The Flames that Flicker

Life is like a lit candle. Some last longer than others, but eventually, they just flicker and die... *SECOND DRAFT*

Bright flashes stabbed at him like no other blade could; they came at him in uncertain intervals, burning afterimages into his retinas, blurring his vision, staggering him. It was ironic. None of the enemy had bested him in hand-to-hand combat, yet these simple flashes of light were dropping him like leaves in the fall. The light was beginning to increase, he realized with panic. The next flash seared him painfully, and he fell to his knee without realizing it. That was it, he suddenly understood. He could feel it, as naturally as if he’d had too much eat. He wasn’t going to make it.

He looked up across the sky as the sun began its slow descent. The pinkish-orange horizon told him night would soon enough take its shift. Then suddenly the flashes ceased, and his finely tuned senses returned to him. 

The sorcerer had gone, left the battlefield to recline in his grand tower, left his minions to finish off the last of his numerous enemies. It wasn’t an uncommon practice for their kind; it was often that many a cocky magic-user let their lackeys do the work for them, and most times, it was their undoing.

 The man gripped the b*****d sword at his back with tenacity; sweat began to trickle down his forehead. A look over the rolling hills to his left caused a newfound flush of anger to come over him. The searing flashes had ceased, leaving only a great swarm of the enemy hurrying down the slope of the grassy hills.

They obtained bodies of manly flesh, as did he, but had warped, twisted versions of their minds. Their dark eyes had pupils whose colors swirled an angry torrent of black and gray, menacing all that were close enough to gaze into them. Their hair varied in coloration, as well as their skin; all physical qualities of men; but their minds were forced into a mental wall that disrupted rational thought and caused them not to care for their own lives. They were compelled by the will of the sorcerer that did so bind them. They were Nelbrin.

Once they’d been ordinary men, like him, but no longer; now they were traitors to the cause. Because although they were compelled by the sorcerer’s will, it took a tiny part of their own will to make the transformation complete. Which meant that some part of them had actually wanted things that way. 

Perfect justification. 

The first set of the Nelbrin arrived at the bottom of the hill in their awkward, hunched manner of running. The man reached into his pocket and withdrew a pouch of stones. He retrieved a sparkling blue sphere, which he promptly chucked at the approaching set of Nelbrin. 

These stones were not just ordinary stones, but enchanted missiles that could cause considerable damage to a minor enemy contingent. The sphere hit earth just before a large Nelbrin came within range. The large, blonde, barbarian-looking brute stared at it in confusion a second before eight lightning bolts stabbed out at them, staggering three and dropping the rest. 

The man quickly brought up a crossbow the size of his head and began loosing bolts at the remaining Nelbrin. Soon enough, they too were gone.  

This left a momentary respite. The next wave of Nelbrin was a good hundred fifty feet or so away from the top of the hill. With a considerably smaller amount of adrenaline now canoeing through his bloodstream, he suddenly realized how exhausted he was. It came in a sudden, choking wave, much like the wave of Nelbrin coming toward him. He was out of breath; a tired old man in far over his head. He was gulping in as much air as he could in deep pants, while at the same time trying to reload the cumbersome crossbow at his knees. Numerous little cuts and bruises were sparsely scattered about his whole body, stinging but nevertheless not causing much of a problem. 

He was still worried. What if one of the Nelbrin managed to strike a critical blow? He didn’t know how many of the b******s there were, but there was only one of him, and even heroes could fall. Which was not to say he considered himself a hero. For what was he, the man of many mistakes? His misjudgments had cost many a life over the years, and he hated himself for it. He no longer felt ties to his own land of birth. He didn’t much feel anything, really. Only numbness, and that faint urge to continue onward nipping at the back of his subconscious. He was nothing, a middle-aged human mercenary whose own city was in shambles. 

His family was dead. His wife beaten and raped by the common street rags whose greatest accomplishments in life had been the sack of sweet rolls they’d stolen from this or that vendor. His only daughter was starved and diseased due to his own inability to summon enough compensation. So what did he have to live for? 

It had all happened so quickly, too. The city-state’s entire government had collapsed inward like a tower lacking foundation. The sense of order as a whole had never really been present, but there had always been a feeling of relative security. When authority vanished entirely, penury crawled out of its cave to greet him and the entire city. Then went his wife, and his daughter soon thereafter.

With hardly anything left to fight for, why did he go on, he wondered? To represent the power granted him by birthright? No, he was sure of that much. But what, then? Why, for what reason, did he continue onward? He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t already pulled free the b*****d sword strapped to his back and ended this gruesome misery. Yet for whatever reason, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. No. He was to die a warrior’s death, the honorable way out. He would go with the smile of his goddess watching over him. 

He blinked. Something whizzed past his head and stuck into the ground at his left with a thwack. It was an arrow shaft. He looked at it blankly for another second before gazing down the hill to the northeast, where the next wave of Nelbrin had already reached the bottom of the moonlit hill and were racing towards him with that same, waddling sort of walk. 

Only, no, he realized with a pang of panic, not a walk. A run. They were running, and almost reaching him. 

Suddenly another arrow hit earth near his left again, this one a little too close for comfort. It was then that he noticed the other Nelbrin standing atop the hill to his right, longbows trained. The man leapt to his feet and dropped the crossbow in his lap to the grassy earth beneath him, snatching up the b*****d sword at his back and scooping up his great, steel shield. 

An arrow panged against his shield the second he lifted it into position. Had he delayed another second the arrow would have stabbed into his midsection, staggering him. As luck would have it, it didn’t. 

And then all at once they were there upon him, and he met the Nelbrin with a growl of fury. He slammed into the nearest brute with the great steel shield, then brought forth his b*****d sword and forced the blade into its bare, muscled torso before it could even react, stilling it with a yelp and then twisting around to face the next. 

Eight, he counted. Nine including the one he’d just dropped. Fair enough odds. 

The Nelbrin continued towards him in a run. The closest two to his right brandished a spear and a scythe, which they raised in a killing blow that would surely have dropped him. He didn’t let that happen. He managed to take the blow from the scythe, which scraped against his great shield harmlessly, though with enough force to bruise him. He sidestepped the spear thrust he anticipated a second later. 

Reaching inside a thick, wooly cloak pocket, he snatched up another enchanted stone. This one was a bright emerald, one of the stones he hadn’t had the fortune to try out previously. With a shrug, he awkwardly flipped it towards the two Nelbrin, all the while trying to keep a grip on both of his more cumbersome items, the shield and b*****d sword. 

The ground shook thunderously, knocking him and the Nelbrin down, his and their cries of surprise inaudible over the splitting quake. Cracks began to move up the earth from the base of the next hill down; he could hear the grass splitting and a tree groaning in protest.

This took out a goodly portion of the big brutes, at least four of them, but by now, another set of Nelbrin had reached the bottom of the hill. 

Time was running out. 

A volley of arrow shafts shot through the sky, taking flight from the hills far north, and before he knew it, a small contingent of them rained down over him. He tried to pull his heavy shield overhead but tripped over the body of one of the slain Nelbrin as a second quake shook the ground beneath him, the cracks at the hill behind him crawling closer.

The man began to pull himself up but something stung him at his side, tumbling him back down; he didn’t pay it any heed but to grunt and climb back up.

He lumbered past a fallen Nelbrin, which he took particular care to puncture with the point of his blade, clashed shields with another Nelbrin, whose throat he slit in three seconds, and landed a blow to the temple of yet another of them. And still more came. 

He began to lose feeling in his side; his step slowed. He looked down and saw an arrow shaft protruding from one of the folds in his armor, and when he reached out to touch it, the hand that returned was coated in a sickening layer of dark blood. 

His movement slowed, his eyes glazed over for a moment as his thoughts spun. 

So, this was death. He’d heard the tales told tenfold, but they never explained the sensation of it. They toss it around, all but a word to their narrow minds. Weakness, and then fatigue. Only numbness could come next, and then nothing, as far as he knew. Alas, he’d known his fate. But he hadn’t expected it to hurt so. Pain was but weakness, he tried to tell himself. I mustn’t let it overcome me, he thought dully as the muscles in his right arm failed him and the shield it had carried came crashing to earth, watch over me, my goddess. 

He heard the Nelbrin coming with shouts of victory. It seemed so distant, so far away, even though something inside knew they were arriving dangerously close. It felt as though he were a specter observing, not the doomed being observed. He could feel the blood leaking out of him and with it, what was left of his mortality. It was painfully slow. Lights began to trickle over his vision like little stars, blinding him slightly, but all the same, a feeling washed over him that was oddly… pleasant. 

Then he was somewhere else. Or was he? He still felt the dull ache of death clawing at him, crawling and coming ever so closer, but it was distant now, as though it were now somehow less important.  Whatever the case, something in his mind had taken him elsewhere, taken his spirit off into another sect of existence. 

The scene displayed was hazy, despite the fact that it felt keenly as though he were there. Elation overcame him as he saw his wife, Taelava, standing there in his old home, needlessly sweeping away the dust the way she had always used to. Her face lit up when she looked in his direction, and he tried to shout to her, to apologize, but found himself neither able to speak nor move.  Light footsteps padded behind him, and he found that it was not he that had caught Taelava’s attention, but rather Hezzra, his little daughter and the uplifting motivation of his entire existence. 

Hezzra ran into her mother’s arms. She looked to be of about seven winters’ age. She squealed something inaudible, her locks taking on a golden hue as the sun moved out of its clouded barrier. His thoughts screamed at his inability to approach them, to converse with the only ones he’d ever truly loved. By all the gods, why was he seeing this? What horrid things had he so committed to have to go through this?

“And where’ve you been, my little one?”  Taelava said with a smile as she brushed the unkempt hair from her daughter’s face. 

“Why, looking for father at the old merchant’s plaza, of course!” Hezzra giggled. 

“You know I told you not to bother father when he’s at work,” Taelava replied in a not-so stern voice that suggested playfulness, “you know how dangerous his work is.”  

“Yes, mother.” 

It brought an empty feeling to him. He’d forgotten them. Forgotten his family, after all the years. Their deaths had been the reason for his every sorrow, his every last woe, yet, he’d forgotten them, he realized. Forgotten what it was like to kiss his wife, to ruffle the hair of little Hezzra. Most of all, he’d forgotten what it was like to be happy. 

With that realization, he began to miss them even more. Nothing could’ve bothered him more just then than to watch the scene unfolding before his subconscious. A feeling of such profound emptiness coursed through him that he lost all hope. He became a shell of his former self; no more was he the hardened, trained mercenary, the once husband of Taelava and the once father of Hezzra. 

Despair. It was a feeling he knew well. 

Taelava, Hezzra and the cottage began to swirl away, as though some unseen wind was pushing the entire environment somewhere else, leaving behind the prone form of a broken man. He looked up, his internal agonies clearly evident in the pained expression he donned, as a new scene began to play. 

This one was of a later time, it seemed, only a few weeks before he’d been forced to leave his family in order to find another occupation. 

The scene was in his bedroom, the lighting dim except for the few candles lit on the stand near his bedroll. 

The flames casting a dancing shadow across Taelava’s face, she spoke in gentle tones to a flustered man, one that he surely recognized as a younger form of himself. 

“You mustn’t be so worried for us, love,” she was saying. “You spend so much time fretting over how you should take care of Hezzra and I that you seldom think to worry for yourself.”

His younger form reached forth a slender hand with which to stroke his wife’s cheek.  

“But to do so would cause me to neglect those that I love, and in these harsh times, I can hardly fathom doing such. How can I think of my own needs when every hour, every minute that I must leave you two, my greatest loves, you could be taken from my grasp by some sweeping waves of plague or the swift cut of a thief’s blade?” 

“Understandable,” Taelava said with a smile. “All the while you fret and worry for us, just remember this: no matter what you choose to do, your daughter and I will always cherish you. No matter how you go about doing it, no matter if you’re even there, you will forever hold a space in our hearts which cannot be replaced.” 

That was it. It was all he’d needed to hear. Vitality surged through him and out of his labored breath. What was he doing? This broken form splayed across the ground, this was not the man his wife had known. Yes, he was dying, but what would that mean for Taelava and Hezzra if he went out like that, with such blind, seething hatred? He meant to honor those that he loved, and he meant to do it now, before what was left of his mortality slipped away, like his beloved city once had, the way Taelava and Hezzra had. He would do their memory one last honor before he returned to their sides. 

The flashback disappeared in a flutter of stars. He blinked them away and saw through hazy vision the approaching Nelbrin, heard their hawk-like laughter.  It was as though time had paused when he’d been showed the visions of his past, as though what must’ve been an hour had been no more than a few seconds.

Divine radiance flittered down from seemingly nowhere, engulfing him and filling him with the magnificent sensation of utter bliss, a steady stream of unbridled, pure divine power. It was as though he’d never suffered the loss of Hezzra or Taelava, as though he’d never had to watch his city fall before him. They were so close, his family was; he could feel them. 

Of such he was sure; as much as he was sure that his goddess was with him, granting him this great power, his one last wish. 

He rose above the ground with slow precision. The Nelbrin ceased all movement, ceased everything entirely to watch in awe as he gathered forth the divine light. With a cry of power that neither he nor the mindless Nelbrin understood, he stretched forth his arm and unleashed a blast of potent magic.  

There was a flash of blinding light that seared all the Nelbrin’s eyes, and when the light subsided, he saw that many of the big brutes had simply disappeared into ashy nothing. He began to fly, then, to the northern hills, where he shouted out words of power, rumbling earth and dropping the Nelbrin contingent to their deaths. 

And so it was that his goddess guided him to every last of the abominations, which he took care to slaughter into utter oblivion. After he’d killed every one of them, he began to rise higher into the sky, until the rolling hills beneath him were no more than tiny mounds in a vast sea of land. The thin vapors of clouds were several feet above him, teasing him. 

It was almost time. He could hear the faint calls of Taelava and Hezzra, beckoning to him, waiting for him. It was almost time.

But not quite. 

With the last flittering traces of magical energy coursing through him, he gave a word of appraisal to his beloved goddess and channeled every ounce of power that he had into a last, ear-shattering shout of denial. 

It ran through the sky and beyond the hills below, a faint tug at the subconscious of all who heard, all except one: his target. 

The winds snarled angrily and his chain shirt billowed and snapped against his arms. The sky darkened significantly, a muddy shell of its former self. The clouds seemed to have disappeared altogether, only faint wisps of moisture remaining where they had once floated so effortlessly. They had gone; gone just like the man he abhorred soon would be. 

He envisioned the sorcerer sitting there in the lap of luxury, his every being coated in the worldly confections that fulfilled his desires. The fires that kept him warm rippled strongly, feeding the b*****d with precious energy and comfort. Comfort he didn't deserve. 

It was the sorcerer who had compelled the Nelbrin to attack what was left of his city, had bade them slaughter all that were left. It was the sorcerer that had, for all extensive purposes, killed him. As far as the man was concerned, he’d killed his family and destroyed his city, too. 

Power rippled through the man floating there in the sky, more power than he'd ever known in his life; more power than he'd ever know again. The wind fiercely slapped his newly donned cloak, a gift of his goddess. The breeze carried with it the means with which to fulfill his last wish" and he knew his last purpose. 

It took but a mere tweak of will to take him there, to the sorcerer. It was like breathing to him. It was effortless. 

The sorcerer's precious flames extinguished and the room bathed itself in darkness. He cried out in astonishment and dropped the piece of cake he'd been hungrily stabbing at, reaching a fat, greasy hand into his fine robe that he might grab hold of something, a wand of power, a blade; anything to protect himself. He was out of his element. For once, the sorcerer knew fear. For once, the sorcerer knew what he'd so unhesitatingly delivered to  hundreds. 

The man that was no longer man but entity rekindled the fire; the sudden light dancing in protest. There were no orange flames but black ones-- flames that fed pure, shrill coldness. No more comfort would this sorcerer know. No warmth would fill his bones but the searing heat of death.

"Who are you, death-seeker?" the sorcerer belched forth in fear, feigning bravery. Or rather, what he thought was bravery, so twisted was his outlook on the world. The Entity's responding laugh was simultaneously ear-splitting and softly pitying. It was a moment of intense fear for the sorcerer.He'd never felt so alone. 

"Begone!" he cried, shouting the words of a spell that burst into meaningless sparks. He attempted to cast again, staring at the entity in horror, which begat similar results. That same, chilling laugh answered. 

"Your own god has abandoned you," the entity spat at the pitiful, groveling man before him. "You will go to him on your knees." 

"No!" the sorcerer shouted in hopeless denial. He snarled a last curse and hollered a trigger phrase, and before him materialized a corked vial. He jumped forth with uncharacteristic efficiency to grab ahold of it, and he quickly threw at the entity's feet, where it shattered, spilling the solution across the stone floor. 

Bolts of magic darted randomly around the room; the green light emitted more than matching the entity's bright intensity.  The entity started backward in surprise as a powerful beam of energy struck his torso, launching him backwards, his body impacting the stone wall behind him with a sickening crack. 

The sorcerer guffawed with glee, thinking he'd just saved himself a rather gruesome ending. 

How wrong he was. 

"You cannot kill that which is already dead!" the entity cried. He slowly began to rise, his mangled body twisting and writhing in directions they weren't supposed to go. As if to accentuate his point, the entity slipped free of his robe and began to deeply inhale the thin, dry air around him. With each "breath" his skin pulsated and waved, as though the flesh beneath were simply ceasing to be, his eyes sucking inward into their sockets and back out again in a seemingly endless rotation. 

"Enough!" the sorcerer cried, his own eyes unable to detach from this display. 

The entity gave that same hollow laugh. “You fear the unknown. Yet your fate is known to you. Your own irony betrays you!”  

The entity took a last, hideous breath and reverted to the form he'd been previously, albeit unbroken and bereft of all scars. He no longer donned the robes of his goddess; he would leave this world properly clothed in that which he entered it with. 

"It- it's you!" the sorcerer began. "The last of the mercenaries! But how? You had no magic about you let alone any willpower to live! 

"Alas, that's nothing anymore. I-I can save you. There is a spell I have been studying""

"Save your words!" the entity hissed. "You know who I am, and I you. That is everything else I require of you." 

Without another word, he swept forward in one motion, his strong hands gripping the sorcerer by the front of his fine, satin robes, which disintegrated into nothing at his touch. The groveling man tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. He was doomed. 

The entity grabbed his face with one hand, his grip tight. A sourceless wind lightly kissed the sorcerer's long, black beard, which caught aflame, traveling upward to his ugly, bloated face. The flames engulfed his head; he let out a bloodcurdling shriek and then was gone in an explosion of smoke, his headless body falling limp to the stone below. 

That same, chill breeze came back to stroke the entity on the cheek, emitting a light chuckle of mirth. It went past the floating figure to the fireplace-- whose flickering flames would burn nevermore. They extinguished. 

The entity's power was almost gone-- the time couldn't have been closer. They were calling again-- it was the most insistent beckoning he'd ever heard. He didn't want to wait another moment. 

When he was absolutely sure the sorcerer was no more, he submitted to the beckoning. 

He gave in to the light. 

He answered his family’s calls with a shout of joy. 

In a single moment that could have been a thousand years, he heard the gentle whisper of his goddess, like the chorus of a hundred beautiful women:

“You have done me well, Ealen. You are welcome in my home.” Her voice was like a song that he never wanted to end. “Be with your loved ones.” 

In the moment that could have been a thousand years, he knew bliss. 

Author's Note

This is my second draft. Regardless of whether you read the first version or not, please read. I need all the help I can get, thank you.
Changes made: A small adjustment to the beginning, and I've gone on to add depth to the sorcerer by making his role bigger.

Reviews

[Murphy]

From what I read, it was great, written as well as many of the great novels I've found. You removed a good many modifiers.

One problem: I couldn't read the Courier New. It hurts my eyes.

[Mary Evans]

Nice imagery and cool characters. I'm not fan of the "one man army" warriors but it was still cool. I find you managed to express the main character's emotional state very well too.

Two things though:

“The sorcerer had gone,” You mean “was gone” or “had left”?

“many a cocky magic-user let his lackeys do the work for them” Is it a plural or singular? Make your mind, don’t switch it every time.

Apart from that, overall good language and sentence structure. I like the ending, the sorcerer got what he deserved.

Keep up the good work.

[luciddreamer]

Your characters are very vivid...I love that....the story is interesting and exciting....good job
Peace

[Selena Griffin]

I enjoyed reading this. I think I might like to see this as a chapter of a full length novel (not the first chapter of course) I thought it was well done, and the characters were developed very well, for what little room you had to work with here.

[Sara Mercury]

"He no longer felt ties to his own land of birth He didn’t much feel anything, really." You need a full stop between the word "birth" and "He" ...

You write very well.

[the in between]

Bravo!! I enjoyed reading this. So his name is Ealen? Your use of vocabulary is impressive and the names you chose for your characters. I like the background of the Nelbrin, but i would've liked to hear more about the sorcerer. What were his intentions? Or her? OH and in the beginning why is light hurting Ealen?