Choices at the End

Azza awoke in what was becoming her normal way, to a throat clogged with slime and the feeling of drowning. She instinctively panicked, her body spamming with deep, explosive coughs that tore at her throat and wrenched her stomach muscles. Tears streamed from her eyes, drawing paths through the dust and grit that clung to her skin. Ropes of grey mucous spilled from her cracked lips, staining the grit-strewn ground. She would have vomited if there was anything in her stomach.

Eventually, the spasms faded and she lay still, shivering occasionally as the adrenaline faded. She gathered her thoughts, reaching deep within herself for the wellspring of power, and drew gently upon it to ease the pains of her flesh, close the slim wounds in her throat. She sat up, sniffed hard, struggling to clear parched sinuses, and spat a gob of phlegm so grey it looked black in the half-light.

“That little routine you go through every morning is really starting to grow on me,” Noren said from across the room. Azza ignored him, starting to bundle away the few possessions she’d drawn from her pack before sleeping. He continued: “At first I found it irritating. Irrational, even. Then I started to worry. Don’t want you dying before we reach the summit.”

Azza cleared her throat, finally meeting Noren’s gaze. “And now?” she said, her voice cracked as her lips.

Noren grinned, his teeth shockingly white amids his ash-caked face and beard. “Now it’s comforting. Reminds me we’re still alive.”

“Sorry I woke you,” Azza mumbled, standing with a wince.

“It’s growing fainter,” Noren said. Azza was silent, her eyes staring out the door at the grey dawn. “I know you’ve felt it.”

Azza chewed on her response. “That’s an absurd statement,” she said, finally. “We draw our power from the World-”

“-and the World is dying, Azza,” Noren interjected. “Faster now. I’ve felt it, too.”

“We knew that,” she replied. “That’s why we’re here.” Noren slowly stood. Azza could feel his eyes on her, and ignored them.

“Those were inklings, whispers,” he said, his movements stiff and halting. “We were far away, far enough to ignore the taint, to pretend it didn’t matter. Now, it may be too late to stop it-”

“Is there a point to all this?” Azza snapped, her temper flashing from her grip for a moment. Noren grinned again.

“Good question,” he said, “though not, I think, meant the way you intended.”

Azza stared at Noren for a long moment, then hefted her pack, strapped on her sword belt, and walked out the door. Noren stood still for a long moment before he followed her.

* * *

The day had dawned grey, of course. The clouds mixed with the strange fumes and smoke rising from the City, seething with strange winds and air currents. Lighting flashed from cloud to cloud and occasionally down toward the peaks of the highest spires, the crackle of thunder sounding oddly muted in the heavy, warm air.

Azza had thought the City a marvel when they had first laid eyes upon it, a vast, dizzying labyrinth of towers and streets, bridges and tunnels, aqueducts and great brass pipes. For five days now, they had climbed through boroughs reduced to utter lifelessness. Oh, folk had once lived within the City’s high walls, but doors gaped as empty as the great gates, rooms empty, gears and pistons silent and still. She and Noren had expected defenders, monsters, traps. Instead, they were greeted by emptiness.

Driving them onward and upward through the maze of avenues was the castle she couldn’t think of as anything but the Summit, a fortress perched atop the artificial mountain of the City. Strange lights emanated from behind the turrets and battlements, and always, always the smoke and fumes rose from great fluted stacks.

They stopped around midday for rest and food. An avenue that had looked like it was ascending toward the Summit had petered out in a cul de sac, and frustration mingled with their hunger.

Azza took a bite of jerky and put it in a cheek to soften, trying to break off a piece of hard-tack with the butt of her knife. She drew the stopper from her waterskin, and paused with the skin half-raised.

Noren was still, his waterskin empty at his feet. He had filled his clay pipe, but held it un-lit in his hand. His bloodshot eyes stared at nothing. Only a few wisps of hair stirred in the warm, choking breeze.

“Here,” Azza said, holding out her waterskin to Noren. He smiled thinly, new splits opening in his lips.

“Keep it,” he croaked. “You need it more than me.”

“You need to drink, Noren. I’m not about to carry you home after you’ve passed out from thirst.”

His eyes found hers and Azza forced herself not to step back, not to look away from what she saw there. “You think either of us are going home?” he asked.

Azza chewed on her answer for a moment. “Why did you even come if you think our cause is hopeless, Nor?” she finally murmured.

“I’m here for you.” Azza snorted, then turned away. She hoped he couldn’t see how his words had affected her. Noren sighed. “It’s all so ridiculous, Azza. Causes, faiths, beliefs…” He trailed off, gestured broadly at the blasted cityscape on all sides. “Ideas are just things. And this is what happens when you start valuing things more than people.”

Azza clenched her jaw so tight she thought her teeth would crack. She turned, a rebuke on her lips, when she saw a blur of color and motion behind Noren. She voiced a wordless cry of alarm, lunged toward Noren, grasped a handful of his grubby tunic, and hurled herself backward, dragging him with her. Something crashed down through the stones of the street in the spot he’d been standing, cracking the avenue for dozens of feet around them and throwing up a cloud of soot-choked dust. She was dimly aware of crashing into a skeletal street stall, brittle wood and sun-bleached fabric disintegrating in every direction as she and Noren exploded through it.

Azza rolled into a crouch, sword hilt gripped in one hand, blinking furiously to clear dust from her parched eyes. Their attacker took a shuddering step through the dust and debris of its ambush and Azza got her first clear look at it.

The revenant was a chaotic mix of pallid flesh and stained metal, fluids staining its lower reaches as they leached from the ugly joins. Vaguely man-shaped, it would have stood twice as tall as Azza, but it was hunched into a bestial crouch, heavy, taloned arms supporting a broad but cadaverous torso. The limbs had too many joints, elbows and knees flexing in both directions. The head was shockingly small compared to the body, lank hair hanging long, a rusted steel grating protecting the mouth and nose. Calm blue eyes peered serenely from a face seamed with scars, pipes and dangling chains.

Azza flicked her weapon, the scabbard tumbling free. The dull grey alloy of the blade sang in the open air, a faint hum rising from the bare metal. She took an experimental step forward, testing the revenant. The flesh-and-metal construct watched her passively, head slightly cocked to one side.

Azza feinted forward, sword flickering out, and hurled herself aside as the creature’s forelimbs blurred, long steel talons scything the air. She struggled to regain her footing and the revenant lurched after her, attacking with horrifying speed and strength. Those strikes she could not evade Azza parried, each turned blow sending shocks up her arms as they rang against her sword.

Azza felt her shoulders slam into the wall of the building behind her, felt the rough stones dig into her flesh, and in desperation she hurled herself at the revenant, sword-point darting in to pierce an elbow. The creature loosed a horribly human shriek as the blade parted tissue and metal, tendons rolling up beneath the skin, the arm flopping useless. Azza started to turn when something slammed into her side and the world tumbled around her, dizzying for an instant before she crunched into a column.

Light exploded across her vision for a moment, lanced through with pain, and when her vision cleared Azza found herself lying on the ground, the revenant standing over her. That same impassive gaze stared down as the creature raised its remaining functional arm, talons wet with her blood. So close, Azza thought. She wondered if she should be more afraid.

Noren slammed into the revenant spear-first, his weapon punching through rusted iron plates beneath the creature’s armpit and plunging between heavy rib bones. The barbed tip drove deep, lodging half an arm-span deep. Blood-flecked white fluid poured from the mouth grating and the revenant gave a mewling cry, sinking to its knees. Noren twisted his spear haft and yanked on the weapon, and though the creature shuddered the spear remained unmoving. The tiny head sagged.

Noren released his grip upon his weapon and staggered over to Azza, slumping to his knees, hands fumbling in his bag. Azza let him raise her to a sitting position, watching bemused as he tied bandages around the gashes to her upper arm. She hadn’t even realized she was wounded.

“...you…” Azza croaked.

“Hush,” Noren said. “Don’t talk. Don’t even move. We’ll have you patched up straight away.” Azza swallowed, tasting the faint tinge of blood, and tried again.

"You saved me.”

Noren actually grinned. “I told you, Azza,” he said, finishing his knot. “I’m hNNGRLKH-!”

Rusted metal talons erupted from Noren’s chest, spattering Azza with gore. Noren coughed, blood, flecking his lips, his teeth. The revenant rose behind him on shaking legs, red-stained fluids pouring from its wounds. Azza screamed, sword suddenly in hand, and lunged at the creature. The point of her blade cracked through the creature’s skull between its eyes and she drove the weapon forward with all her strength, stopping only when the hilt’s guard bumped against the revenant’s blotchy skin. She pulled it free with a sob and lashed off the creature’s head.

She fell back to her knees next to Noren, her knees soaking in the spreading pool of blood around him. His hand flailed weakly and she gripped it, gripping it so tightly she thought it might break. His lips moved soundlessly, his lungs shredded by the talons that had shorn through them. Something in Noren’s eyes told Azza that these words were important, and she leaned in close, straining to hear.

“...I did it... for you.” Noren whispered.

Azza wrapped him in a crushing embrace and held him close, held him until he was still. She was still holding him when the sun set.

* * *

The Summit was, Azza considered, rather pathetic. Oh, the architect had clearly intended the towering columns and majestic arches to be intimidating, the gold and marble decoration to be ostentatious, but decrepit and empty it was the hollow ostentation of a tomb.

Here, at last, were bodies. They lay slumped where they’d expired, guards flanking the entrance, functionaries and clerks at their desks, bureaucrats in their offices. Their remains were almost skeletal, clothing and flesh desiccated and rotten into something like bitumen. Threads of gold leaf from decorative piping on uniforms or cloth-of-gold draping on the wealthy were the only materials defying the decay, hairs of metal sparkling amidst the corruption.

She held her sword in her remaining uninjured arm, the other clutched in a makeshift sling against her chest, slowly staining the bandages Noren had swaddled her injuries in. She climbed staircase after staircase, each railing and column clad in flaking gold leaf, each landing strewn with the rotted remnants of velvet carpets. Her steps echoed through the dark castle, methodical, cautious. Azza would not let herself be ambushed again.

At last she stood before graven doors taller than a barn, their bronze skin a mass of oxidized nodules. They shifted slightly when she planted her shoulder against them, but stubbornly refused to open.

“I have not come this far to be stopped by a door,” Azza said. She stepped back, took a calming breath, and aimed her strongest kick at the fused latch.

The doors exploded off their hinges, tumbling into the cavernous chamber beyond, shedding green rust and splinters. They came down in pieces, raising a shower of dust, booming like a belfry being thrown down a hillside. Blade drawn, Azza stepped forward into the gloom.

The throne room was piled high with plunder, the wealth of nations stacked in alcoves against the walls, heaps spilling into the middle of the chamber. Gold, silver, pearl, platinum, gems of every color, statuary and sculpture, paintings and tapestries. Shockingly few books. And at the far end of the chamber, in a high-backed throne atop a dais, sat a hunched figure.

“Lord Bedellor!” Azza called as she advanced. The figure on the throne stirred, pale, milky eyes peering down at her. “Do you know why I’m here?”

A chuckle like dry tinder rattled down at Azza. Bedellor waved a stick-thin hand lazily and torches sprang to life around the room, making the treasures glint dully under the layers of dust and soot, revealing the blackened remains of dozens, perhaps hundreds of figures crouched in poses of utter subservience. “I have some inkling, girl,” Bedellor croaked. “But do you?”

Though unnerved by the casual display of power, Azza climbed the steps of the dais, sword held in a ready guard before her. “I’m here,” she said, grinding out each word, “because of your crimes against this world.”

The same paper-dry chuckle. A shake of the near-hairless head. Wrinkled lips twisted into a smirk. “May I tell you a story, child?” he said lightly. “It may make things clear to you. It might even put your companion’s death into some sort of context.”

Azza felt her sword-arm twitch but wrestled her temper under control. “They’re your last words, creature,” she said through gritted teeth. “Spend them however you wish.” Bedellor’s smirk broadened into a grin and he settled back into his throne, hands crossed over his belly.

“When I was a young man,” he began, “I thought wealth was a coin. I chased it like any possession, hoarding it away. But when I became a wealthy man, I realized wealth was more like an idea. We tell ourselves a slug of otherwise useless metal is worth more than shelter from the cold, worth more than a meal. An absurd notion that only works because everyone in a society chooses to believe it.” Those milky eyes fixed on Azza’s, somehow terrifying in their fearlessness. “Once I had exhausted the idea, I knew that wealth was control. Coins, ledgers, vaults… money is worthless beside the means to control others. Money is merely a tool. And like any tool, it could be replaced. I used my wealth to obtain control over businesses, churches, governments. I controlled the fates of thousands, then millions. My empire was a subtle thing, growing within states and organizations that spanned continents. I supplied them with what they needed, you see. Whatever they needed. And once they became dependant upon me…” he gestured lazily at the tarnished treasures strewn across the chamber. “You can see the fruits of my work here. People, nobles, whole nations beggared themselves before me, and they did it of their own free will.”

Azza could feel the revulsion scrabbling at her insides, fighting against a numbness that was settling over her. “You poisoned the water, you scarred the air-”

“They asked me to, you stupid girl!” Bedellor cackled, arms spread wide with glee. “They begged me! I fed their hatreds, their prejudices, but most of all, their comforts, and the world demanded ever more. They did anything I asked, even as they choked and died upon the costs. What value is your little sword against that sort of power?”

Azza shook her head. “For your crimes-”

“What crimes? Kings and Empresses burned their own laws to serve my ease!”

“-for all those you harmed-”

“Harmed? There are costs to doing business, girl. I never paid, in the end. Your precious people? The ones you’re doing this for? They paid! And I told them they would! All they ever needed to say was ‘NO!’ And they couldn’t!”

Azza trailed off. Her sword point slumped, coming to rest against the dusty stone of the dais. “There’s just… nothing inside you, is there?” she said. Bedellor cocked his head at her question. He looked confused. “Nothing at all. Here you are, in the midst of all your treasures, in a palace full of corpses in a city reduced to ruin in the heart of corruption… and you’re still just a man. A sad, lonely, old, empty man.”

“I’ve won, girl,” Bedellor growled, his expression darkening. “That was my point. You won’t kill me because it won’t change anything. Our people have slain their own world. Eagerly.” He settled back into his throne, his mouth twisted in a mocking grin. “All I did was help them along. So go.” He flicked a dismissive hand at Azza. “Run home to whatever filthy village you crawled from. Enjoy what remains of your life before the poison reaches there, too.” He chuckled once more. “You came here to battle a Dark Lord? The personification of death and corruption? I merely recognized the weaknesses of our species. I didn’t create them. So do whatever you think you can. You don’t really matter.”

Azza’s shoulders slumped and she turned away, sword-tip scoring a thin white line in the stone. She tracked her dull gaze around the room, surrounded by more worthless wealth than she could have ever conceived of before.

She took one heavy step down from the dais, and her gaze fell on the bandages that wrapped her left arm. She stopped. “You’re right, Bedellor,” Azza murmured. “It won’t make any difference if I kill you.” She turned back, an uncertain expression flitting across the old man’s features.

Almost lazily, Azza lifted her sword, leaned forward, and pushed the point into Bedellor’s chest. “But it’s the right thing to do.”

The old man’s eyes bulged. His hands scrabbled at the blade, gashing open in a dozen places, thin blood oozing forth from the cuts. His jaw opened and closed repeatedly, reminding Azza of a fish drowning in air.

Bedellor made a strange, high-pitched mewling sound. Then his milky eyes rolled up, his hands fell away, and he slumped in his chair, pinned by the sword. Azza belatedly realized she’d driven it all the way into the high back of the throne. She let it go.

She turned and walked away from the old man, her steps leaden as she walked through the drifts of treasure. Near the dry wood of the ruined door, she stopped, took a lit torch down from its sconce, and dropped it amongst the tinder.

* * *

Azza didn’t look back once as she descended through the City. The firestorm roared behind her, the heat making metal run like water and stones explode from the heat. Streams of gold flowed in the gutters, stained by soot and old blood. Buildings collapsed with great booming concussions, tumbling in on themselves as old machines shed cogs and gearwheels on every side.

Maybe Bedellor had been right. Maybe it didn’t matter what she did. Maybe the villains did win, and maybe it was some sort of cosmic justice, fueled by the avarice and emptiness within every human soul.

But maybe that sad, lonely old man had been wrong. Maybe, with people like him cast down, there was a chance for something better.

Much much later, Azza sat, watching the City burn.

“I did it for all of us, Noren,” she whispered.

“I hope that’s enough.”