"Heart of the Crown" Chapter 103

[seymoure]

Chapter 103

Good-Byes

“None of them can hear me now,” the voice came into Sandor’s head.

He tried to answer, but he was without the ability to speak. He could move, but could get no response from his still companions.

“Yours is the heart I mean to own,” the voice continued, “and they have no place in this solution.”

“What do you want of me?” Sandor thought, hoping that because he heard the voice in his head, the reverse would also be true. “Why do you target me?”

“Yours is the strongest body with the truest heart,” the voice came, with a tinge of anger possibly mixed with envy. “Destroying you will bring me pleasure for a time.”

“Where are you? Who are you?” Sandor responded.

“None of that matters to you; just know I am your humbler. You will beg me for your soul before I finally end your pain.”

“What would you have of me?” the man asked his tormentor.

“Each of your comrades will die a long excruciating death. For each of them who dies you will be given a year of absolute pleasure and wealth. They will die anyway, so why not have the better for it?”

Sandor thought. It wasn’t a long task; he knew the truth almost at once.

“Anything bought at such an awful price could not be filled with anything but sorrow.”

“Why not just pick out the ones who were your enemies? Their lives could pass, and it would be justified. You would be doing the world a favor by ridding it of them,” the slightly gleeful voice cajoled.

“I’m sorry, I’m not a smart man, or terribly brave. But I cannot be the cause of such evil done to anyone. Given time, any of them could find their way and become good men. For me to take that chance away from them is just as bad as killing them myself.”

“What if I just kill them now? That would be your fault, wouldn’t it? How would you deal with that guilt?”

“Would you let me fight for their lives?” Sandor thought.

“I am the greatest force in this world. You would be a burned black cinder in a second,” the surprised voice said.

“Give me a second to say good-bye to my friends, won’t you?”

At that second all the people were animated again.

“Please,” he said, extending the child to Slip, “Take care of the child.”

“You know I will,” the short man said in complete puzzlement.

He leaned over to kiss Cela, and whispered into her ear, “You will have just a second or two to cast a protective spell to get everyone out of here. Start now, and good-bye.”

None of them knew what he was talking about, but his demeanor left no doubt of the situation; he seemed to know.

“We’ll fight along side you,” Hawk said as he embraced the large boy.

“That’s not possible, but thank you,” Sandor slapped the mercenary on the back.

He stopped for a second, turned away from the rest and thought, “Where do you want this battle?”

“They will die if you lose,” came the response.

“They will die if I don’t fight,” he came back. “I die either way; this way I can die with my head up.”

At that moment he was slapped by a wind from behind him, and knew that it was Cela and company escaping.

“I will hunt them down,” the Black Stone Man who suddenly appeared before him said aloud.

“First you will have to fight me,” Sandor said with a sly smile.

Sandor very nearly flew. He left the ground and leapt at his enemy.

He was stopped by some kind of invisible field between himself and the Onyx Man.

His assault did not stop. With the berserker fury that was everything in his heart of justice, he battered the thing before him. His wave of blows did not cease, nor even slow down for nearly an hour.

At this point the attack had ceased to be humorous to the Magician, and he lifted his hand to gesture the man to burst into flames.

The spell did not come.

Sandor continued to deliver shattering blows with his bloody fists. It was possible that most of his fingers were broken from his bruising bombardment. Still, it seemed that he was only slightly slowed from his pace at the beginning of the pummeling.

The Onyx Man looked at the figure before him. The face was that of a man with no hope of winning. He knew he would lose and die. And yet he did not give quarter; he did not slow down. He was fighting for something more.

The stone human realized that he was fighting to give his friends more time to get to safety. He was not, and never had been, fighting for himself.

Sandor couldn’t strike with his hands anymore, so he began alternately kicking and throwing his body at the wall before him. He hit it so hard that his mind was no longer clear. He was dizzy and nauseous and his rage had been replaced by something he could not name. But still he continued hammer at his opponent.

The Onyx Man’s jaw had slowly started to drop in utter amazement. How could this man keep this self mauling attack going on for what was now nearly three hours.

The ground was covered with his blood. Several of his teeth had fallen onto the once green grass. His arms fell to his sides like filet pieces of meat, useless for anything but extra weight to throw at the invisible wall.

The most startling thing for the magician was the fact that he didn’t seem to need to do anything farther to destroy this man that what he was doing to himself.

Then came a crashing of the human battering ram that was followed by Sandor falling to the ground.

“It’s over,” The Onyx Man thought, while noting that he was getting none of the pleasure that this was supposed to bring.

Sandor, slumped to the ground, then raised himself to his knees. He pushed with his knees and slammed his body against the wall again.

The Sorcerer could not believe what he was seeing. What kind of spirit could this man have? This was impossible by any standards that he had come to know.

The big body was leaning against the shield. The Onyx Man heard an impossible sound.

Sandor was banging his head against the barrier. Not hard, as he had little strength left, but he was still fighting.

Then, something changed inside the mind of the man who was ruler of all he surveyed.

The Onyx Man made the invisible wall cease to be.

Sandor fell to the ground.

He did not move.

© 2008 C. Wayne Owens
Chapter 104 is here.