The Forsaken

Rock provided Braun some strange comfort.  While the cold, damp air waged war with his fever, the rock wall remained firm and unyielding – an oasis of predictability amidst the torture.  He would miss the rock should he ever leave; unlike his holy icon, the wall had been present in his time of need.

Sleep was just about to embrace him when the squeal of old iron pulled him back.  His muscles tightened of their own volition, his knees bending to his chest, hands tucked beneath his chin.  He turned his face into the corner, begging the stone to soften and swallow him up.  A blow was sure to come, or a slice of magic in the veins, or another old nightmare.  Yet there was only silence, a quiet so long and grave he wished for pain to break the tension.

In time he braved a sidelong glance, wary of what might befall him.  The Gnome stood in his usual spot, coated in shadow, a faint red glow coming from his eyes.  Braun eyed his stillness with mounting concern, and was nearly relieved when the dreaded voice rang in his cell.

“Did you feel that?” it asked in its horridly deep rumble.

Braun pretended to think, afraid of revealing his ignorance too quickly.  He settled for a simple shake of the head.

“You did not?” came the voice again, mocking.  “Your lord, touching down among the mortals?  My, my, my – you really are far from him.”

Braun felt a flicker of warmth in his chest.  Flashes of his lord striding toward the amassed Orcs, the one and only vision he had to cling to, filled his mind.  Was he near?

“Seems he intervened in Blackplane City.  Though only your voyeur god could possibly know why.  Perhaps your friends are there?”

Braun really did think that time.  Could they have made it through alive?  Even without the ghost in their company?  There was still so much haze around the whole endeavor.  What were they even doing there?

“I don’t know,” he croaked.

“I think you do,” the voice replied calmly.  “I think you know perfectly well that they are.  Why else would your flying knight see fit to touch his divine toes down in such a dreadful place?”

The Gnome was upon him in an instant, out of the shadows and nose to nose with his pathetic prisoner.  The hot, red eyes bored through Braun, resisting the efforts of his eyelids and keeping them pried mercilessly open.  Braun saw, with great regret, that there was more in those eyes than the usual malice.  There was glee.  Wretched, malevolent glee.

“I told you,” came the rumble.  “I told you, didn’t I?  He did not come for you.”

“He will,” Braun whispered, too weak to stop himself.  “You’ll see.”

“Why?  Why would he, really?  After all the peril, after all the suffering, after everything you’ve been through – he goes there.  Where the others are.”

“I…”

“You hate them,” the voice purred.  “I know you do.  I see you.  You cannot hide from me.  You hate them – her in particular.  She, who has thrice seen him in the face.  While you languish.  She, the youthful convert, the latecomer – favored by your fickle god.”

Braun flinched forward, intending to improvise some sort of attack, but again, he was too weak.  Even his spirit, until then so bold, even in the throes of astral battle, was gripped by fatigue.  The Gnome’s words struck deep, his armor too flimsy to protect him.

“I pity you,” the voice said – and for once, Braun believed him.  “I pity the way you’ve thrown your devotion away to one so selfish.  He is unworthy of you.”

The vision of Stedwick directing him away loomed large.  Seeing Mara’s face, struck by her holy encounter, swam in soon after.  Suddenly, he could see through time and space to Blackplane City, sparkling and resplendent, adorned with Helmian symbols.  In this paradise his lord and his rival frolicked, building a bright, new dominion.  While he watched from afar, behind bars, unseen.

“You are angry,” came the voice in his ear, soft and comforting.  “I understand.  I understand rejection more than even you can know.  I, too, have been forsaken.  I, too, have been weighed, measured, and found wanting by those who are themselves unworthy.”

That bright new future began to burn in front of Braun’s eyes.  His hands clenched to fists in his lap as heat coursed from his collar to his cheeks, banishing the wet air.  A lifetime of disappointment suddenly pressed hard on his shoulders.  The Eye of Helm had never seemed so distant.

“There is a place for you yet,” said the voice, oddly muffled.  “Perhaps.”

With that, the Gnome was gone, leaving Braun to burn in his corner.  A part of him tried to fight off the flames, clinging to the holy symbols, clawing after Sir Finnian’s sage wisdom and comfort.  But the cold fire of reality was setting in.  None of them were with him.  He was alone, but for the Gnome with the glowing red eyes, and the unknown others who howled their agony through the tunnels.  They were his only friends.

Suddenly, the weight on his shoulders was lifted.  It came to him like a shaft of light through the clouds: there was no Eye watching him.  No loving god to guide and sustain him.  The world was like his cell: dark, small, riddled with pain.  Helm was a charlatan at best, a lie at worst.  It seemed a good cause for him to sink even deeper, yet instead he seemed lighter, freer, ready to fly at a moment’s notice.  All he needed to do was break out of his cell and spread his wings.

Perhaps the Gnome was right; perhaps there was a place for him after all.