Lords Of The Dark Fall - Fabian (41 page)

Someone threw her a rifle. Two men she didn’t know followed her out, armed and ready to defend her. The sense of purpose calmed her, sharpened her focus. For the first time, she saw it from the winning side and realised the choices were not so clear cut. Taking power was easy. Holding on to it without descending into tyranny? A thousand times harder.

A small gaggle of women stood at the gate, mothers, daughters, grandmothers. One held out a wound-up strip of pristine cloth, another a pot of salve. “Does he live?” one of the youngest said, almost timidly. “We thought these might help.”

Another came forward bearing a basket of new bread. “My tithe,” she said. “It goes to your man, now.”

Tig’s bodyguards closed in. She waved them back, sensing that the key to realising the dream was in the small voices, not the mighty roar of the crowd.

“Fabian will only accept that,” she said pointing to the bread, “If given freely as a gift. He’s here to free you, not enslave you.”

The woman nodded enthusiastically. “So he’s still alive? Thank god. I’d be honoured if he’d eat my bread.”

“Where’s he from?” another ventured. “He looks like no one I’ve ever seen.”

“How did you get mixed up with him, Tig? There were rumours of a coup, but we had no idea it would look like him.”

“One day I’ll tell the story,” Tig said, feeling goose-bumps prickling her arm. What a story it was. “And you can tell it to your children and they to theirs. But I will tell you this now. He values your loyalty more than gold. Take your gifts inside, I have someone to see.”

Let them come, one by one of their own free will. No better way to build a loyal army.

All except for one. The doctor. He was coming if she had to march him at gunpoint.

* * * *

He’d promised to stand and stand he would, though his world rocked and spun and his wounds hurt like the very fires of inferno. One of the dogs whined anxiously and licked his face. Placing his hand on the dog’s shoulder, Fabian used the animal as leverage and swung himself from the bed.

An unfamiliar room, the bed dark and ornate, the walls and flooring made of unstained wood. Fabian looked around for clothes and found only a robe of silver cloth strewn over a chair. It would have to do. Lifting it and sliding his arms into the sleeves drained him so much he had to sit down, sweat pouring from his face, to recover. Taking a deep breath, he tried again, holding the wall for support, groping his way to the door. Voices somewhere in the longhouse. Another few moments to regain his breath and then he grasped the door-latch and lifted it, almost losing his balance as the door swung open.

A short corridor with voices coming from a room at the end. A surprised youth, scrabbled to his feet, blushing deeply at being caught sitting when he should have been guarding. With a finger on his lips, Fabian ordered him to be silent. The youth complied with an enthusiastic nod and bowed, stammering out his apologies.

“Come,” Fabian said. “Lend me your shoulder. I will need your help. Get me to the end of the corridor and then stand back.”

“An honour, my lord.”

Together, they hobbled the length of the corridor like some aged four-legged beast.

“What’s your name, lad?”

“Taron, my lord.”

Fabian used some of his precious reserves to touch the youth’s hair, giving his blessing. “I will have need of loyal men like you, Taron. It means a lot.”

Taron nearly burst with pride right before him and hurried to open the door into a receiving room by the look of the ornate chair set on a raised dais. A man he didn’t recognise occupied the chair. To one side stood Hal, to the other Tig, both struggling to keep order in a room abuzz with people, gesturing and shouting, all trying to make their voices heard.

They fell silent, one by one as they noticed him filling the doorway. Now he had only to get himself across the room and into that chair without falling flat on his face. Tig’s eyes had grown as large as twin moons, a hint of reproach mingling with the respect that shone there. The crowd parted to let him through, each agonising step taking him nearer the dais. Fabian prayed for strength to climb the three steps to the newly-vacated chair. A bigger challenge right now than the steepest of mountains.

When finally he sat, with an inward sigh of relief, he looked down to find the whole throng on bended knee, heads lowered. A sight he’d thought never to see again.

“May I present Janx.” Hal introduced him to the lanky young man who would have taken on Warrington in order to better the lives of his people. Janx also fell to his knees in homage. Had he his ceremonial sword, Fabian would have honoured him with a title. When he could actually lift a sword, he would do just that.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Tig whispered. “You’re not strong enough.”

“They need to see me, Tig. Are they here to petition?”

“Petitions, judgements, you name it. Are you up to this?”

“I promised to stand and stand I will,” he said grasping her hand. “Stay close. And call in Taron. I like the lad and will take him as squire. Tell them to rise,” he said tilting his chin at the throng. “Call up the first.”

A young woman with a grievance against her neighbour. A stout gentleman asking the warlord for a new pig to replace one that had died. A couple seeking permission to marry. A complaint about the drainage. Routine worries he’d presided over down countless years. By the twentieth, Tig was flicking him worried glances and he was feeling like an old man in his dotage.

“Enough for today.” Hal spoke up where Tig would not. A cry of protest rose from those who hadn’t been seen. “Come back tomorrow,” he said firmly. “Your lord has done enough for one day.”

Silently, Fabian thanked the man. He would rest in the chair before attempting the journey back to bed. Closing his eyes, he waited for the crowd to disperse.

He must have slept for suddenly he was home again, in his favourite palace complete with music and the sound of running water, whole and well. A dream? Blinking, Fabian saw again the longhouse receiving room with its rough-hewn floor and swords and animal-head trophies hanging from the whitewashed walls. Tig let out a curse and in front of him a lone, grey-haired woman smiled a secret smile and snapped her fingers to bring him fully back.

Senna.

“We made an agreement, Lucimanticus. I’ve come to fulfil my part. I trust you’ve remembered yours. What you spent all those months wishing for? Now you have the means, I will grant you that wish.”

Beside him, Fabian heard the click of the rifle bolt. Tig’s voice brittle and sharp. “Hal, Janx, get her out of here. Go away, Senna. You’re not welcome.”

Temptation. Another human failing. He loved Tig with a passion he’d never imagined and yet the madjina’s offer had pierced him with a yearning more painful that his wounds. She could take him back, restore his lost glory. Tig bit her lip, noticing his indecision. The gun trembled in her hands.

“No,” he said. “Leave her. I would speak with her.”

Tig turned to him, unable to mask her shock at his words. “Fabian?”

“Tig, I…” His mind was in turmoil, trying desperately to make some order of the conflict raging within him.

In front of him, the dream he’d so fiercely guarded since the day of his Fall. His focus had been unwavering until the day a new dream had quietly taken its place. That of a pale-haired woman with an iron will who promised the chance to love and be loved. To change with the seasons and watch his children grow, knowing that when he died he would leave something of worth behind.

Senna held out her hand, palm upwards. “I can give you what you lost. Why do you hesitate?”

Tig remained still, silent. Unwilling to plead for him? No. He knew well how she loved him. So much that she would let him go without complaint, should that be his wish.

Hal motioned Janx from the dais, his expression unreadable. Did the man still hope for Tig? If not Hal, would another man claim her?

An unbearable thought. No, she was his to love and protect. No man would ever care for her as much.

“I hesitate because I have found more than I lost. You may leave. I have no further need of your services. Janx, Hal, escort her out.”

A pitying glance. A look that said they hadn’t seen the last of her. Senna thought him a fool. Perhaps, but a fool who’d just made the wisest decision. Beside him, Tig exhaled and groped for his hand.

“Will you have me, Tig?” After showing doubt, he could no longer assume her undying loyalty. “I wish to grow old alongside you.”

“Oh Fabian,” she said, the smile a little wobbly now. “If you’d said yes to her, I think I’d have shot her myself. Or tried to follow you. Of course I’ll have you. I want nothing else.”

“You must help me. There is so much I still do not know.”

“Not going anywhere, Fabian. You have me for life.”

For however long that may be.

He’d traded eternity for an unknown period of bliss. And he couldn’t be more content.

Epilogue

He often watches the night sky, wondering where Marcellus landed. What life he made. Whether he ever forgave him.

Most of all he wonders if his brother ever made it home. After all these years, that thought still leaves him a little envious.

“Felix refuses to go to bed until you promise him that sword. He’s been a horror today. Poor Sunas is tearing her hair out. ”

Fabian turns to the voice, unable to stop the smile that appears at every mention of his children. Wilful, strong, intensely loyal, he loves them with a passion that leaves him breathless at times. A worry and a joy. Something of himself and Tig to leave behind after they’ve passed over to the other world. He cannot imagine life without them.

Tig joins him at the balcony, resting her hands on the balustrade and her head against his arm. The newest addition to the family is barely six moon’s old and yet Tig still looks as slim as the day they met. Two girls and two boys as promised, and now she says she’s done. He’ll have to work hard to talk her into a fifth. A man cannot have too many children.

“Felix is my heir. He will have his ceremonial sword at his next birthday. And we will begin his training.”

“Let’s hope it will channel some of that spare energy he’s so full of. He’s asking to sit in on the next senate meeting, too. He wants to propose a new town square with mosaics and statues. And he thinks the drains need looking at in the old quarter. They smell worse than hell on a bad day, apparently.”

“Does he now? My children seem overly eager to usurp me. Perhaps I will be retiring earlier than I imagined.”

He’s gently teasing, immensely proud that even in their youth, his children take their roles as leaders of the community so seriously. With privilege comes great responsibility. That much they’ve taught them. A leader needs vision and compassion and Felix has that in abundance.

“Does it feel odd?” Tig shivers against the cooling night breeze. Tucks closer into his side. “To be moving on ahead of them knowing they’ll one day take your place?”

“Yes and no.” As the years pass, his past existence becomes more and more elusive. Like a life lived in a dream he once had. Some days it’s hard to remember how it felt to be the one still point in the crowd. The one who remained behind while others moved on.

“This feels somehow more natural.”

He always knew it would.

Below him the new town takes shape, spreading farther into what was once desert by the day. Soon, the lights flickering in windows will be powered by technologies forgotten since the great war that turned the sky dark and the people back into savages fighting each other for power and dominance. It’s been a hard road, but uniting the people in this forgotten part of this world has been his life’s work.

“Oh, I meant to show you this.” Tig retrieves a notebook from her pocket. Flicks it open. “What do you think?”

He fingers the drawing thoughtfully, secretly pleased at the honour while trying to look as if such vanities are behind him, now. “Have I been here this long? It seems like only yesterday.”

“You like the design? Because I can change it. They’ve not started production, yet.”

“As always, you do me proud.” A new story plate to follow those, commemorating his victory over Warrington, the founding of the new town and the birth of each of his children. This one depicts the opening of the new senate building. He nods his approval.

“I’ll tell them to start production tomorrow, then.” Tig curls her hand around his. “I’ve one more thing to show you before we go to bed. Come with me.”

She likes surprising him and he likes being surprised. Sex under the moon on their secluded rooftop-terrace, that’s what he’s in the mood for. When he leans down to nuzzle her neck, she pushes him off, laughing. “Patience my love. You’ll like this, I promise.”

They’re in his private study. On the table is an ornate wooden box, inlaid with ivories and precious stones.

She pushes him forward. “Go on, open it.”

He does so, slowly opening the lid with no idea what could be inside until he spies the plates and the gold-embossed letters around the rim.

The warrior who fell from the sky.

“The first plates.” The sight brings a lump to his throat. Rumours of the man who fell from the sky have become something of a myth to be interpreted more as metaphor than literal truth. He’s happy with that. Humans had an alarming capacity to turn on what they didn’t understand. He came from nowhere and became their saviour. That’s all they need know. Tig never finished those first plates. Or so he thought.

“Strictly limited edition,” she said. “But I had to do it. The story isn’t complete without this.”

“Thank you.” The words seem so inadequate. Her gesture so generous. “Does this mean you finally believe with all your heart?”

“That you were immortal? That you fell from the sky? Oh yes, I believe.” Her eyes sparkle with a mischievous light. “With all my heart? Well that remains to be seen.”

“You’ve always been a cheeky wench,” he says fondly. “How can I convince you?”

Reaching on tip-toe she whispers a suggestion that sends his blood racing below his belt. Before he can grab her, she’s running through the door towards their bedroom. “It’s such a fantastic story, Fabian,” she calls back. “I’m going to take a lot of convincing.”