Into the Deep Wood

Dark.

Entire of his being, agony.

Something was moving in his mouth.

Consciousness came all at once like a rush of water, every vein in his body suddenly tingling with newly flowing blood. He turned over on his stomach, vomiting violently. Maggots in a black, viscous-sticky fluid writhing about. He was so weak, so starved.

He was in need of water - his throat had been so parched.

He lay there for what seemed hours, trying to find the strength even to crawl. His mind had been so scrambled. He could not even remember his own name.

Marat drifted in and out of consciousness until his eyes opened to faint light coming from small, high-up windows. The cramped room with walls of roughly hewn logs and a dirt floor was empty. Aside, of course, from a long burned-up fire pit and a large leather bag.

With great effort, he pulled himself to his feet.

His legs were not stable, and his head swam. He stumbled forward, and his knees buckled. He fell against a wall.

Pain, everywhere. It shot through, up and down.

He went through the bag, his arms aching at the slightest effort. A hunter’s knife. It looked familiar.

Another few hours and the sun was bright, but only a few rays had made it inside. It began to get warm, and with the warmth the putrid smell of death rose like steam around him.

He stood again, a bit more strength flowing through him now.

A door.

He went up to it and pulled. No budge. That had been the wrong direction to go. He pushed, and there was but a small give. It had been blocked by something on the other side. He beat his body against it several times until he was sure it was too great an object to move. His body slid down against it until he found it in him to stand again.

Marat paced back and forth, his feet dragging but muscles needing to warm up. The weight of his body felt to be pulling him to the ground.

Daylight began to wane. He sat down, habitually rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration. His fingers brushed across rough, raw skin. He cringed in pain. He tried again, more carefully. He touched his cheek, his brow, above his right eye. Pain, tenderness. He felt blisters filled with liquid. Swelling. There was no skin left; it had peeled off.

He grabbed onto the edge of the window and pulled himself up with great effort. It was too small for him to fit.

But, the glass had been long broken, and the wood was rotting.

Marat took the hunter’s knife and began chipping the wood away from the opening.

He had done this for three days.

There had to be many rests as his body was pained and feeble, and his hands had been blistered and burned. He slept through the night, but his dreams were disturbed and nonsensical. His thirst had eaten away at him, his hunger tearing at the remainder of his body as a wild beast. He could almost feel it feeding on itself.

He wondered why he had not been dead yet. How could a man go so many days without food or water and live?

On the fourth day, a large piece of rotting log came off - widening the opening enough that he could get out, were he to pull himself up at the top of the wall. First, he pushed his bag through. Then, with strain and a long, pained grunt, he grasped at the edge and boosted himself. The effort it had taken left him lying on his stomach in the grass, on the brink of losing consciousness.

It was already night when he stirred, getting to his knees, then straining to his feet and looking around. His eyes fell on the charred remains of a building nearby, and a flash of memory ripped through his mind –fire and ash.

He stumbled in the other direction. He saw the door that led down to the half-dug home. A large wooden log lay across it, placed there by no coincidence - but by whom? Had someone wished him dead?

He dragged himself through the field and away from the farm. The grasses caught his legs, and the soft soil below would sink under his steps. It was still damp as if it had been storming for days. He dragged his bag behind him until he couldn’t.

Potholes lined the road that Marat came upon unexpectedly. It was not very wide, but, looking around, he had decided that it was better to choose a direction and walk rather than stand in place and die.

He did not walk for long until he collapsed again, feeling his end was near. His muscles trembled as they broke down - he could almost feel their demise in every involuntary tremble.

He would have sold his living soul for even a drop of water.

Night came and went. Just as the sky began to light somewhere far away, the sound of many horses echoed across the fields. Had he imagined them? Was it the sound of his heart giving out, a last goodbye to the dying man?

But they only got louder. He felt the earth shake beneath him, rattling his head and his bones. They’d ridden up on him, and he did not even have the strength to look up. He heard a pair of heavy boots hit the ground as their owner dismounted.

“This looks about right.” A voice. Had he known it?

Hands came from everywhere; they lifted him without a pause –what had remained of him? They placed him elsewhere hard. It did not feel like dirt. He felt that mere drops of water were poured into his mouth. He wanted more and would have reached for it if he could move his arms.

A horse snorted, and another neighed. And the wagon beneath him went forward. A pair of hands continued to give him small amounts of liquid throughout. At one point, salt was placed beneath his tongue.

In the coming hours, his wounds were bandaged. Cool substances were poured atop them to relieve the pain. At this, his body had stopped resisting the help, and he slid away into the dark.

When Marat awoke, he was in a cool, spacious room. Light linen curtains swayed in the slight breeze. With it, came the salty smell of sea air. He lay atop a feather mattress among linens soaked in sweat. He propped himself up just to realize he could. A glass of water stood at the bedside, and he grabbed it quickly, downing it in two gulps. He immediately threw it up.

“Easy.” It was a finely dressed man, his presence reminding one of shining gold. He walked over and helped Marat sit up with the pillows at his back. His face had been familiar, too. “Do you know who you are?”

Marat shook his head no.

“Do you know what happened to you?”

Again, no.

“Hmm.” The man looked thoughtful. “Perhaps we will wait to discuss such things.”

Marat’s shaking hand brushed against his bandaged face as if reminding himself of its condition. He’d felt numb, more than before, but more alive, if one could call it that.

“It’ll heal. You won’t be as pretty as you were before, but you’ll get to keep your eye.” The man chuckled but without joy. “I’m Iros. If you remember nothing else, remember that. Ask for me should you need anything else. There will be a physician here shortly. Let him do what he has to. You fought us enough while getting this far.”

True to Iros’ word, a physician had been in and out. They brought him soup and, later on, bread as well.

Memories had begun to float through his mind. Nothing concrete, a face here and there. Mountains and cities, plains and forests.

A girl.

The girl.

Her face had only come in a flash, but he felt his heart beat faster at the sight. Green eyes. So green.

It had been two days, and Iros had come with the same questions several times.

Do you know who you are? What happened to you?

He would bring Marat small bits of food that were preferable to the soup. He sat by him as he read heavy bound books, looking up now and then to assess Marat’s state of consciousness.

And then he did not arrive alone.

Iros had come into the room with an olive-skinned older man. He had a fully grayed beard that was braided and oiled. Behind them came an adolescent boy.

“He looks good, all things considered.” The older man said. “I didn’t realize it would be this bad.”

“He is recovering well. You should have seen how we plucked him off the road, Your Majesty.” Iros bowed his head, proud of his accomplishment of keeping Marat alive.

“How long until he is up?”

“Hard to tell. Most of the muscle is preserved; he’d been without food or drink for maybe a week after… well. It had taken considerable strength to come out of it. I cannot tell how long… ”

The older man nodded thoughtfully. The boy stepped up.

His face was… strange. By all accounts, this was simply a young man in fine clothes - a circlet on his brow. But something in his face had been ageless, both old and young.

“Do you know who you are?” The boy asked.

“Marat.” It was as if the word came before he could think. Just like that, everything connected to it came flooding back.

“Do you know what happened to you?” The boy continued.

“I’d fallen in a fire…” Again, he did not know of this as he spoke. But, the next words out of his own mouth had surprised him the most. “I was dead.”

The boy nodded his head.

“See now,” The older man said; Marat remembered him as Typhonos - the King of the West, “for those circumstances, he does look pretty good. I was a bit concerned he’d lay there too long, and what we pulled out would be more bone than flesh. Of course, we’ve had nothing to compare it to. We’ve never had a man dead three days return.”

“A very macabre thought,” Iros observed.

The boy, Dimos, the god-child, stepped up to Marat’s bedside.

“Do you remember how it is that you’ve returned?”

Marat shook his head.

That, truly, had been out of his reach.

Again, the boy nodded.

“I am happy to see you alive, Marat,” Typhonos said. “We will give you time. When you can stand, you will join us. There is much to speak of.”

It took another two weeks until he could get out of bed and walk. It was shaky, uncertain. Iros had held him by the elbow through the first of it and then walked beside him as they cut circles around the courtyard. They spoke of many things, and every detail had come back little by little.

Every detail, including Val.

The thoughts of her kept him up at night. Her face as the doors of the barn closed. His last memory of her had been terrified and desperate; disbelief washed over her eyes. And the thought had pained him through his very bones. He wept, and then he would sleep.

Finally, he’d become strong enough to do things on his own. That was when Iros came for him and took him to the throne room.

Around the table sat three people—Typhonos, Dimos, and Elena - the Queen Mother. Iros bowed and joined them. Marat bowed but remained standing as if a man being judged for a crime in front of a court.

“We are happy to see you faring better.” The Queen Mother smiled at him.

“And by gods, but how far you’ve come is truly a miracle!” Typhonos agreed.

Although most of Marat’s life had returned to him, there had not been a notion of why he had been there - or how he was alive. Iros would not speak of it, even when he’d asked.

“I suppose you have questions,” Iros said. He looked to Typhonos, but the man looked to the boy-prince.

“Perhaps it is best that it come from the source.” He said, nodding to the boy. Marat’s eyes fell on him.

Dimos was but fifteen. His voice was the last Marat had heard in the roar of the fires. He remembered this.

You will have a chance to prove your faith yet, Templar.

As if reading his thoughts, Dimos spoke.

“You’d fulfilled the purpose of your life. Now, you’ve been granted another.”

He paused, seeing that Marat’s mouth parted in question.

“How? Had it been you?” He remembered the sensation of his cut-off leg and how it had returned.

“No.” Dimos shook his head. “I was not named to have power over life and death. She’d given it to you.”

There was no question of who she was. It was as if his heart pulsed all throughout his chest.

“She named the god-child for you. She gave it up, and she’d not even known it.” Dimos continued. “It was but weeks old.”

“What…”

“She’d named it Hava. Life. She’d promised it to you so you may live. And so, you do, and he did not.” The boy folded his hands. At that moment, he did not look like a boy, but something ancient, something that always was. “Tell me, Marat, what did you see when you died?”

He was silent. It was as if Dimos had commanded the memories to come back. And…

“Nothing,” Marat said. “There was nothing. Nothing but shattered golden light suspended all around me. I had expected to see the All-Father as I died. I prayed for him to take me before the fire had.”

“Then you know. There is no All-Father. There is only us.” Dimos’ words hung heavy in the air. “Fragments of the Shattered God.”

Marat looked at the High Templar’s face. It held no surprise, although his eyes had a shadow of regret.

“I ask, do you know why you are alive?” The boy prince asked. All eyes in the room were on Marat.

“No.”

“There is a price. Someone else had paid it for you, so now you will pay it back.” Dimos said. “You’re granted a new life, new purpose. You must stand by my father’s side as his right hand. His sword.”

“I am no general.” Marat shook his head.

“No.” Dimos stood from his chair, the authority in the room painfully shifting to him. “You are not. But you will be his weapon. His armor. A new name for a new life. A name-debt. The embers of your death still burn within, so you will have a name that will replace that which is lost.”

He walked up to Marat.

“And when you walk with an army, arrows will miss nine out of ten for every man. When you ride a mount, it will not collapse beneath you, no matter how far you drive it. No sword will go dull in your hand, and no shield will shatter. Time will turn a blind eye to you. The name of life was given up for you, so you shall reap the name’s power. Kneel.”

Marat fell on his knees in front of the boy prince. Iros came up behind the boy and handed him a sword, which Dimos set on its tip against the floor.

“Put your hand on its hilt and swear your new oath, for you are a templar no longer, and so your old oath is gone too.” He said.

“I name you. You are the Ember Sword, the last of the living gods.”