The Archmage unbound

Chapter 3

The next morning I decided to take a break from my usual routine. Rather than head to the forge and resume work on my next bit of armor crafting I went looking for my other childhood friend. Thanks to Dorian I had paid better attention at dinner the night before and managed to notice a notable absence at the table.

I wondered how many other meals Marc had missed without me bothering to ask about him. Times like this made me realize that I wasn’t exactly the best friend a fellow could have. Sure, I had plenty of excuses… a new wife, a county to run, but I still couldn’t allow myself that luxury. Excuses would always be plentiful, true friends were not.

I didn’t see Marc at breakfast so I headed for the room he had been staying in. Pausing at the door I listened for a moment. I heard nothing and my other senses told me that my friend was inside, alone but awake. I had almost hoped he would have a ‘companion’ with him… that would have done much to allay my worries. It really wasn’t natural for him to spend so much time alone; Marc had always been a highly social animal. I knocked on the door and waited.

There was no response though with my ability I could sense him pouring another drink from a bottle. I could only assume it was wine. I knocked again and spoke loudly, “Marc it’s me, open up!” He chose not to answer and instead slumped over as if he were sleeping. He knew I could sense him through the door. “That’s not going to work,” I yelled at the wooden door, “I already know you’re awake.”

“Go away!” came a muffled response from within.

I’d had enough so with a word I unlocked the door and opened it. Marc was sitting on the divan across the room, staring bleakly at me as I entered. He was holding the wine bottle in a curious fashion in one hand. “What are you planning to do with that?” I asked.

“I was giving serious consideration to the thought of tossing it at you,” he said dryly, “but then I decided it would be a waste of good wine.” He changed his grip on the bottle and turned it up, taking a long swallow directly from the bottle.

“You look like shit,” I volunteered.

“Thanks,” he replied. “That means a lot to me… coming from you.” His tone was surly and I could tell he was ready for a fight.

“If that’s your idea of witty repartee you really are drunk.”

“Not yet, I just woke up. Give me an hour,” he said.

“Why don’t you give the wine a rest today and help me with some planning?” I suggested. It was actually a half-truth. While I wouldn’t have minded having my friend’s advice on my near future plans I obviously wanted even more to snap him out of his dark mood.

“I’ve got a better idea Mort!” He sat up suddenly, as if filled with energy and enthusiasm. “Why don’t you go make your plans, and leave me alone? That way you’ll get better plans and I won’t have to listen to your bullshit!” He lifted his bottle again and started to take another long draught of wine.

“If you’re going to be a sarcastic ass you might as well do it sober,” I replied and before he could react I deftly slipped the bottle from his hand. Ordinarily his reflexes were so quick I’d never have managed to do it… but a lot of hard drinking had made him slow.

“You ass!” He was too slow to catch the bottle but planting his hands in my chest he gave me a hard shove. I fell backward over a small table and landed on the floor. Marc leaned forward and started to take the bottle back but I planted a foot in his chest and sent him flying across the room. He bounced off the corner post of the bed and crashed into the dressing table. “Bastard! You’ll regret that!” he shouted at me and snatched up a clay water pitcher as it started to fall.

Even hung over and strung out as he was I had to admire his dexterity at the catch… till he chose to fling said pitcher at my head. The motion caught me off guard and I failed to duck. Thankfully the shield I still habitually kept around myself prevented me from getting a cracked skull. “Hey! You could have seriously hurt someone like that!” Having fought a few times as children we both knew there was an unspoken rule against throwing heavy objects… or doing anything else potentially permanent.

“As if I could hurt you! You and your stupid shield… why don’t you take that thing off and fight like a real man?” he challenged.

“Fine!” I yelled back. “You could use a good thrashing. Did it ever occur to you that your family might be worried about you?” As I spoke I dropped my shield, though there was no visible sign of it.

“My family is none of your damned business!”

“Your sister is worried about you, so is Dorian.”

“What about my father eh? I guess he didn’t bother to ask after me did he!?” Marc was standing now and approaching cautiously.

“At least you have a father!” I shouted back.

“How long are you going to play the pity card over that one?” he sneered.

“Till I’ve knocked you on your ass and beaten some sense into your head,” I replied a bit more calmly. My anger was only half real, in the back of my mind I was still trying to calculate what the best way to bring my friend to his senses would be.

“Still got your shield up?” he asked. From an outside viewpoint it was almost odd how calm he seemed as he asked that question, but it seemed normal enough at the time.

“No I took it down a moment ago…,” before I could finish my words he caught me in the mouth with a quick jab. I stepped back quickly before he could follow up with another but he didn’t press his advantage. I wiped the blood from my lip… I could already feel it starting to swell. “Not bad,” I commented.

“Might improve your looks,” he snapped back.

I stepped forward and took a short swing at him but I found only air. I threw a few more but I still failed to connect till finally he blocked one and planted a sharp punch in my stomach. As he delivered the blow I got my left arm around his shoulder, his second strike drove the air from my lungs but I held on and managed to start a grapple.

Things improved for me after that. As with our childhood scuffles I was still no match for him in a straight up punching match, but once we had closed I was the better wrestler. My longer legs and arms gave me better leverage and he lost the advantage his quick reflexes normally gave him. We stumbled about the room for several moments before he tried to drive me into the bed post. With a twist I took his momentum and he wound up getting the hard wooden corner in his back.

With a strangled cry he quit trying to break the grapple. That seemed like a good idea, so I let go and rolled off of him, panting to catch my breath. “Are you alright?” I asked.

“Hell no! It hurts like hell!” He had his hand against his lower back. “That was a shitty move.”

“You’re the one that tried to run me into it! You’re too damn strong for me to hold you down, so it was either you or me,” I bit back.

He scowled at me for a long minute while he rubbed at his aching backside. I glared back at him till finally neither of us could take the tension any longer and we broke into grins. A moment after that we started laughing and our anger drained away.

“Some things never change,” he said once our chuckling slowed down.

“I thought we had outgrown these little chats.”

“Me too,” he agreed ruefully.

“Desperate times require desperate measures,” I announced.

We were lying on our backs side by side now. The hard wooden floor wasn’t exactly comfortable but neither of us complained. Then Marc spoke again, “Desperate indeed my friend. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t going to be enough.”

With a sideways glance I could see him staring at the ceiling. “Why not?” I asked.

“Because it hurts Mort, it hurts far more than you can possibly realize.” He rolled his head over and caught my gaze. We had been friends for most of our lives and looking into his brown eyes I could see the pain behind them. I watched him for a long moment before he looked away. Tears had begun to well.

“I don’t understand,” I confessed.

“Nobody does. Even now, even knowing the truth, I want her so badly it feels as though someone is driving a stake through my heart. It’s painful Mort… excruciatingly painful.” He was referring, of course, to his goddess. Perhaps I should call her his ‘ex-goddess’, Millicenth, the Lady of the Evening Star.

“We all lose things, it’s a part of life,” I said softly.

“This isn’t like that Mort. Imagine living happily with Penny for years and years, having children, loving them and receiving their love. Imagine everything you ever wanted, love, respect, trust… all of it. Now imagine you wake up tomorrow and discover that it’s all gone. Not only is it gone, but it never existed. The woman you loved wasn’t real; she was a dream, created for the sole purpose of manipulating you. The children, your life, your happiness, all of it was a lie, fabricated by a being so foreign that it didn’t even hate you… you were merely a tool.” Marc paused for a moment.

“She made you think you had children?” I asked, puzzled.

“No… idiot! I was using that as an example, it was the closest thing I could think of to convey the sort of happiness she created within me. It wasn’t just happiness, it was… everything. While she was with me I had no doubts or fears. Death might threaten but she was holding my hand, and I believed she would be waiting for me beyond death’s doors. Every action had meaning, and every moment was full of importance, all part of her plan to better humankind. No… it wasn’t just that…” He stopped for a moment, a note of shame in his voice.

“What?” I asked. I wasn’t certain I wanted to know, but he wouldn’t have begun if he hadn’t needed to get it off his chest.

“It was like sex, only better. The entire time I was in her service I abstained from women… I had no desire for them. Whenever I healed someone…” I saw a shudder run through him as he remembered.

“You had an orgasm when you healed people?”

“No! But my shame is just the same, worse, the sensation was far better than an orgasm. It was like a drug, an exaltation of the mind and spirit, as well as an ecstatic sensation of physical pleasure. Why do you think I went looking for people in need?” The look in his eyes was one of abject despair and humiliation. “I ‘wanted’ to find sick people. I needed it… and when my craving became so bad that I had dreams of hurting people, just so I could heal them… she forgave me. She told me it was normal, a weakness of flesh forced to contain the divine.”

I couldn’t help the feeling of revulsion his words evoked, “That’s…,” I stopped myself before I finished with what I was thinking, ‘disgusting’.

“I knew it was wrong, but I had to believe her. I needed to believe her. I was like an addict… I am an addict. Even now I have dreams… I want to go back to her so badly.” He cradled his head in his hands.

“Yet you rejected her,” I said, hoping to remind him of his own inner strength.

“Even in that decision I cannot claim pure motives. Truly I was angry that she refused to aid Penny… that was the moment when I could no longer pretend she had our best interests at heart. I already knew… deep down… but in that moment I was sure. Even so, I would not have had the strength to reject her if I hadn’t been so angry.”

“Angry that she wouldn’t help Penny,” I added for him.

“No,” he answered in a voice devoid of hope, his face was red and his eyes were swollen with tears now. “I was angry that she wouldn’t give me what I wanted… what I needed. It was the anger of an addict who’s been told he can’t have more.”

I stared at my friend for long minutes. He had run out of words and I had none to give him. My only thought was that a man of noble spirit had been broken, and turned into this. The friend I had known so long was ruined, thoroughly, inside and out, more completely than anyone could be. Looking back I think that was the day that I realized anyone could be corrupted, that none of us were immune to evil. No matter how lofty our ideals, we are all susceptible to weakness and depravity. It was a final passage from innocence to adulthood.

Yet we still have choices. Perhaps not good ones, and sometimes they seem insignificant, but they are still choices. At the very least every morning holds the choice, sink into despair or get up and try to do something, no matter how meaningless.

Eventually my thoughts came together and I spoke, “So what are you going to do now?”

He laughed, “There’s nothing to do. Let me have that bottle and I’ll do the only thing I can to dull the pain.” There was no apology in his voice, merely numb acceptance.

“That’s just a slow death,” I replied.

“Suits me fine,” he said. “It isn’t as if I want to live anyway. What I have become… isn’t something that deserves to live.”

“Do you really want to die?” I asked without a hint of mockery.

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s do it.”

“What?” he asked with a note of surprise.

“Not me of course, I still have things to live for… but if you really are in that much pain you should let me help you,” I told him earnestly.

“That isn’t funny. I’m being serious here Mort.”

“I know. I love you Marc. You’ve been one of my best friends for as long as I can remember. If you’re hurting this badly I want to help you.” At that moment I was deadly serious, and he could see it on my face.

“Why?”

“Let’s look at the alternatives,” I explained. “You can drink yourself to death… over a period of months or years, hurting everyone that cares about you, forcing them to watch your slow decline. You could also end yourself in some spectacular manner, shocking everyone and hurting them even more. Or…,” I paused and held a finger up, “You could let me help you.”

“Help me how? You’ve lost me,” Marc said, but as he spoke I could tell curiosity had replaced his anger and despair at last.

“Help you die. Normally when someone commits suicide they do it alone, and the result usually winds up being someone gets a very nasty and messy surprise when they discover what has happened. If I help you your options are vastly better. You can choose how, when and where and I’ll make sure that no one finds your body… unless you want them too. You can just disappear and no one has to know… or I could get ‘news’ months or years later to give your family closure.”

“You would do that for me?”

“I don’t think I could call myself your friend if I abandoned you at a time like this, but…,” I paused meaningfully.

“But what?” Marc asked.

“You have to swear to let me help you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you can’t do it alone. If you seriously decide you want to do this you have to let me help you. You can do it however you want… I’ll help with any plan you come up with, but you have to tell me first and it can’t be something stupid like drinking yourself to death.”

Marc stared at me carefully for a long moment; his face held more hope than I had seen in a month. “Fine, you have a deal,” he said.

“Swear it,” I insisted.

“I swear to let you know when and how I will die, so long as you swear to help rather than interfere,” he answered.

“I swear to help, no matter what.”

“What now?” he asked.

“I have things to do this morning, how about you?” I told him.

Marc laughed, “There’s nothing on my schedule. I had planned to drink myself into a stupor but that seems rather pointless now. I guess I’ll start planning.”

“I suggest you take a bath and shave first, no sense smelling like a dead rat. Don’t forget though… you have to tell me first, no matter what you decide,” I stressed the last part.

“I will. I’m not sure about the shave though, I was thinking of growing a beard.” He passed his hand over the patchy growth that had sprouted across his cheeks. Marc had never been blessed with a good beard; the hair grew willy-nilly across his cheeks, leaving some spots almost completely bare.

“That’s probably a bad idea for you my friend,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.

“I think you’re just afraid my beard might look better than that paltry goatee you have there,” he replied mockingly.

“Believe what you will… but some of us have the gift and some of us have… well whatever that thing sprouting on your face is,” I teased him. We kept the banter going for several minutes after that before I finally made my way out.

As I headed to my workshop I wondered what he would decide. My instincts told me whatever it was would be better than what he had been doing. Finally I put the thought aside and decided to trust him. I had a feeling things would work out, but I’ve always been optimistic.