The Promise

This is a story I wrote this week, inspired by the Pathfinder game I play in. Arith is the creation of another player, but I find his current fall to evil fascinating and wanted to explore it.

Arith’s heart jumped as the doors to his study began to open. For many weeks now, a sense of foreboding had grown in his mind and every shadow seemed to hold a threat. Assassins and spies haunted his dreams, spilling out into his waking hours. His magics could penetrate the minds of men, leaving their secrets laid bare, so he knew what they thought of him. He knew that they feared him and he knew that they would eventually turn on him; it was only a matter of time…

When he looked up, he saw a woman who would never claim the titles of assassin or spy, but he knew what she was even if she would deny it. He had seen Mentathiel at work, lives snuffed out at the point of her dagger, secrets teased forth by her honeyed words and midnight excursions. Spy or assassin or mere ‘diplomat’ as she had always insisted though, at least she was his spy and assassin and diplomat.

They had met when they were both adventurers, thrown together by accident and joining forces for mutual protection. There had been others in their little party, the stoic ranger Berric and the sanctimonious priest Gracus and the towering warrior Ulric, but Mentathiel had always seemed one of the closest to him in age and temperament. Seemed, at least… In the ten years they had known each other, ten years in which he had seen a dignified scattering of white strands infiltrate his hair and beard, she had seemed barely to change; he had his suspicions as to the cause, not least of all the influence of her less-than-human lover, but Mentathiel was an enigmatic one and not given to discussing herself.

He could not recall the day they had stopped being travelling companions, the day she had entered his service instead. No doubt it was in one of the many books he had written, some neatly-recorded account of the day when common cause gave way to cold hard platinum, but he could scarcely recall it. He liked to think that theirs was more than just a business arrangement, but there was some comfort in knowing that her services were bought and paid for; a consummate liar she may be, but she respected a business arrangement.

"They hate me…" he confessed.

"My lord Arith, they fear you."

"Why?"

The woman shrugged, offering no answers.

It was difficult for him to see that fear in their eyes, to read it in their minds, but she spoke the truth. Once, long ago, the people here had accepted him. Once, he had lived here as the young apprentice of a benevolent wizard. Now they feared him and for what? He looked after them, protected them, guided them with his hard-won wisdom.

And in return, they called him tyrant…

"Am I evil?" Arith asked his companion.

"What’s evil?"

"Exactly! Damn priests; I keep them safe, I don’t hurt them or steal from them or… or…"

"No, but you took away their freedom."

For a moment, he glanced at the woman. The words might almost have sounded judgemental, but her expression betrayed nothing. She was simply stating a fact, it seemed, just as she might say the sky was blue or that she had eaten eggs for breakfast.

"I protect them," he explained. "Like… like a father. They haven’t seen the world like we have, they couldn’t understand."

"And Berric?"

"Berric? What about"?" Arith asked.

"He saw the world, didn’t he?"

"Yes…"

There was still a dull ache in his heart when he though back to his old friend. Berric had been there at the start, before they ever met the others, but he had not understood. Berric’s mind was too slow to change, too mired in that black and white morality which Arith had long ago cast aside for pragmatism. The ranger should have understood the perils that plagued the world, should have stood at his side when he seized control, but instead he had betrayed the wizard and taken up arms. Exiling the man had been the hardest thing he had ever done. Damn Mentathiel for mentioning his name!

He turned to find the ‘diplomat’ perched on the edge of a work-bench, cleaning her fingernails with one of the fine metal tools he had seen her use so often in their adventuring days. She seemed as relaxed as he was tense, as untouched by the years as he had been aged. 

"Why are you even here?"

"For you," she answered with a smile which any other man might have thought was genuine.

A momentary panic flashed through his mind. Before he even knew what he was doing, he had called up a simple spell of mind-reading from a wand that hung at his waist. He knew it was a betrayal of trust, but when she didn’t react, he could not bring himself to dispel the enchantment. Could she have failed to notice his casting? Could this be the chance to see what lay behind her carefully-constructed mask?

"You seem on edge," she suggested.

Her consciousness began to glow in his mind, a point of awareness in a sea of calm. It was a slow and subtle spell, one which took time to build to its full potential, and he forced himself to focus on her mind.

"Sorry," he answered. "It’s just… They don’t love me like they should…"

"Love?"

For a moment, Mentathiel’s mask seemed to slip; an amused and vaguely surprised expression played about her face. It was not yet possible to read her mind, but he could feel the magic penetrating her mental defences unimpeded; she had a sharp mind, he could feel now, but it was no match for his own. Just a moment longer and her thoughts would be open to him.

"Like a father… I only want to… protect them, but they rebel…"

Mentathiel nodded, “I see. That must be hard on you.”

In his mind, a subtle echo repeated her words; through the magic though, he felt a hint of concern and sadness which she had carefully kept from her voice. It was odd to think that she still felt any kind of warmth toward him. Their companions had long since parted ways, but she had found her way back to him and never betrayed a trace of the anger and bitterness he knew the others did.

His reverie was broken by sudden movement; Mentathiel had moved to stand behind him so quickly that he had barely seen her do it. He’d seen the dangers of turning your back on that one, her skill at finding the right spot to slide a dagger into, but her mind was open to him now. Such tension… her mind muttered, then her hands were on his shoulders and kneading away the knots that plagued him. With new-found confidence, he forced himself not to turn. 

Blood rose to his cheeks as her slender fingers played across his aching muscles, his body reacting to her touch in a way he had not foreseen.

Oh… So you were interested… came her voice in his mind. It should have scared him that she could read his mind as easily as he could hers, but those gifts were one of the reasons he employed her; his magic was unreliable and could be detected, but her gifts were the natural result of her trade. As if responding to his unspoken assent, her hand began to moved down his chest and his heart beat faster as he felt her breath on his cheek.

"My lord Arith… You are shivering…"

In his mind, the words rang with a playful mockery. She was no naïf; her lover was a succubus, so she obviously knew what she was doing. A small, untrusting part of his mind called for him to stop her, but he found himself watching as she cleared a sheaf of papers from a couch and allowing himself to be helped out of his robe. Her voice in his mind flitted between encouragement and vaguely suggestive images. He should be fighting her, he knew, but a hunger rose in him for human contact; you’ve been keeping yourself at a distance too long, her thoughts whispered. 

She laid him down on the soft velvet, a guilty sense of disappointment rising as he found himself turned to lie prone, and she worked the tired muscles of his back with her curiously-soft fingers. The dissenting voice in his mind began to quiet at her expert touch. A calm he had not known for many years seeped into his mind, contentment that hearkened back to the days they had both spent wandering the world in their youth.

"Ow!"

He was broken from this nostalgia by a sharp pain, accompanied by a sense of shock and contrition from the woman beside him.

"I’m sorry… My ring must have caught you, I’ll grab something to""

"Don’t worry," he assured her. "It was just an accident…"

Despite his assurances, he saw her shadow move toward a nearby table and he felt a coolness on his back as she dabbed the wound with what must have been one of her alchemical creations. 

"Have you considered giving it all up?" Mentathiel asked.

"Giving it up?"

"Letting the people of this town determine their own destiny, I mean."

"They need me!"

"Do they?"

"They don’t know any better; without me, anything could happen to them."

"Perhaps, but you will not be here forever…"

A flash of sadness underpinned her words, but something else too; he sensed something flickering in her mind before it was hidden away behind that perfect mask. Regret? She was steeling herself to do something awful.

"You! You have…"

As he struggled to his feet, he realised that his legs would not hold him. The numbness that had begun in his back had spread, making it hard to move, hard to speak, hard to breathe…

"Adva… Ava… Ah…" he called, trying to call on his magic, but his lips would not form the words and his fingers could not find the gestures.

Slender arms caught him as he slipped to the ground, laying him gently on the flagstones of the tower he had inherited from his mentor.

"I once made a promise to a man I loved as a brother. He was scared of what he might become and I told him that I wouldn’t let him turn into a monster…"

"Nuh… Nuh…"

"Shush… It’s almost over now. Don’t fight it."

The creeping paralysis reached his face and he saw Mentathiel’s mask crack as she reached down to close his unmoving eyes. She was weeping. He had never seen her weep. He did not think, in all the time they had known each other, that she had ever wept before. How strange that his last vision would be her tears, he thought.

When it came, the sensation of the dagger’s thrust was so muted that Arith barely felt more than a gentle tugging in his heart. She had always sworn that she could make it painless, but he had not believed her until now.