The Legend Of Black Eyes

I pictured him being yelled at, and my grandfather"s face contorted from anger. So I kept laughing, despite my brother"s attempts to shut me up. It was only when he seized my dislodged knee cap and twisted it that I felt enough pain to make me scream.

"What"s so funny little brother?" he asked, seething.

"I can"t believe you agreed to lick grandpa"s boots," I said, clenching my jaw. My breathing was ragged, irregular. I was also beginning to feel cold. I was losing too much blood. "But then again, you were always the ambitious type. You would do whatever it takes to get your name on the family tree. Something our father lost because he cared too much about the woman he loved."

"Don"t you dare bring father into this," Adwerald hissed.

"Why?" I asked, panting heavily. "Don"t tell me you now care about the family you left behind?"

That earned me a smack across my face.

"Granpa"ll be here soon," Adwer said. "I hope he can fix this leg of yours just so that I can break it again."

"If I remember well, you never considered Theolonius Stalwart part of our family," I said. "Or was it just an act you pulled right before you turned your back on us?"

My words must have hit some sensitive spot, since Adwer"s angry eyes wavered. He averted his gaze for a while, enough for me to sneak a peek at Franz, who appeared to have pa.s.sed out. I activated my third eye to see his time energy rapidly dissipating. He was dying.

I needed a distraction. I needed but a few seconds, long enough for me to reach that energy and absorb it. If I could do that, I"d have a chance at turning this fight around. Adwer"s eyes came to meet mine, however, and my window of opportunity closed.

"Grandpa found me after I barely escaped the Priest you sent after us," Adwer said. "He nursed me back to health, trained me. He even provided me with a personal teacher. I learned how to read and write. When did our beloved father teach us how to read or write?"

"And now what? You repay him by being his good slave?" I asked. "Did he write your name on the family tree? Or does he keep you in the servant"s quarters, to sleep with tavern wenches and eat stale bread?"

Adwer"s angry eyes flared up again. He punched me and my head bobbed to the side. That hit was barely enough to get me close to a stone I was aiming for.

"You know what I think, little brother?" Adwer asked.

"I have a feeling you"ll tell me anyway," I said. I was starting to see double at that point. I could barely remain conscious. So I fumbled with my hand, trying to reach for that stone. One hit would be enough to get Adwer away from me. One hit would help me turn this bad situation into an opportunity.

"I think you"re trying to provoke me," Adwer said.  He held my hand, the one trying to reach the stone, then went on, "I think you don"t want to meet grandpa. I think you fear him as much as the entire world does. You jest to hide your fear."

I snorted. "Jest…" I said. "You weren"t kidding. Grandpa really taught you some new words."

Adwer was about to reach for my knee and twist it again, but he changed his mind at the last second. He reached for his belt instead and pulled out a hunting knife. He held it against my throat then, smiling viciously.

"You"ve dragged our family name through the mud," he hissed at me. "You led our father to the Church"s hands. Do you know how much he suffered?"

I"ve watched him suffer, but I couldn"t admit that to my big brother, not to anybody for that matter. Instead, I met his angry eyes with my own, contemptuous one.

"It"s time you suffered as he did," Adwer went on.

He plunged the hunting knife deep within my palm. I felt it pierce skin and flesh, cut tendons, and break bones. For a short period of time, I forgot about the pain in my knee. Then Adwer took another hunting knife from his belt and hit my injured knee with its pommel. I screamed in agony. I never thought I could scream for so long despite a sore throat.

Adwer held my other hand then plunged his hunting knife deep within the palm too. More pain joined the party. I couldn"t see anything before me anymore. I closed my eye and screamed until no voice came out, until I ran out of breath and capacity to endure pain. Then, before I pa.s.sed out, I heard Adwer"s words.

"Feel the pain of crucifixion," he said. "Understand what father"s been through."

When I came to, Adwer was standing, sword in hand and frowning. I forgot what I was doing on the ground until I tried to move. Then the pain from a dislodged knee, punctured hands and the most terrible headache reminded me. So I resorted to using my senses. I recognized Raiya"s energy signature to my left.

"Are you alive?" I heard Raiya"s voice reach out to me.

"If you call this alive," I said.

"I"ll keep him busy," she said. "The other one"s pa.s.sed out. Use him to recover."

Then I saw Raiya come into my field of vision. She thrust her blasting rod toward Adwer"s chest. The latter blocked with the flat surface of his broadsword. Raiya mumbled a spell then the rod"s tip shone a bright light. Immediately after that, a strong gale erupted, blasting my brother backwards and toward the burning house.

"He"s tougher than he looks," Raiya told me. "Try to recover and come give me a hand, before your grandfather arrives."

That was reason enough for me to try and move. I wasn"t pinned in place by the knives, but moving was now seemed impossible. It was like I was attempting to climb a mountain with just one functional leg.

I fought through the pain though. I tried to sit up, and my body begged me to stay on the ground. Adwer had recovered from the blast and was rushing toward Raiya. I heard his sword clash with her blasting rod. I wondered how that thing didn"t break on impact.

I had more pressing matters to worry about though. I turned to Franz. He was three to four paces away from me. From that distance, I couldn"t absorb his time energy. To make matters worse, his energy was evaporating at tremendous speed. I saw it dissipate before my eyes while I tried to get up on one foot.

"You"re not going anywhere brother," I heard Adwer scream.

I looked behind me to see him running toward me at lightning speed. He raised his sword high in the air then brought down toward my left shoulder. Right before the hit connected though, I saw my brother"s body arch to the side. Then he disappeared from my sight. Raiya had hit him with yet another blast.

"Make it quick!" she said. "We have to incapacitate him before Stalwart shows up."  

Every jump, every hip twist I made brought the pain in my legs, hands and head back into perspective. Every move I made reminded me of the pain I had to endure to reach salvation, which was barely three steps away from me.

Those were, in my experience, the most painful three steps I ever had to hop toward. I had to fight against my body that begged me to stop, lie down and accept my fate. I had to argue with my shaking leg to move.

"Just a little more…" I kept telling myself. "Just one more jump…"

If I had reached Franz before all his energy dissipated, I would have been capable of taking Adwer hostage too. If I had just been a little faster, my grandfather would have suffered more losses than he antic.i.p.ated that fateful night. Unfortunately, I had my limits, and I was breaking all of them. I was burning through the midnight oil and looking for residue in the old, derelict lamp.

When I finally reached Franz, I managed to absorb enough energy to fill two of the snowflake"s hands. One of which I was going to use to restore my knee back to normal. The other one I was planning to use to pay my brother back for what he"d done to me. I needed some time to concentrate on my wounds and rewind time for each one. I was going to reconstruct my leg and hands.

I turned to see Adwer running toward Raiya again. This time, no matter how many blasts she sent his way, my brother would dodge them all. He jumped aside, slid underneath them, or even deflected them using some type of magic shield. My brother was stronger than he led me to believe. I couldn"t concentrate on healing at that moment, not with Raiya in immediate danger.

Adwer was about to reach Raiya then. I saw him aim for her exposed left flank. He saw him duck underneath another spell then jump toward her right before the next one left the blasting rod. I concentrated on his body then, and willed time to slow in his immediate vicinity.

It was easier to slow the environment down than slowing a tall, heavy human being. I only had to create a bubbled around him. He didn"t have my Fragment, so his movements would also slow down.

"Thanks the G.o.ds you"ve recovered," Raiya said. She was panting. I even saw sweat trickle down her brows. "Let"s finish this."

"Jump back as soon as you cast your spell," I told her.

She aimed her rod at Adwer"s head then sent a blast toward him at point blank range. She jumped back and I released the time bubble I surrounded my brother with. The blast hit him head on, and Adwer was pinned to the ground. Raiya"s spell didn"t stop at that though. It felt like multiple wind blasts. .h.i.t Adwer at the same time.

The cracks Ifrit had created on the floor to deactivate the Aetherbane widened, and the ground beneath us shook dangerously.

"Oh, f.u.c.k me sideways…" Raiya mumbled.

The ground beneath us gave way in a heavy rumble. I lost balance then fell on my a.s.s. Bodrick"s house started sinking below the ground, and Adwer"s unconscious body followed. I understood the reason behind Raiya"s swearing a little too late. The ground on which I sat suddenly gave way. The next thing I knew, I was falling down toward the abyss.