Flash Fiction: The Fall of Oltheil

          Will he answer our summons? Xizsk asked himself, his wrinkled hand trembling against his staff.  He must, yes? Or is this truly the end?

          The old wizard was braced against the grey wall of what was known as “The Meeting Room,” and across from him stood Ilivor and Virrod, peeking around the corner to behold the battle beyond.  Occasionally one of the two men would dart out into the open and, staff in hand, unleash a cone of ice or immobilizing dust toward any approaching enemies—but then he would quickly retreat again into the safety of the room, loath to join the thick of the fray.  Xizsk, on the other hand, remained stationary as though he were pasted to inside of the stone edifice.  He knew that history would call him a coward, and it would be a lie to say that fact did not bother him.  He and his two allies had served as co-regents over Oltheil for centuries, and the mages who had dwelled in the city had trusted them and clung to their every command.  The three wizards were so highly regarded because they were the progeny of Crel himself; it was believed that they had even inherited some of Crel’s godhood and were the closest any man or woman would come to the divine.  The entire point of the city of Oltheil was to protect that, one of the three prized objects through which the Gods had created the world.  But now that the object was in jeopardy, the city’s leaders were cowering within a fortified building rather than dying beside their loyal subjects.  It was pathetic; there was no other way to look at it.

“How did she amass such forces?” cried Virrod, his brown hair whipping in the wind that billowed through the tunnel.  “Lo! They cover the countryside like ants.  I did not know that so many scaldrons existed in all the world.”

“And yet here they are, before our very eyes,” answered Ilivor.  “Standing here in disbelief will accomplish nothing.  We must conjure a plan, for it appears that our lord Crel has either failed to receive our message or found more important matters to attend to.”

Xizsk breathed in and out, and in again, before summoning the courage to careen over to where his brothers were standing.  He hugged the stone wall and leaned over to glimpse the battlefield.  The image, albeit brief, was a promise of death.  The lean creatures were more plenteous than his brothers had stated.  The flash of skin and metal and blood flowing like rivulets was more than he could handle, and he felt his stomach turning.  Dark pulses threatened to drain the world of all color.

“Even Xizsk grows faint,” said Ilivor, his frown bracketed by his black, braided beard.  “The time is ripe for action.” He exchanged a long stare with Virrod before swiveling around and heading down the hallway.  Along the wall he dragged his fingertips, mumbling in the Weöstrif language as he did so.

“What is he doing?” inquired Xizsk as Virrod reached out to support him.  “He is not going to hand it over, is he?”

Virrod shook his head.  “Never.  Ilivor would never willingly aid in the resurrection of Argetheil.  He has something else in mind.”

The dark-haired wizard stopped at a part of the wall which, to the untrained eye, would appear to be nothing more than smooth stone.  The spell that he muttered was familiar to Xizsk; it allowed one to feel variances in the densities of objects and to pinpoint the weakness in a structure.  Ilivor pressed the false wall inward about a hand’s breadth and reached into the cavity.  What he pulled from within remained hidden from view, but Xizsk knew it well.  His heart burned within him—not anger toward his brother, but rage toward the fiends that desired to see the world plunged into chaos.  They were blind fools, the lot of them, led by the blindest of fools.

“They must not retrieve it!” he shouted, struggling within Virrod’s arms.  “Even if we are to lose our lives in its protection, they must not retrieve it.”

“They will not,” Ilivor answered, crossing the hallway and reuniting with his brothers.  He passed the object to Virrod and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “Kinsmen, my proposal is that Virrod take the pyrmum east, beyond Farlenas; it is a perilous route but the one least suspected, and it is unlikely that any would follow without much trouble.  The emblem will not lie hidden for long if it stays here.” He looked back and forth between them.  “Are we agreed?”

Xizsk nodded, but Virrod hesitated.  “But...why me, dear brother?” he asked.  “And what will be my destination?”

“You will head to Gozkk, for even she will pause at the thought of entering that minotaur-infested wasteland.  There you can regroup for a time.” Ilivor offered a tiny but comforting smile.  “And why you? Is it not clear that you are the strongest of our trio, and second in power only to Crel in this world of Marnon? You are capable of more than the two of us combined.  Perhaps the Gods will deal kindly with you in the east and lead you to answer our haunting question: how can the pyrmum be protected now that Oltheil has fallen?”

Virrod appeared concerned, thought Xizsk, but there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes.  He pocketed the emblem within the folds of his robe and breathed out a long sigh.  “Very well.  But will you not come with me? Surely we can bypass the scaldrons and escape together.”

“There are too many,” Xizsk replied, “and already they draw near.  There is no escape—not for us all.”

“Our brother speaks truly,” said Ilivor.  “We have lingered in our safe hall long enough while our people have given their lives.  It is time that we fight, Xizsk and I.  But Virrod, you must flee.  Gods willing, we will wreak havoc enough to catch the eye of the scaldron army while you round their forces and head into the east.”

Tears sprang into Virrod’s eyes, and one fell onto Xizsk’s tattered grey robe.  “I have not known a day apart from you, brethren, and now this may be the last time I view your faces...until I see you again in eternity, that is.”

“We will await you in the throne room of the Three,” Ilivor assured him, “where we will never again experience fear, or pain, or sorrow.  Our long lives will seem naught more than the snap of a finger compared to the unending glory that awaits us.” He turned his head to Xizsk.  “Do you understand what must be done, my brothers?”

“We do,” they answered, both voices riddled with uncertainty.  But have we the strength to do it? wondered Xizsk.

“Very well.  Virrod, you head down the hall and exit the other way; I saw not a soul near the tunnel’s mouth.  Xizsk, with me.  Prepare to access the fullness of your power.”

The fullness of my power, thought Xizsk, marveling.  It is the very thing we have taught our many pupils never to use, for once all energy is expended, doom certainly follows.  If any scaldrons live after we release our spells, we will have no more strength to fight.  He felt tears welling up within his own eyes.  This is it; Crel will not answer our summons.  It is truly the end.

“I will do everything I can to keep safe the emblem of our Fathers,” said Virrod.  “Farewell, then, dear ones—until our next meeting.” He turned away from them and headed off down the curve of the tunnel, robe flailing in the strong cliffside wind, until he disappeared into the darkness.

Xizsk turned to Ilivor, and although his brother had appeared confident before, there was now in his countenance something that questioned the reality of their situation and balked at the likelihood of their mortality.  The same thoughts filled Xizsk’s mind, but he knew not what to say.  He stared intently at the dark-toned skin of Ilivor’s face, probably for the first time in nearly five hundred years, and possibly for the last time.  A barrage of fears assaulted him then: fear of the pain of death, fear of surviving but watching his kinsmen perish, fear that Virrod would be stopped and the order of the world undone.  The overwhelming dread kept his words behind his lips, but his mind was speaking loudly: he thanked Ilivor for his comradery and leadership; he lamented that five hundred years had felt far too brief; he pondered the joy soon to be felt once his soul was ferried into the company of the Three.  Ilivor had known him long enough to read his thoughts through his eyes as one reads a scroll.  The wizard nodded at him and, saying nothing, led him out into the light, out onto the battlefield where the scaldrons were striking down their perennial followers, out into the presence of the cloaked goddess who would more than likely claim their lives.