Alternia Comics

I should not have come here.

As I lay down the flowers and reach for my sword, that fact finally solidifies in my mind.

I knew before I came. A voice somewhere behind my heart was screaming it at me ever since I heard what had happened.

Why did I come, then?

Why did I, without a word, shove my friends out of my way and into the dirt? Why did I take my horse and go all the way back to the foothills just to get a handful of the roses that grow there? Why did I then ride, alone, into the Gray Wood, to the ground where my best friend made her last stand?

It was not just to leave the flowers here.

I turn and face the sounds behind me. What came for her has come for me. One thing will end here, now; its life ...

... or my pain.

I came because I knew this would happen, and whatever happens, I win.

This thing of shadow and fear is something new to the enemy's ranks, but it is very, very old. It is a Yashkun, a phantom of another age, when scholars say whims had shape and emotions form. This was the predator of that age. Its claws rip not only flesh, but the very substance of thought and feeling. Like fear itself, it can wound a brave man's courage or a clever man's cunning as easily as slashing his arm. A Yashkun will kill and eat your very soul before it tears your throat out.

There is only one way to defeat it. I might not have what it takes, but like I said, it's fine with me if I don't.

Yashkuns have a kind of speed and strength that mortal men only dream of in nightmares. They can cling to bark and stone with ease, clear three horses end-to-end in a single leap, and shred steel with their bare hands. When one hunts, they use that to confuse and frighten their prey.

I can hear it doing that right now. It's leaping from one tree to another, and even over my head. It's knocking trees over from far and near, all around me. That crack ... I think it just broke a blouder in half off to my left. Like I said, emotions are like substance to them, and they can swim on fear like a shark through water.

I close my eyes. I want it closer.

I remember my friend ... her smile ... by my Fathers, such a smile. I remember the wide black eyes that always saw things first. I recall the first time we raced ... and the last. The last time I saw her, she waved to me as I left to catch a thief. I hadn't wanted her to come because the man had stolen from me alone. My selfish stupidy ended her. She had given my life meaning, direction, and a chance to fight for more than myself. I went against everything she taught me and she died for it.

I fall to my knees as I realize that I'm doing it again. I am here to settle my own affairs with the dead instead of helping the living. I may die today. I could end up lifeless and without even my own soul, unable to help anyone or anything ever again, simply to gratify my own selfish longing for a woman who has everything she ever wanted- to have lived and died heroically.

I cry. I wail and beat the earth with my fists and my sword in outrage at the unfairness of life, at having believed that I could make a better world and still be happy. It stands uncaringly firm against my mortal wrath, but I beat it all the harder. I cannot stand my own weakness. I cannot even make myself honor her memory by giving up this mad pursuit and go back to help the living as she did. I know exactly what she would want me to do now and I am too weak to set aside my pain and do it. I am not strong enough.

I sense it before me. The Yashkun has come. I straighten, and even manage to stand. I glare through the blur of tears at the wispy, shadowy form before me. Its long, sickly yellow claws are bared, and its hollow red eyes stare back at me, as uncaring as the earth beneath me.

Now is the time. If it has worked, I will know now.

With a speed beyond any sense, its claws plunge for my heart ...

... and stop.

I breathe a sigh, and know how it will end. An unearthly howling fills my ears as its claws rend the air before me but cannot touch me. Like I said, thought and feeling are like substance to this creature of fear, and nothing beats fear like certainty.

I know what I am. I'm sure of it. I am a failure and a charlatan, a weak-willed fool whose heroics could not outlast the one who inspired them. If I had been wrong about that - if I were everything she wanted me to be - I would be dead now.

Like I said; either way, I win.

"I don't know how you got her," I tell the infuriated Yashkun as I clutch my sword, "but you will not have me."