was accustomed to doing, but we both felt it was important, necessary. The first and last time we would commit such an act. So there, by the fire in Candlekeep Inn, hand-in-hand, touching blade-to-blade, we made a promise to each other. We swore that we would only accept our new paths so long as they remained side-by-side. Any deviation, and we would get out, quickly. No matter what other consequences there would be, or what else we would be forced to leave behind, or what other choices we would be forced to make. Sisters first, no matter what.

Of course, we were naïve to think we could break the hourglass without being cut by the shards.

[Aikura]

-Volte-face-

The common room was transformed by late-night delirium. In place of the gently dying embers was a roaring hearth fire, flooding the room in warm light well past midnight and into the early hours. The many figures moving drunkenly about the light-bathed room cast long, stumbling shadows against the walls and ceiling. Chairs and couches were occupied and tables were messy, sporadically decorated with half-full tankards amidst artfully spilt puddles of assorted liquors. Everywhere people sat talking, drinking, singing, jeering, gambling, arguing and fighting over who had claim to whose share of what. The atmosphere was uniquely jubilant, a beacon of irrepressible, burning life contrasting sharply with the moonless dark outside. Adorned in our assortment of tunics and flowing robes, we were spirits, in high-spirits, on spirits. It had been a good week for us.

In the centre of the room, two bizarrely dressed hins kept spectators variously entertained and enraged with their mélange of magical mischief and theatrics. They haphazardly ran and danced about beneath a rain of chromatic lights and resonating bells, tripping passers-by, spilling drinks and firing shrink spells at unfortunate collaterals. Occasionally they would dodge the odd piece of airborne furniture, sometimes of rogue trajectory but—more often than not—of very deliberate intent, thrown in their direction with extreme prejudice. They persisted in their antics undeterred by such physical criticism.

In the corner, a large armoured man with an expression of resigned irritation, his features conspicuously hard-edged and lapidarian, dangled another hin by her ankle even as she continued to throw darts at him, giggling insanely. The darts lodged in the recesses of his armour and, intermittently, his skin, though he seemed not to feel any pain. His patience wearing thin, he hurled the hin at the wooden floor with an exasperated sigh. She tumbled effortlessly away and ran off in search of a less capable victim.

My sister, an unfortunate though obviously willing casualty of one of the shrink spells, now chased the hin culprit around the room, laughing elatedly. The other of the hin comedians appeared now to have passed out under one of the ale kegs, the amber liquid still running freely on his head and seeping into the cracks between the floorboards.

Off to one side—though never far from the centre of attention—stood the mother of this bizarre family, my former hin antagonist-turned-mentor-turned-friend. She was unusually quiet at times like these. She leaned casually against a pillar with her arms folded, surveying the chaos around her, a marginal smile on her face, a tiny light of tacit approval in her sparkling eyes.

I lay comfortably reclined on a couch, all to myself and set well apart from the action, periodically glancing around at this circus of which I had somehow become an integral part. I looked to the life that filled this place, to the impish hins sowing devilment, to the armoured man grudgingly extracting the darts from between his dark metal plates. I looked to the expression of pure delight on my sister’s face as she caught her spell-slinging assailant and proceeded to twist his arm behind his back. I looked to my mentor-turned-friend and caught the meaningful look she was giving me. This was the moment of my volte-face. As I lay there, a most unfamiliar feeling came over me. For once, for the first time in my life, I felt at peace.

It was sublime. And it could never last.

[Aikura]

-Watched the Light Fade-

The waxing sun dipped behind the looming spiral minarets of Candlekeep, lengthening and distorting the already-misshapen shadow of the library-citadel. Two of us stood with weapons drawn, cloaks shifting in the gentle evening breeze caressing the grassy fields and hills of the Lion’s Way. A third figure, a female tiefling adorned in ostentatious green and black leathers, lay in the grass at our feet. Her rapier lay where it had fallen, inches from the open hand that had relinquished it. Her breathing was sharp and irregular, and slowing. Her blood washed over the bed of grass on which she now lay, painting its blades a coat of sanguine red to match those gripped in our hands. Her unfocused eyes gazed skywards, the light therein fading with the evening sun.

As the steadily advancing shadow reached the spot on which we now stood, I looked on the woman at our feet, an unwilling witness to her final moments. It was a jarring moment of reflection. How had it come to this? I had watched her for a long time, tracked her movements from her abetted escape from the Fist prison to her innominate traversal of the Coast, dutifully pursuing the agenda of her debt-holder. As fate would have it, she would find me.

She approached me for help, and we made a simple arrangement. I wanted to help her. I had admired her display of passion at the execution, the inspired recklessness of her doomed rescue attempt. At some point however, her beautiful folly had crossed over that ever-looming line. It had simply become folly. She broke the terms of the arrangement and created a conflict between her survival, and mine. It was an easy choice to make.

She had been a beacon of sombre light, now fatefully extinguished by my own hand. I looked from the woman bleeding out on the grass to the blood on my weapons. I looked to my dark companion and the burning look of retribution in her eyes as she leered with satisfaction at our handiwork. I could feel the uneasiness building inside me, mixed with another feeling…regret? It did not matter. I said nothing.

I just stood there in the gentle evening breeze, and watched the light fade.

[Aikura]

-Heart Attack-

This entry appears to be missing. Although the entry title is there intact, the page with the text is gone, having been violently torn out. Whatever image it detailed was apparently too dangerous to be allowed to remain, though it must have been significant for the author to go through the exercise of writing it down.

[Aikura]

-As Dust Through My Fingers-

It seems that every time I find something in this world to hold onto, it is taken from me. Such moments are a rare enough occurrence in my life, that to sweep them away so swiftly seems the height of cruelty. It is like repeatedly spending every effort to ascend a mountain peak, only to be systematically washed down by the mocking avalanche. It is easy to give up in the face of such definitive rebuking, to expect defeat every time. I was sure I had stopped climbing long ago.

Nevertheless, I somehow found myself standing again on that lofty zenith. It would be a typically brief stay. It was a time when I felt like I held the Coast in my hand. When renowned killers courted my favour, Banite lords danced unawares on my strings, and even saints and nobles were not safe from my blades. It could never have lasted. Heart Attack had stirred the hornet’s nest. My enemies leered up at me, unified in bellicose envy. Now, once again, what had seemed as solid and immutable as diamonds disintegrated before my eyes, and ran wistfully as crystalline dust through my fingers.

They came for me first. They had tracked me, watched patiently as I had backed myself into a corner. Laying their trap carefully, they surrounded me—together with my apprentice—in the Frost Keep. Knowing full well that prey struggling in the net tends only to further entangle itself, I waited still and patient for my opportunity to escape. The moment came soon, afforded by the insipid gloating of my would-be captors. They had blown their chance. I slipped away, blazing an apparently random trail from the Keep, never stopping until I was well clear. I escaped. My apprentice did not.

They went after my sister next. I had immediately sent out a warning, but it took time to communicate information out here away from our networks in the city. They got to her first. Forsaking all discretion following their initial attack, they waited and ambushed her on the Trade Way, cutting her down in broad daylight and in front of many witnesses. Not one of the bystanders made a move to help her. They merely looked on in subdued compliance, giving their tacit consent. Fools and cowards, and monsters. I would make them all pay.

They went after my mentor last. She had sought them out to find out what was going on, to reason with them. They were beyond diplomacy, beyond reason. They met her instead with bloody steel. Such ruthless, mindless violence. And for what? Had we really angered them so? We had been the executors, not the architects. I suppose it did not matter to them; they were blind to the hand that held the tools.

My mind raced as I made good on my escape, my thoughts outpaced only by my hastened step. Traversing first the lesser-known paths of the wilderness and—after a time—the secluded and undesirable backstreets of Baldur’s Gate, I made it to the relative safety of the darkened building I called home. When I entered I was confronted with the bodies. It took all the willpower I could muster not to break down and cry at the sight of my sister, bloodied and broken. Keeping hope firmly at bay, I knelt at her side and pressed my ear to her lips. It sent a jolt through me to find she was still breathing. Even then I hardly dared to believe, though I knew exactly what it meant.

They had left them all alive, if only barely. Furthermore, they had allowed us to recover the bodies. It had been a less-than-lethal blow, and deliberately so. It was a message of the crudest sort. They wanted us to know that we could not hide from them, that they could hit us again with deadly force if there was ever a repeat of Heart Attack. Hapless fools, they were all fire and no thought. By allowing me to escape, by identifying themselves through their indulgent, premature gloating, they had presented us with a solid target for retribution. Their arrogance would start a war, and any bloodshed would be on their hands, not ours.

I knelt on the floor with my sister, and the others. They would all be okay. I held her tightly, simultaneously swearing to never again let anything happen to her, and swearing vengeance.

They had hit us hard. And yet, it seemed that blood was not enough for them. Days later, they would come for my home, and they would take that from me as well. As dust through my fingers.

I cannot help but wonder if it ever crossed their minds, what I would do if I had nothing left to lose.

[Aikura]

-The Dream Redux-

Every night it starts the same. Walking down familiar corridors, past the walls that run with the blood of deeds past, stepping over the corpses in their face-down repose. I sense the ominous cold approaching, and soon feel that frigid wind manifest from nothing, filling my chest. An icy cavity for an icier heart.

It started the same, but tonight something was different. I emerged into the cavernous chamber surreally filled with that flooding crimson light, intermittently divided by imposing spinous pillars. I looked to the familiar corpses strewed across the cold stone floor, and to the same blood blamefully staining my hands. All the right elements were here, the scars of my past chasing me in my sleep, snapping vengefully at the heels of my waking conscience. All the same, everything around me felt slightly off, as though this dream redux was a reflection of the original, misconstrued and distorted through a twisting mirror. And of course, something was missing. Something important…

I heard a loud click as someone let light into the chamber; a narrow spear desperately piercing the dark. From a single hopeful beam, it expanded with the creaking door to become a liberating flood. The freezing cold desisted and was replaced by that amiable coolness, a timely yet overdue relief. She stepped cautiously into the chamber, silhouetted beautifully against the blazing light at her back. She surveyed her morbid surroundings, her eyes effortlessly piercing the dark and soon falling on me. She approached with careful steps.

“You’re late.” I said, unable to repress a slight smile. “Um…you’re expecting me?” She enquired hesitatingly, that same old puzzled expression playing across her face. “You are always expected here.” I replied. She continued to gaze around in apparent confusion. “But…I have never been here before.” She said. I watched her familiar cautious footfalls with mild amusement. “You say that every time.”

I walked over to her and obligingly held out my hands, blood-soaked palms facing upward. Gasping at the sight, she unhesitatingly took out her water flask and emptied it over them. I felt the cleansing cool of the water lift the sanguine stain and wash my hands clean once more. Pre-empting the next inevitable cue, I then took my sister’s hand and led her through the door and the winding, labryinthine corridors beyond, promptly heading outside.

Emerging from the darkness of my mental prison, we were met with a serene grass clearing of vibrant green shades, illuminated by the erratic cantaloupe flicker of an open campfire. I looked around and blinked wildly, suddenly and unexpectedly inheriting the puzzled expression that had only moments ago occupied my sister’s face. Something was definitely different tonight. What strange dream was this? My sister wandered out and collapsed happily in the long grass near the fire, cushioning her head in her hands and gazing up in a child-like fascination at the night sky. “Wow, you should see this.” She said, her voice coming in awe-filled tones.

Sighing, I went and sat tentatively next to her. “You know I do not look at the stars, sister.” The image of the campfire embers filled my eyes as I spoke, lending them the veneer of fiercely burning coals; little candle vigils to defeated aspirations. “After everything that has happened, all we have lost, all they have taken from us. If I ever had any hope, it is now vanquished utterly. I could look up, but we both know that all I would see is more clouds.”

She echoed my sigh and turned over slightly, continuing to gaze skywards. “I think you still have hope.” She said. I yielded a grim laugh. “Oh really? And what would make you think that?” I asked. She gave me a coy, sideways smile, never shifting the focus of her gaze. “Because, someone without hope could never dream a sky like this one.”

I would not have looked. I would not have dared to look. But the dream redux had already caught me off guard. Against every screaming instinct, I lowered my defences, just for a fleeting moment, and glanced upwards. An unwilling gasp escaped my lips. I was confronted with a million brightly burning lights, scattered across the sky as countless specks of eerily glowing dust. As I lay back and gazed at the heavens in sublime disbelief, I felt my sister’s hand find mine and grip it tightly. “See? Tomorrow has not yet abandoned us.” She whispered.

I could not shake my dreams of the past. But from now on I would dream of the future as well.

Night after night I have the dream. And night after night she comes through for me.

[Aikura]

-Falling Like Rain-

Rain-swollen clouds built in dark, violet plumes, spreading outward and touching both horizons. The thickening sheet of cumulus filtering the evening light, the remaining spectrum an annoyingly mood-setting palette of reds and purples as though the elements conspired against me in an almost-knowing taunt. This time there was no silvery curtain between us, nothing to shield the unwilling tics, to hide the unwanted emotions that now surfaced and threatened to lay bare all my plans and intentions, falling like rain at his feet.

Here we are again, standing that cautious distance from one another, yet gladder for each other’s company than either of us would care to admit. Standing close, but not too close. Exchanging guarded looks, but not too guarded. Careful word follows careful word in the reciprocal ebb and flow of our intrepid game. Each poised for the second act in our dangerous play, hovering ambivalently on the genre divide between spy thriller, romance, tragedy or, perhaps, a comedy of errors.

My lapses in attention accumulate. A touch offered in condolence lingers slightly too long. The light in my eyes shifts and betrays what lies beneath. My original plan for him had already been turned by my own volte-face. Still I had kept him close, the shroud of my secret weapon dispelled. Looking outwards, I had aimed him squarely at our new enemies. I had since been given the order to put him into play, on no less than two occasions. Yet I did nothing, except play for time in my conflicted hesitation. I made excuses for everyone’s benefit. He was my best resource, my Ace. I would not throw him carelessly at an unknown foe. I convinced the others thus, and myself. Did I even know what game I was playing anymore?

This was what I had feared all along. I was swiftly losing count of the rules I had broken. My once-solid designs, now thawed and melted, flowed freely around my head in fluid streams of indecisiveness. I was no longer certain of what it was that I wanted, and he was to blame.

So many puppets on so many strings. It was only a matter of time until one of them pulled back. Damn him.

But in the end, one remains…rising like ether, falling like rain…

One indeed.

[Aikura]

-Wretched Whim-

So many puppets on so many strings. It was only a matter of time until I had to cut some of them loose. But I would make damn well sure I was dangling them over a ravine when I did.

Calmly awaiting the inevitable conflict, I scornfully examined my surroundings. The room was framed by curiously oblique architecture, resplendent with opulent furnishings and drapery, and bathed in that unnatural azure light that seems endemic to wizard towers and comparable arcane haunts. The cold and underwhelming light struck an appropriate tone for what was to follow.

Of course the meeting would be here. I probably knew it even before he did. I had followed and watched him for a long time, putting my agents in his path, allowing him to surround himself with people loyal to me. Over time they had become entrenched in his confidence. Each was a string, ostensibly kowtowing to his every wretched whim, while in fact surreptitiously allowing me to make marionettes of his desires and ambitions. With discreet tugs and whispers I had created conflicts in his ranks, turned him against those among his following that I could do without. He had obediently shed them like bloody refuse. Always I had kept my new tool sufficiently dull to be safely controlled, yet still retaining just enough edge to be useful.

However, when the time had finally come to employ him in effecting a purpose larger than petty grudges, he had fallen drastically short of the desired mark. With this most recent and explicit directive he had become dawningly aware of our arrangement, and now pretentiously sought to challenge it by calling a meeting and setting an obvious trap. But in reality, and true to form, his trap for me was really my trap for him.

A door burst open and he came marching purposefully in, the dull sheen of his armour further dampened by the pool of pale blue light flooding the tower interior. Around him slinked his henchmen and lackeys, each thinking themselves invisible in their own way. I counted them off as they filed in and took up positions around the room; one…two…three…four... Not enough. Not even close.

“This had better be important.” I snapped at him. He crossed the room and stood before me, his whole expression wrought with barely contained anger, undiluted by the arrogant smile playing on his lips. He tightly gripped the imposing mace at his side, its globose head visibly exuding a corrosive broth. “I am afraid there is a little problem with our arrangement, dear child.” He said. The fury in his eyes reaffirmed the intent I had already deduced. Only one way for this to end, it seems.

A moment of familiar cold stillness preceded the first strike. I heard the words begin to form, the resonant echo in the enunciating voice, the building scintilla of chromatic lights as the Weave breathed life and gave effect to the first spell. I reacted fast, darting into the shadows and narrowly avoiding the magical beam that fired to my left, a luminous, grasping hand at its head. Tumbling back onto my feet, I drew blades and looked upon my betrayers with vengeful intent.

As their eyes searched desperately in the inadequate light for their coveted prey, the shadows circled. I watched with malevolent joy as the darkness closed in around them, and my trap was sprung. With perfect synchronisation they struck, efficiently cutting through the would-be trappers in a harmonious concert of murder. Our enemies fell in seconds, the leader at my feet, the knives in his back belonging to the very one he thought his most trusted bodyguard. I held his gaze the whole time, as he drew his final breath, my mocking expression the final thing he saw. My parting gift to him.

The proverbial dust settled on the scene, the victorious shadows standing triumphantly over their incapacitated victims. Weapons were kicked away, hands and feet were bound, tongues were cut out. One of the shadows, his now tongue-less victim firmly subdued beneath his foot, looked to me and spoke. “What do you want us to do with them?”

I surveyed the carnage around me, of which happenstance and stupidity had been the architects, and which now fell to me to rectify. I felt cold inside. They had sought to trap me. Impudent, credulous fools. How dare they. I hesitated a moment, searching for a recalcitrant bastion of mercy in my heart, yet finding none. “They are no longer useful to me.” I said. “Kill them all.”

We dangled them over the ravine, and cut the strings.

[Aikura]

-The Right Thing-

I sometimes wonder how much simpler the world must be, as seen through the dogmatic lens of the slavish devouts and zealots I see stumbling blindly about the Coast, secure in their pathetic, encompassing fictions. In reality, simple answers are elusive, the world is far from black and white, and the right course of action is unfailingly and messily embedded with the wrong one. In their simplifying and unproblematic logics, they devalue the raw and often horrific struggle of trying desperately to extricate the one from the other. What if you had to inflict the deepest possible wound on one you love, in order to save her? To drown her within an inch of death, in order to preserve that last diminutive inch of life? As it happens, doing the right thing may well be the worst thing I have ever done.

The air in the forest seemed unusually thin this evening. The trees lay bare, stripped naked by the turning of the seasons, their discarded amber leaves now carpeting the forest floor. A broken circuit of overgrown rail-track snaked out from the abandoned mine and curled up at my feat in a subtly twisted sculpture of metal and rotting wood. The surrounding trees and rock formations were discoloured by an ominous blood-red haze, seemingly unmoved by the soft breeze catching my robe and billowing its loose, atramentous folds. Perhaps that crimson opaqueness was entirely contrived by the subconscious resignation in my heart, the grim acceptance foreshadowing the deed I would inevitably commit. Whatever it was, it seemed to me as though the woods themselves were braced for murder.

“You take a great risk in meeting with me.” I said, leering down at the man slumped despondently against a long-disused mining cart, still weighted in place by its neglected load. “I do not really care…” He replied, his voice broken and defeated and cracking with emotion. “Do you wish to kill me then? I doubt I could even begin to stop you right now…” His armour was tattered and worn, his face sunken and sickly, his eyes like dark, shallow portals set against his pale skin. Were it not for the betraying tells of his breaking voice and his pleading looks, he would be but a hollow visage devoid of any humanity. He had shed all but its last vestiges in a corrupt and desperate trade to return to this plane.

“Does she know you are alive?” I enquired sharply, looming over that pathetic, weeping shell of a man. “I don’t know…” He replied. If she did not know, then there was still time. Stirred with resolve, I spoke again. “Then it would make sense to kill you. You have brought her nothing but pain and heartbreak and loss. And now it seems you would inflict that on her a second time.” He flinched as though slapped across the face by my words, looking sadly up at me as would a stricken, cowering animal. “Perhaps you are right…” He said. “But I want to make it right…after all I gave to come back and see her…my magic…my god…and much more…”

“So what? Just because you have destroyed what was left of yourself does not make you any more worthy to be in her presence. You have even less to offer her now, and you will only bring her down with you.” I made no effort to disguise the venom seeping into my voice. “I will not let that happen.”

He gazed dejectedly at the nearby cliff edge. I wondered for a moment if he was considering jumping. It would make this a lot easier if he did. “Perhaps you are right…” He said again, his tone weakening with every breaking word. “I never wished to harm her…ever…and I only wish to see her once more…just once…but perhaps you are right…”

I sighed wearily. He was so pathetic, a blubbering, huddled mess. I pitied him. It was not much, but it was enough for me to offer him one last out, one final chance to save his worthless life: “If you love her, as she once loved you, you will leave the Coast and never return. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before your selfishness consumes her.”

There was a long, painful silence as he considered my words. Glistening drops began to fall from his eyes and coalesce in lachrymose pools on the ground. He looked up at me, his face now visibly wet from the tears, and he began to sob uncontrollably. “I...I cannot do what you ask. If you believe that it is in her best interest then please kill me now...I can’t...and won’t stop looking for her...” He stammered amid the sobs. “She is the one thing I cared for...”

I looked down at him, my eyes misty but fierce beneath my hood, as the moment closed. I was out of options then. This was the only way I could save her. His lover. My sister. “If you will not do the right thing…” I said, drawing my blades with a soft metallic whistle “...then I must.” He looked despairingly up at me, his expression contorted with pain, unrelenting tears now streaming down his face. I tensed slightly as he reached into his tunic and drew out an unsealed envelope, together with another small object, gripping the latter tightly in his hand. “…If you believe it is best...just...please...give her this...” He placed the envelope on the leaf-covered ground before me, and then tightly clutched the other object with both hands. I felt the tears well in my eyes, some part of my mind still searching for another way for this to end. But I knew there was none. His life was forfeit. I was resolved. “I will.”

He gazed momentarily upwards at the swiftly darkening sky, visible through the barren forest canopy. Another gust of cool evening breeze blew through his hair, and he closed his eyes for the last time. I drew in a deep breath, mustering every last reserve of willpower I possibly could. In a flash I lashed out with my blades, spattering long arcs of his blood across the leafy ground. As he fell limp to the ground, his hand unclenched and released the object he had been so desperately holding. It rolled a short way and came to rest on the forest floor. A finely wrought silver wedding ring…her name ornately engraved along the band in a beautiful flowing script…

He really loved her… What have I done? The pool of blood spread quickly through the carpet of leaves, and the ring was soon engulfed and submerged, disappearing with the crimson tide. Choking back tears, I stared in horror at the spot where the ring lay, and then at my blades that now dripped with blood. “…I will make sure she keeps only the best memory of you…I promise…” Flicking the blood away, I sheathed my weapons and collected the envelope. I turned and began to walk away, not daring to look back. As the horror and sorrow and guilt began to merge in my mind, I broke into a run. I ran as far as I could, giving no thought to where I was going, giving no thought to anything but the grim carnage behind me, and the torturous heartbreak that awaited her.

After a time, breathless, exhausted and hysterical, my legs gave way, and I broke down and wept.

[Aikura]

-Damning Specific-

It was the night her world fell away. Our hopeful stars were veiled by a ceiling of foreboding cloud, spanning the night sky and shrouding us in darkness. No mesmerising lights glistened on the surface of the water, no dancing reflections or illusory floating candles to offer comfort or reassurance. Corrupting black waves lapped sibilantly upon the darkened shoreline. After tonight, she would never be able look at me the same way again.

She waited for me at the water’s edge, her back turned, as I approached with tentative, dreading steps. I held clutched in my hand the harbinger of her immanent suffering; the contents of the envelope he had bequeathed me mere moments before I had ended him. It was something far more terrible than any weapon I could command, more cutting than any blade. It was a symbol. One half of a wretched pair. And it would burn a hole through her heart. Still, I had to give it to her, to tell her what happened to him. What he did. And what I did. She could hate me forever. She could try and kill me, and I would not stop her. She deserved to know, and I deserved to die.

“Sister...” The word that escaped my lips was scarcely more than a broken whimper. I remember her expression as she turned, her familiar smile swiftly fading as she registered the emotion in my voice, glimpsed my wet cheeks, my tear-swollen eyes...my bloodied hands. Her expression changed and contorted, from surprise to confusion to dread. She could sense what was to come, her next question loaded with the damning specific. “What have you done?” I raised my clenched fist, coagulated blood caked between my fingers. As I slowly opened it, her eyes caught the flash of silver that seemed bright even in the moonless dark. The name engraved along the band unmistakable, even when partially obscured by the stain.

I would give anything to erase the memory of what ensued. Words cannot describe the agony that manifested in her eyes. I rushed to her side as she collapsed on the waterline, doing my best to hold her head above the mocking waves. She was drowning anyway. Her screams and sobs will haunt me forever. She was being tortured in my arms and there was absolutely nothing I could do to ease her pain. No matter how much she cried and pleaded, the blade twisted ceaselessly in her heart.

As I rocked her back and forth amidst the lapping water, all I could do was weakly apologise over and over. “How could you?! I want to hate you!” She stammered as she wept uncontrollably. “I wish I could hate you for this...” The pain in her voice was overwhelming. “...but you are all I have left now.”

I swallowed hard. I had taken everything from her and yet she could not even hate me in return. I had trapped her here, held her down while I stripped pieces from her soul. Guilt mingled with regret, and yet still the selfish thoughts surfaced. Had I not done the right thing? Had I not saved her? Will she ever love me again? I would do anything now to relieve her anguish. It is unbearable.

Gods I cannot even write this anymore.

[Aikura]

-Shadow Syllables-

She was getting worse, more so with each passing day. It had been several weeks since my damning revelation, since I had killed the one she was set to marry and scarred her irrevocably. After her initial breakdown, which had been terrible, there had been no more outpourings of anguish, which was even worse. There had been little emotion from her whatsoever. She had buried the pain, deeply. She had become cold and hard and worryingly reckless. I had seen the way she leered at the others; she was looking for an excuse to snap, to destroy everything as yet untouched and draw it into the vacuum of her nightmare. I needed to find an outlet for her, a distraction. We needed to do something both profoundly foolish and relatively innocuous. We needed to break a rule.

It did not take much to seed the idea in my head. It was impulsive, spontaneous and with permanent consequence. The prerequisite ingredients were easy enough to come by: some black ink, a couple of sharp knives, clean bandages and—of critical importance—some very strong drink. We chose the beach south of Candlekeep as the setting for our intended masochism. The prominent full moon cast a romantic pale blue light on the white sand, dim yet still easily sufficient to work with. The mood felt just right, one of melancholic, yet nuanced, resignation.

I drew the symbols in the sand first, so she could practice and perfect them. Two layered characters, together composed of sixteen fluid strokes and perhaps a dozen smaller particles. They were Shadow Syllables. Complex hand signals, used to silently communicate tactical information in the field, translated into the emblematic written codex of the Order. Beautiful for something so insidiously tarnished by its purpose. An obsolete lexicon of which I was likely the sole surviving curator. After all, I had murdered all of the others.

“What do they mean?” She asked me. I glanced at her and laughed softly. “Now it would not be any fun if I told you. Do you not trust me?” I retorted. She yielded a slight chuckle and began memorising the characters. I watched her drawing in the sand with her blade, mimicking my strokes perfectly, settling into a meditative rhythm of calligraphy. It was the first time in weeks that I had seen her so calm and focused. Minimally, this was all a very welcome distraction. Perhaps things would not be any different tomorrow, but at least for now there was a marginal easing of the corrosive inner pain that had been eating at her these past few weeks. We would substitute with some comparably healthy outer pain.

“Ready?” I asked her. “I will do yours first.” She took a long swig from the fire whisky and, through the splutters, nodded wordlessly at me. I prepared the blade and the ink, coating the former generously in the latter. I was not even sure that this would work. The cut would have to be deep enough in the skin for the ink to permeate the wound, but shallow enough for it to settle and heal over. She stripped to her waist, laying bare her back and shoulders, and sat ceremonially facing the water’s edge, gazing out at the stars’ reflections on the waves in trance-like anticipation of the blade’s first touch.

The moonlight made her skin appear even paler than usual as I searched for the right spot. I pressed the knife to her left shoulder blade, marking the starting point for the first stroke, and began to cut. I could sense her body quiver from the pain as I began to etch the first character, yet no sound or complaint escaped her lips. Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, she was as strong as ever. Stroke followed stroke and the tattoo began to appear, its black lines contrasting vividly with her pale skin.

Not until the very last stroke did she yield the smallest whimper, followed by a relieved sigh as the ordeal came to an end. I sat back for a moment, admiring my own work. It was truly beautiful. She winced again as I poured some alcohol on the wound, before applying the bandage as gently as possible. She stood up and tentatively felt around the bandages, as if confirming the reality of her new feature, and then looked to me. “Your turn. Ready?”

“Wait.” I said. I popped a new bottle of whisky and gulped liberally. Oh gods, what had I gotten myself into? I stripped in the same manner and sat in the sand facing the shoreline, nervously awaiting the sting of the knife. I recall a moment’s hesitation, wondering if she was still lucid enough to undertake such a delicate operation. I wiped a drop of whisky from my chin and steeled myself. “Ready.”

I gasped as the blade entered my shoulder. The pain was blinding. I have been wounded more times than I can count, though that pain was always dampened by the adrenaline of battle. This was quite different. My mouth opened in a silent scream, it was all I could do not to writhe around as she unrelentingly carved each stroke. The cuts were unfailingly smooth though, her hand never wavering or faltering in the slightest. I gasped again and breathed deeply as she completed the final stroke. “How is it?” I asked. She smiled and spoke with complete humility. “Perfect.”

She patched me up and we sat together in silence through the depths of the night. I could feel the calm emanate from her again. I had no need to explain the meaning of the characters to her, because she already knew in her heart what they symbolised. This was exactly what she needed right now. It too was an irrevocable scar, but of quite a different sort. More than a roguish distraction, the tattoo was a timely reminder of all that she had yet to live for. The shadow syllables were a reaffirmation of the oath we had made so long ago, of our commitment to each other above all else.

Two words, two perfect images. Sisters first.

[Aikura]

-Waiting for the Rain-

I returned to that place often, to the spot where that shadow-grey curtain of rain had been drawn between us, a seemingly incomparable divide. A barrier of air and mist, and fear. It had seemed impenetrable, not just a wall apart, but worlds in between. He was a mark, a resource, and I was his manipulator only. Or so it should have been. Somewhere in the awkward confluence of emotions he had evoked in me, I had lost sight of my purpose for him. Likewise, he had shied away from what he so obviously wanted. We had been afraid to touch, trust, love. Had we been too cautious? Were we cowards? I supposed now that I would never know. I would bury the agonising uncertainty, along with everything else.

As far away as he had seemed then, it was nothing like this. He had left without so much as a guilty word, and the confession in my heart said he would not be coming back. With each day I was more resigned to this fact. All the same, I returned to that place often and gazed longingly up at the unyielding clouds, waiting for the rain.

[Aikura]

-Inamorato-

A cool spring breeze caught the few tails of hair that escaped my hood, blowing them at odd angles across my face. We stood amidst that small meadow of wild flowers, overlooking the mine fortifications, holding each other’s gaze. He was unfalteringly confident, neither blinking nor blushing as his eyes met mine.

I could make excuses. I could say it was during a tough time in my life. I had ended lives and wounded those I cared about the most. I had lost everything, been rendered homeless and watched my dreams disintegrate and run as dust through my fingers. I could say I felt alone. I could say it was only natural in the circumstances to look in hope for the comfort of another. Hells, I could even say that my morbid excuse for a childhood had left me an emotionally disabled wreck whose list of psychological pathologies is sufficiently heavy to make suitable catapult ammunition. I could say these things, but they would do naught to obscure the yearning in my heart. Yearning that is as palpable and real as anything I have ever known.

Of course this is not the way it should have been. Aikura ought to have been antonymous with romance. My would-be suitors would sooner find themselves at the bottom of a cliff than in my arms above it. Yet twice now, against conscious will and common sense, I had opened my heart to someone and shown him exactly where to put the blade. It seemed that, despite successive graduations summa cum laude from the relationship school of hard knocks, I simply refused to learn this lesson. Perhaps third time’s a charm.

This one was different though, for better or worse. Though I looked deeper, I could not see through him like I could others. Where most were transparent, he was opaque. Where most were uniform, he was mosaic. With threads of boyish charm he wove the part of type-cast scoundrel, a cavalier inamorato lost in his endless conquest of the fairer sex. He wore it well; a mask that adorned his true thoughts and feelings and cloaked them from my interrogating stare. He buried them deep and, though I could feel them there, I could not clearly distinguish them from the shrouding facade.

The tinniest of cracks begin to appear in his stage make-up. Mischievous devilish grin laced with undercurrent genuine smile. Crass and lustful leer imbued with subtle caring gaze. Where did the game begin, and where did it end? He played a character playing a character and he never broke more than one at a time. He teasingly allowed me mere glimpses of his soul that were fleeting at best. He was a puzzle wrapped in an enigma, rolled up in a misleading answer sheet.

The curse of puzzles is the way they engage curiosity. Curiosity baits failure. They generate frustration, which is then recycled into persistence. They fascinate and entrap, and persistence soon turns into addiction and folly. To me, he seemed like a worthy opponent in this dangerous game, and I was all too keen to play. Nevertheless, I promised myself I would stop well before it got out of hand.

As we stood there amidst the wild flowers, holding each other’s gaze, I was struck by a moment of lucidity and remembered this promise. I tucked the rogue tails of my hair back into my hood and averted my eyes. It was a wise move. After all, if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will come right out and kiss you.

[Aikura]

-A Different Sort of Regret-

The first thing I saw as I opened my eyes was a searing flash of pale blue light, splitting the darkness that was hitherto entrenched in my head. I was momentarily blinded by this unbidden flare engulfing my field of vision, sensory overload plunging my unprepared mind into a deep confusion. As my eyes desperately strained to adjust to this sudden onslaught, the material world gradually began to manifest, though it all appeared to be in unceasing motion. It swam around me in a disorienting aqua haze, its seemingly free-floating objects unfamiliar and indistinguishable in their nauseating orbit. As I blinked frantically in a vain attempt to tame my surroundings into focus, the pain hit. An agonising ache that came in tortuously throbbing waves, as if a smithy-heated hammer was laboriously beating in my head. Whatever had hit me, it had hit damned hard.

My eyes reluctantly began to focus and adjust to the light, the turbulent maelstrom slowing and costively settling into a gentle whirlpool of vaguely identifiable shapes and objects. I blinked disbelievingly as a couch, a wall hanging, a dining table, a fireplace and a chandelier all swam past me in a surreal parade. I briefly tried lifting my head, but the abrupt worsening of the awful throb therein swiftly convinced me that this was a horrible mistake. Breathing awkwardly through the pain, I glanced down at my unfamiliar clothing, set against the still-blurry background of...the Weave Masters Tower? The swimming objects gradually stopped swimming and settled into their appropriate niches. And then, finally, the smug culprit of my incapacitation was revealed, betrayed by the unmistakably foul aftertaste in my mouth of fire whisky that had gone both ways. Ugh...now I remember.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to swallow the taste away, I rested my head back and closed my eyes again, controlling my breathing and letting the events of the night before begin to filter through my mind. Images lazily surfaced from the mist of my hangover, faces and voices, some familiar, some not. One by one the images slotted into a sequence of events that gave explanation to my present condition. A letter, a warehouse interior, many hooded figures, a change in the roster, a careful path through the streets to that tall building, separation, a diversion, some fast talking, more than one kind of treachery, my own brand of mischief, and a hasty escape with the prize and more. And then of course, celebratory drinks; the fateful instigators of my current predicament.

As I lay there and reflected, a satisfied smile crept involuntarily across my face. It had been a good plan. It had proved to be versatile, and I had proved myself with it. With success came new status; a title that not only gave effect to the resources I would now command, but also to that trait for which I was becoming increasingly known. Even through my dry mouth and the foul residual taste of the previous night’s lapse in judgement, the word rolled off my tongue imbued with its own elegance and ever-seductive mystery: “Whisperer.”

Allowing the celebration to progress to the umpteenth round was an undeniable error, but this was a different sort of regret. The headache and dizziness were attenuated by the pleasantly resurfacing memory of how they had come about, and with whom I had shared this folly. It was a feeling of warm calmness that cosily wrapped itself around my throbbing mind and conferred a most unexpectedly gratifying consolation.

In a few hours, the aching and nausea would evaporate, and leave only light-hearted felicity.