Authors: Dean Murray
Carson looked
at me oddly. "It's the same thing."
"No,
Carson, it's not. You want me to go out and do some grand heroic
thing that will make the packs spontaneously rise up. You want me to
convince them to rush headlong off of a cliff. I know what it took
for me to leave Sanctuary, and the only reason I was able to bring
myself to act was that I took everyone I cared about with me."
"You don't
think that the packs are strong enough to do what you did?"
"I don't
know, but I don't think that it's right of me to demand that from
them. It makes much more sense to pull the boot off of their necks
and then they can join me without having to worry about what will
happen to their friends and family."
The puzzlement
that I'd seen on Carson's face a second before was gone. He looked
angry again. "If our people aren't willing to risk everything in
order to obtain their freedom, then they don't deserve it. You can't
just give freedom to someone, Alec. Freedom has to be earned."
He was stroking
the hilt of his practice sword, rubbing the glyph that had been
carved into the steel. I'd asked him about the glyph before, but all
that he'd ever told me was that the man who had given him both of his
swords had commissioned the glyph on the practice sword.
I wasn't an
expert when it came to the royal sigils that had been part of the
pomp and pageantry of the monarchy, but I had spent enough time
studying to know that there was an underlying language that the
sigils were based on. By the time one of the pictorial glyphs had
been transformed into a sigil—into the personal mark of a
member of royalty—it was often difficult to decipher which
glyph had been used as the basis of the artwork.
What knowledge
I did have was the result of hours of forced study that Kaleb had
inflicted on me growing up. Like so many other things, he hadn't
bothered explaining why he wanted me to learn a dead language, he'd
just handed me some of his research journals and told me to learn
everything I could about the royal sigils.
I'd initially
tried to master the language, but my hand had always been too clumsy
to draw the sigils out in the level of detail that Kaleb had
demanded, and I'd eventually become an indifferent student despite
Kaleb's displeasure. For the first time in years I found myself
wishing that I'd put forth a more sustained effort to learn the
sigils and the glyphs that made them up.
I absently
stared at the sigil as my mind spun, searching for something that I
could use to deflect our conversation back onto a safer path. I
started to open my mouth to ask Carson once again about the hybrids
that had come with him to try and free Agony, but suddenly I was able
to discern the shape of the underlying glyph that made up the sigil
on his practice sword.
"Gardener…no,
the
Gardener. That's what it means, right? Are you the
Gardener?"
Carson went
completely still. "I didn't expect for you to be able to read
that. It's not something that I'm willing to discuss. Never mention
the glyph again."
My control over
my beast had already been frayed to the point of breaking. This last
order was simply too much.
"No. You
don't get to press me to leave innocent children to die and then
refuse to discuss anything that makes you the least bit
uncomfortable,
Gardener
. Unlike you and your friends, the
average wolf or human that's been caught up in pack business doesn't
have the option of just running away and hiding in a hole somewhere.
I'm not going to be the reason that kids no older than Rachel are cut
down in order to punish their parents for siding with me. You've
obviously never had a family, or you'd understand that."
I'd seen Carson
angry before, but those past instances were nothing like what faced
me now. Power came off him in sheets, and somehow he'd traded out
swords. His practice sword was resting on the heavy material he
normally wrapped it in, and the deadly sharp blade that I'd seen used
to such great effect against Brandon was in his hand.
"Get your
weapon, Alec."
I opened my
mouth to tell him to calm down, only he sprang at me before I could
get the words out. I lunged to one side and hit the ground in a roll
that let me grab my edged sword as I came back to my feet.
"Calm
down, Carson!"
"You spoke
about that of which you have no knowledge, Alec. Where I come from
there are consequences for that kind of thing."
Carson's blade
darted towards me and this time there wasn't anything lazy about the
blow. He was moving as fast as I'd ever seen before and it was all I
could do to knock the strike off to one side as I desperately
backpedaled.
His next attack
took me across the chest, slicing nearly a full inch into my flesh
despite my best effort to get out of the way. Hybrids were built to
go forward. We are capable of retreating, and in fact we can move
incredibly quickly in any direction, but we really shine when we are
springing forward. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't going to be
able to match his footwork as long as I was retreating.
I needed to
shift things around and press the attack, but that was easier said
than done. Carson's blade was in constant motion as he launched a
series of slashes and thrusts that pushed me beyond anything I'd ever
managed before. He attacked again and I got my blade in place to stop
him from gutting me, but I was already bleeding from half a dozen
places.
Carson had to
have tells, but I hadn't been training with him long enough to learn
them, so his techniques came at me in a blur with absolutely no
warning of what was going to come next. I couldn't plan, couldn't
think, couldn't do anything but react and I found myself responding
with counters that I would have said I was nowhere near ready to use
in a real fight.
My options were
limited, and as the edge of Carson's sword took me across the
stomach, leaving another shallow gash, I realized that I was only
going to get one shot at stopping him. I'd thought there for a moment
that he was playing with me, but he was moving too quickly for that.
If I'd missed any one of the last half dozen or so counters I would
have lost a limb at the very least.
I couldn't read
Carson's attacks, but that didn't mean that there wasn't anything I
could do. I could still try to lure him into using the attack that I
wanted him to use. It was more than likely going to get me killed,
but it was better than nothing.
I stood a
fraction of an inch taller, coming ever so slightly out of the crouch
that Carson had spent the last week drilling into me. It was a small
thing, but it meant that my sword had to shield a greater volume of
space. It meant that there was going to be a hole in my defenses, but
this time I made sure the hole was where
I
wanted it to be.
The tip of my
sword dropped half an inch rather than returning perfectly to
position after the next block. There wasn't a pause in the flow of
battle—not exactly—but I could feel the moment in which
Carson decided to exploit the opening that I'd left him.
His sword cut
through the air like a living thing that wanted my blood. It was too
fast, and my sword was too far out of position to block it
completely. Stepping back out of range wasn't an option either.
Carson had closed up the distance between us slightly just as he
launched the attack, and even if he hadn't my weight was too far
forward.
Instead of
blocking or backing up, I dropped down so that my knees were almost
all the way to the ground. Carson's sword skittered off of mine in a
spray of sparks and then passed over the top of my head with less
than an inch to spare.
It was the kind
of exchange that I knew I would relive in my dreams, waking in a cold
sweat as I thought about just how close I'd come to dying, but there
wasn't time for that now. Instead I used the force of Carson's strike
to give my blade extra speed as I threw myself forward.
I'd never been
so fast before, but then again, I'd never committed myself like this
in any of the practice sessions we'd had together. The point of my
blade darted towards Carson's heart, blurring with speed in an attack
that I knew would take his life.
My sword was
too fast for Carson to get his weapon in position to block, but he
twisted away from me at the last second, providing a narrower target
at the same time that his right hand swept down. He slapped my blade
aside with his claws and then his hand darted forward and he grabbed
me by the throat.
It was a
killing grip. There wasn't any way for me to break free without him
ripping my throat out. The question of who was dominant to whom, the
question that the two of us had tried so hard to avoid answering, had
just been resolved. He was dominant to me, which meant that even if
he didn't kill me right now, the threat of death would always be out
there in a way that it hadn't been before.
We stood there
motionless for nearly a full minute. My claws ached to go for him.
There was a slight chance that I could take him with me, and a part
of me was sure that it would be better to die than add one more
person to the list of people who could give me orders with impunity.
It was a
seductive option. The kind of thing that I might have done if other
people weren't depending on me. If Carson was so inclined, and both
suitably creative and ruthless, then nothing I had was safe. He could
force me to hand over all of the wealth that I'd stolen from Kaleb
along with my sword, but he couldn't take away my hope.
I couldn't
throw my life away, not if there was still a chance that I might be
able to throw off his chains and escape. I owed Rachel and my friends
at least that much, so I forced the rage back far enough that I could
stop myself from lunging at Carson.
The rage was
still there. My efforts were enough to contain the anger, but I would
have said that no force in the universe would have been enough to
eradicate it. Only then it disappeared as completely as water out of
a cracked cistern. One moment it was a frothing, burning mess and
then it was leaking away to somewhere outside of me, a place where it
no longer had the power to influence me.
I wasn't angry
anymore, but that didn't mean that I'd lost sight of the consequences
of what had just happened.
"Was that
your plan all along, to wait until my guard was down and then defeat
me so that you could take over?"
Carson let go
of my throat and shook his head as he slowly backed away. "No,
Alec, that was never my intention. The last thing I want is to be
dominant to anyone. Once upon a time that wouldn't have been the
case. The man who thought he was the Gardener might have done exactly
that and told himself it was necessary to stave off a greater evil,
but he would have been wrong.
"I know
now that I'm not the Gardener, and I don't want to interfere with
your free will. I would like for you and I to continue as we were, as
equals exploring the possibility of an alliance against the great
evils of our world."
I wanted to
believe him, but the stakes were just so high. He'd been angry in a
way that I'd never seen out of him before; there was obviously more
going on than he'd told me so far.
"What
happened, Carson?"
Carson gave me
a sad smile. "I came out here today planning on manufacturing a
confrontation. You've continued to hold back when it comes to your
sword technique. You needed a reason to commit; you needed to believe
that this time our sparring was something more than just sparring."
"We could
have killed each other."
Carson
hesitated for a second before nodding. "That is always a
possibility when edged weapons are used. I was fairly confident I
could control the fight well enough to keep either of us from being
seriously injured, but there was never any guarantee of that."
"That's a
pretty big risk to be taking just to teach someone how to use a
sword."
"I'm
afraid that you've entered an arena where all of the risks you take
will be big, Alec. I promised to do my best to teach you the way of
the sword, and I felt like I'd used all other means at my disposal
and failed."
"And that
bit at the end?"
"I'm
sorry. I never intended for things to get to that point. Our
discussions about how to handle the Coun'hij have always been heated.
That's why I turned to that subject—I needed something that you
would believe could trigger the kind of violent confrontation that
would finally force you to commit. I didn't count on you deciphering
the sigil on my sword. It brought up feelings that I thought I'd
managed to safely lock away."
"We almost
killed each other because I said you were the Gardener? Who is the
Gardener and why did mentioning him draw that kind of reaction out of
you?"
"The
Gardener is a prophecy that many of my…people believed in. He
was supposed to…actually it doesn't matter. Events have proved
that the prophecy wasn't true, but for a long time the Prophecy of
the Gardener was the only thing that kept my people going. There was
a certain task that every young man and woman undertook when they
were young. Success at the task was a sign that the Gardener had
finally arrived."
"You
succeeded at the task."
"After a
fashion. There were those who said the way that I fulfilled the task
wasn't in keeping with the prophecies, that I wasn't actually the
Gardener, but as time went on it seemed as though I was fulfilling
other signs."
"That
doesn't seem like a reason to get mad at me, Carson."
"Indeed,
it shouldn't have been, except that the day I finally realized I
wasn't the Gardener was the day that my daughter was killed, and it
was my fault that she died. Everyone was depending on me and I failed
with a completeness that words can't possibly describe. I failed my
liege, my people, and my own flesh and blood."