Chapter 119: Even the War
The creek waggled between hills, through fields, stumbled on roots in the forests. The water stole streaks of sky and clouds, also a few brushstrokes of leaves and twigs, and pranced on over Franária, toward the Loefern and then to the Blood.
In the opposite direction two travelers went. A faceless wraith, black as a solid shadow. An abstract woman, light as a rainbow on legs.
‘Do we have to rush so?’ asked Líran. She was tired.
The Wraith answered a few steps farther.
‘We’re been sucked into a vortex. All of us. Each straek of this story is tensed. It can tear at any moment. I feel the coming of an end.’
Líran grabbed the little bottle in her pocket. She too felt na end approaching. How anxious it made her, not being able to glance at the future.
I wrote little when I first arrived in Chambert. I aimed for the main role of that stage called Franária (at the time I didn’t realize it was also a character in the play), a role that belonged to my brother, Pierre. I, who never wanted to do anything he did, wanted to be what he became. In the end, even Frederico, the Weak, was King, and I barely filled empty papers with blank words.
Where did that ambition come from, of being something I never tried to become? I see that in many men and women, this corrosive envy of ‘Why they and not I?’ They don’t see the dragons that the other one faced, or the lives they saved, the sacrifices they made. All we see is that he is big and I, small.
I never came close to Chelag’Ren. It never occurred to me to go to the Land of the Banished and find a scale. To write fiction was my life; to write History was Pierre’s. But when History happened, I wanted to see the eye of the hurricane.
In my defense, all I can say is that I am naturally a good man. It is my wishes that are evil. Evil is as natural to humans as good. We need good, or at least decency, to live in society. That doesn’t mean that weedy evil isn’t crawling under the gree lawns of our day to day in community. It means only that we were taught to cultivate grass and hate weed. To nature, it’s all plant.
We refuse, however, to embrace this side of ourselves. We hide the pettiest wishes, pretend we never wished for somebody to die, refuse to write down in our diaries about the envy that nibbles on our bowls. We are ashamed of the so called evil feelings. Leave them in the dark, lame, infantalized, unchecked.
I don’t mean, real evil, the one that tortures, murders, violates. I mean that helpless evil of a brother who feels offended for not being treated like Pierre. I can assure you that, more than envy, it was shame that filled my days in Chambert. I made na effort to pretend that I didn’t want any of that which I dreamed would happen to Pierre: death in battle; being murdered by one od Henrique’s spies, or one of Fulbert’s spies, or even Adelaide’s; to stumble and fall off the wall, head. I pictured myself taking his place, sorrowful for the loss of a brother, then I actually cried with the idea of really losing my brother.
War was closer than we thought. It was I who found her.
— Memories of Gregoire (revisited)
From his window, Gregoire saw his half brother on the wall with One-eyed Luc.
Will I ever be able to bow to my own brother? To call Pierre’s name and say, ‘My Master’?
Never, answered a whisper inside his ear. How could you bow to another when you should be master?
It is my fate to sit behind open books.
You are wise, smart. You studied much more than your brother.
He studied too. He is my brother. I cannot cause him harm.
Do you think he should be more important than you?
Black fog spread over Gregoire’s room’s floor, snaked up his desk, touched the fingers around the pen.
They see you when Pierre is not there. You have a voice when his isn’t heard.
He is my half brother. I cannot cause him harm.
On the other side of the marble pannel, in the Hidden Tower, Fregósbor perked up and listenend.
I will give you the courage, darkness snaked on Gregoire’s arms, infiltrated his eyes, his nostrils. War prefered smoothness, to awaken desires without taking control, but that mage had noticed its presence in Chambert. He was looking for War.
As long as he exists, you will never leave his shadow.
Such relief to take over a human mind after so long fighting with a dragon. Here, War was sovereign, the poor boy’s resistence was frail and brief. It dropped the pen with Gregoire’s hand, raised his human body and went after Pierre. Gregoire had a dagger, long and thinm with a wood and leather hilt. Simple and efficient like the perfect verse.
In the bedroom, a few frail wrods appeared in Gregoire’s diary.
I don’t want to.
If that were true, I wouldn’t be here. Darkness are commitment. They knock at your door, but it is you who let them in.
Fregósbor’s magic hit War, who almost fell of Gregoire like a sailor swept away by a wave. She clutched its young human, staggered toward Pierre.
The story, feeling its approach, envelpoed Pierre. War, weakened by Fregósbor’s magic, couldn’t move on. It pushed Gregoire with all the power it could summon; pushed him, dagger in hand, toward Pierre.
Go. Find your glory.
Fregósbor snatched War away from Chambert, finger by finger. Gregoire was flooded but a terrible thirst for blood.
Now!
Fregósbor unmade War’s last hook. It left Chambert and was dragged away by magical currents. But a moment before it left Gregoire’s mind, War felt the dagger piercing skin, the warm sludge of blood and na undescribable human pain that could only mean the death of a brother.
Content, War focused on the dragon again. It worked methodically, careful with every hoop of the chain she was tying the dragon with. Time was no longer a problem, now that Pierre was dead. Farheim and Inlang would keep it well fed. The second army should be here by now, but War couldn’t leave the dragon to go check.
Luc jumped forth, sword half unsheathed. Gregoire fell on his knees. Pierre crouched beside him.
‘What have you done?’ asked Pierre.
Gregoire’s left hand was pierced by a long dagger. Gregoire had plunged the whole blade in, only the hilt remained on the other side.
‘I fooled War,’ he said through his teeth.
When I said that, Pierre understood that I had done everything on purpose, that I had lured War in to gain time. I let him think so. This I am writing now will not be published while my brother lives. It won’t be long before we both die. We are old, he and I.
On that day I stood at the edge of darkness. My paper shields failed, my written words did not turn anything into an adventure. No book, written by me or anybody else, can protect me from the evil within. War spoke to me in whispers that I felt more like pushes than voices. It promised to give me exactly what I wanted.
I have learned to respect the complexity of the human mind. I found out that I didn’t want what I wished for. It took a War for me to see my own paradox; It took a dagger pointed at my brother’s heart.
Pierre spoke with dragons, I with darkness. My name is Gregoire. I could never be Pierre. I saved my brother’s life. The threat was myself. For a long time I wondered if that made me good or evil. I finally decided that I’m only human.
— Memories of Gregoire (revisited)
‘There is something else,’ said disse Gregoire.
They were in Master Healer Maria’s little clinic in Chambert. Leonard the Accident was sitting beside Gregoire while Marie took care of his hand. Leonard’s body had been acting weird since he came back from the coma. Sometimes his body vanished, then came back on its own up the stairs. Other times Leonard had to go searching for his own body all over the castle.
Marie also slept in the clinic, and Neville noticed her mattress wasn’t there anymore. He met the Accident’s eyes, and the Accident blushed. It looked like Marie didn’t need a mattress anymore.
Rederico of Patire patted Gregoire’s back and Gregoire didn’t stop crying, but he kept on talking between sobs:
‘We have been invaded. Farheim and Inlang are in Franária and they are many.
Luc cursed and Rederico asked:
‘Didn’t they hate each other?’
‘They hate starvation more than each other,’ said Neville.
‘These are great news,’ said Pierre.
Gregoire stopped crying.
‘War is looking for ways to garantee its own continuity,’ said Pierre. ‘It brought Farheim and Inlang, who are to anihilate us and then go back to fighting each other.’
Even Marie rose here eyes from Gregoire’s hand.
‘Don’t you see? Even the War thinks we can reunify Franária!’