The Romance on the Violet Sword

They did not stop there. James made for a wooden door to the left of the apse, which led to a winding hall that twisted into stairs spiraling ever downwards. And when James reached a conspicuous-looking door at the end of it, only then did he reach into his saddlebag.

"Here. The catacombs."

Assisted by the light of Aria's torch, he inserted the key and turned. The iron padlock clattered to the floor as the door slowly creaked open.

Immediately, a nauseating, musty smell caused Aria to wheeze. The floor ahead was slick with humidity.

"Watch your step," James warned.

Squinting, Aria made out a narrow passage and a low, vaulted ceiling. Hollows to her left and right held myriad sarcophagus that smelled of termites and water damage. And something else. Thankfully, Aria thought to herself, there were no signs of anything unusual.

"These coffins must be centuries old," she whispered.

"Not all of them," James said.

The hall ran ever deeper. When Aria's torch threatened to fade, she tore a strip off her own cloak and wrapped it around the flame.

But by then, there came a faint glow coming from beyond.

They emerged into a chamber lit with hundreds of candles. The ceiling was painted with a miniature mural that depicted the same figure that Aria saw in the nave. There were no sarcophagi shelved in the walls. Only the one, sitting alone in the center of the chamber.

"The candles are lit," Aria said, pondering.

"They are enchanted. They will stay lit forever," said James.

"Whose tomb...?"

Before she could receive an answer, James and Ian set their torches upon clasps on the walls. Nodding to one another, they set their hands on the grooves of the coffin lid. With a great heave, they slid the stone cover open.

Aria cried out in horror.

"W-what are you doing?!"

"Escaping, of course," Ian said simply.

While at first reluctant, Aria peered over the edge and discovered neither a corpse nor an undead monster.

It was a trap door.

"The tomb of Saint Cienagaline has long contained this secret entrance," Ian explained. "No one knows why it exists. Perhaps the monks used it to escape the reign of terror from the Tyrant Sar-Macuil, after worship of the Saint was outlawed in the old city. Funnily enough, we are in a similar situation..."

"I see... forgive my outburst."

"You are forgiven. I as well, would never open the tomb of another without just reason. This I promise you."

Aria's apology was cut short when she heard a faint ringing of metal echo from the passage from whence they came. James stood up in alarm, grabbing his torch. Straining to listen, the trio heard nothing, and for a moment, Aria thought she might be hearing things. Then, it rang once more, and far more loudly.

"What is it?" she said.

Ian's stood alert. "I'm not sure we're alone."

"Undead?!" Aria gasped.

"I wish. Commander James, who else knows about the passage?"

"No one. No one should know about this path except trusted members of the Vormian Union."

"I see," Ian said. "Regardless, we are being followed. I'm not sure by who."

"Why not meet them and found out?" Aria suggested.

"Because they are here unannounced. And if they were Union members, the effigies at the entrance would not have reacted as they did."

"You think it is the Emperor's men?" James asked.

"Or betrayal?" Aria added.

"Either way," Ian stepped into the sarcophagus. "We need to move."

Ian grabbed the handle and pulled open the creaking trap door. Beneath it were the gleaming rungs of a ladder.

"Everyone in," James ordered.

Aria went first. Though a tight fit, she gripped the ladder's rusted rungs and descended cautiously down, thick spider webs clinging to her hair and armor. A repulsive smell filled her nose before she realized they were descending into the city sewers. When at last her boots splashed to the floor, she brought her torch to level again.

"Gods! If this were not the best way out...!"

The narrow passage could barely accommodate her height, and Aria was forced to crouch as she ran hastily through the dark, the rushing stream drenching her boots.

"Continue toward the direction of the stream!" Ian bellowed. "I've shut the coffin above us..."

When at last Ian descended down the ladder, Aria scarcely had time to wonder how he had fit through the trap door. They darted through the passage as quickly as they could muster, not stopping to re-ignite their torches. Her breath hurried, Aria could no longer notice the foul odors that assaulted her. Nor did she notice, after a dozen minutes of running, the echo of numerous scuffling feet that splashed far behind.

"We are being pursued," Ian panted. "James, prepare your key!"

James fumbled through his handbag as he ran, scarcely able to hold his torch at the same time.

The passage opened into a spacious chamber of stone and brick, slick with liquid waste. The streaming water beneath their feet swelled into a larger pool that fell in great swathes down the reservoir. Aria raised the torch once more: there, half submerged in the pool of opaque water, locked with a rusting chain and padlock, was the door they were looking for.

James hurried to the door, key in hand.

"Give me light!" he shouted.

As Aria held the torch over him, James inserted the key and turned. Then he removed it, inserted, and turned again. He wriggled the key, and the pad lock, and repeated it again, and once more. He broke into a cold sweat.

"It isn't working! I swear I only ever had one key!"

"Goddamn it, James! Give me the bloody key!"

Ian swiped it from him. But his efforts bore no fruit either. The man's swearing could scarcely be heard over the roar of rushing water, and the scuffling of boots from the dark passage behind them.

"They're almost here! We'll have to smash it!"

Ian swung his axe at the padlock, striking it repeatedly with the strength of a seasoned blacksmith. Sparks flew, but there was no time left.

Aria withdrew from the door, drew her sword, and planted her feet firmly in the flood. Her sapphire eyes tinged with a battle-ready glint. If she would die, she thought, it would not be with her back turned.

James mirrored her, drawing his sword that blazed a brilliant orange, rendering their torches nearly obsolete.

"When can I get one of those?" Aria smirked.

"There is only one Oathkeeper, Aria."

"I jest. A purple sword suits me better anyway."

James managed a laugh as they stood back to back.

When at last the footsteps beyond lay immediately around the bend, there came a sudden silence.

A figure of medium height emerged. Her silver armor, emblazoned with the insignia of a Commander, materialized in the darkness. The woman's blonde mullet was streaked like fields of wheat, her eyes as green as jade. The expression she wore was one of urgency, expectance, and simultaneous apathy. And she held no torch, for it was her men behind her who lit the way.

Aria's tense muscles instantly relaxed.

"Commander Rayleen! You gave us a fright!" Aria gasped. "James, Ian! It's okay! She's one of us!"

The woman known as Commander Rayleen stepped into the chamber. Behind her flanked a squad of knights a dozen strong, fully equipped with blade, pike, and shield.

James did not break form. But Aria remained confounded.

"Rayleen?"

"By order of the Furst," the woman said. "You are all to be arrested and put to death."

"WHAT?!" Aria cried out.

"Aria. James. So you were here after all. I knew you'd come this way. The only the other option was the main gate. This is the end of the line. If you sheath your swords now, I can arrest you without resorting to violence. Which I would very much prefer."

"I don't understand, Rayleen." Aria shook her head. "What are you–"

"SHUT UP, WOMAN. You've been betrayed, can't you see it?"

Ian came bellowing along, what little remained of his armored form trudging through. His pauldron and gauntlets were shed, revealing bronzed skin and thick, corded muscle.

"I-I..." Aria stammered.

"Bah, never mind. Rayleen, and all the lot of you! Your heads will roll this day. I'll make sure of it!"

Rayleen and her lot postured motionless. They knew they had the upper hand, having replaced the padlock with a different one only hours before.

Aria stepped forward in anger.

"Rayleen, what are you doing?! I thought you were on OUR side? When I approached you last spring, you were THRILLED to join us. You HATED the Furst. You hated him! Your actions, your attitude, make absolutely no sense at all!"

The brief memory of Commander-Knight Rayleen's indecisiveness flashed through Aria's mind. She was not a particularly independent woman, relying heavily on the support of others to feed her much younger siblings. Those many months ago, when Aria met Rayleen in the hamlet of Damasus, she saw a woman who could be easily swayed to serve the Vormian Union as a key informant. But for the same reason, Aria realized, the opposite was also true; if she could be easily swayed once, she could be easily swayed again.

"Escape with us, Rayleen!" Aria pleaded. "And the rest of you as well! Nobody needs to die! Nobody needs to serve the Emperor!!"

The indecisiveness that Aria thought she knew on Rayleen's face was now a contortion of both apathy and distress.

"Aria, I'm sorry," Rayleen cried out. "Von Richtor—if I didn't do this, he was going to kill my brother and sister! If their lives were destroyed... because of something I never even told them... I could never forgive myself! So I asked what was important—what was really important! And that is my FAMILY, Aria! If I sell you out, if I sell the rebels out, doing my duty as a Commander of Devlan, like I bloody promised on the day I took the Oath, then my family will not only be safe, but they can actually live day to day without ever going hungry again!"

"Commander Rayleen! Please! I sympathize. I really do! But we've had this discussion! Things will change when this war is over. I promise you!"

"And how long will that take?! Months? Years? I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of watching my siblings fighting over crumbs. All I want is for my family to be safe and happy, Aria! Right here, in this city! Valakov or James, it doesn't matter to me who is sitting on the gods damn throne!"

By this time, Rayleen's expression was one of unhinged desperation. She grew wide-eyed with rage, her teeth gritting. She was a far cry from the agreeable jester that Aria knew so well.

"Don't even try, Lady Schezobraska," Ian sneered. "That woman's promises are as thin as toilet paper."

"Y-you know her?" Aria asked.

"More than you know."

Rayleen ignored them.

"Men, move in! Subdue them. You will be rewarded handsomely!" she bellowed, drawing her sword. "And should you need to kill them, so be it!"

Soldiers came in from all sides: swordsmen, halberdiers, spearmen with shields raised. There were a dozen in the immediate vicinity, but James could hear more coming down the passage.

"James, we can't fight this many!" Aria said, backing away

"I know."

"You can't," Ian said. "But I can. You both need to run."

"What?!" Aria cried.

She had scarcely replied when two soldiers charged at her. She swerved to the side, dodging the lance handily. Grabbing the shaft, she wrenched the weapon from her foe and thrust it at the second, catching him unawares in the gut.

Then, out of her peripheral vision, she felt the crash of a cymbal on her face.

"Aria!!" James shouted.

The lanceman had struck her face with a steel buckler, sending her tumbling into the water. Seizing his chance, he dove and found her neck beneath the water's rippling surface, pinning her throat fast to the bottom.

"You son of a bitch! Get the hell off her!"

James's nerves snapped. The fiery blade of Oathkeeper erupted in a massive fulmination of flame.

"RAAGH!!"

The leader of the Vormian Union roared like a lion on his peak, swinging his sword in a great arc. His blade struck the nearest centurion and dismembered him gruesomely, causing him to cry in anguish as the stump that was once his arm was quickly cauterized. Screams filled the room as the thick sewage, filled with all manner of oils and substances, ignited into flame and lit the chamber in its entirety.

Rayleen shielded her eyes from the conflagration.

"Ugh, damn it! Report? Where did they go?"

The rippling heat and crimson flames filled her vision. Peering through the blinding light, Commander Rayleen found James and Aria nowhere in sight. Only then did her eyes fall upon the iron door whose padlock she had so cleverly replaced. It was swung wide open, revealing the dark passage within.

"Damn it all! Pursue them! Don't let them escape!"

"You will do no such thing!"

Ian guarded the doorway alone, wielding a sword in his right hand and his axe in his left. As the fight raged on, his heavy armor was progressively sloughed, and he now wore just a breastplate and his helmet. Among the flames, he appeared as a man possessed.

"Come now, Commander Rayleen. Don't be shy. Fight me and show your men what a GREAT knight you are!"

"Kill him! Advance!" Commander Rayleen bellowed. Three swordsmen dashed at the hulking man with daggers in their eyes.

Roaring, Ian hurled his tomahawk. The axe whistled, spiraled around in an unholy arc, and slashed the trio of aggressors cleanly across the neck all at once, before returning perfectly to Ian's hand, as if by the will of some magical enchantment.

Rayleen went slack-jawed as three of her men, now headless, tumbled into the sanguine waters. She paused, gazing straight at Ian.

"I only know one man, ever, who was capable of that trick," Rayleen shouted. "And he died 5 years ago. Who are you?!"

"It has been a long time, Commander Rayleen," he said with eyes burning. "I am Ian of the Red Bay."

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"That's impossible. I saw him die. His entrails spilled onto the deck of The Grunion, on the day he was cleaved in half by his Excellency. I kicked his lifeless body into the sea. You are NOT he."

"Oh? Even though I demonstrated my signature move, you still don't acknowledge me, Commander? "

"I don't even recognize your voice! Your face—show it to me!"

Ian paused. Slowly, he brought his hands to the banks of his helmet, and slipped it off. Beneath it was the face of a man whose leathery skin was bronzed dark by the sun. His tousled strands of unkempt, brown hair clung to his cheeks. And his eyes—those piercing eyes that Aria thought she had seen through the bellows of his helmet—were as blue as wolf mythril. His was a face that had seen a hundred battles, all of which he survived through sheer wit and luck and strength. And what strength it was, for beneath Ian's neck were sinewy muscles as dense as corded steel.

Rayleen scoffed.

"You're lying. Ian of the Red Bay has a different face. He should have seen fifty summers by now, but you look only a year after thirty."

"I don't wear the face that I did back then. But rest assured... I am he."

"Hog shit! I would have you tell me your true name before I kill you!"

"Tell me, Commander! Did you end up marrying Holyn?"

"W-what?"

"You know, the man with the taut ass. You gave me a big, drunken monologue about him once."

"How do you know... by the hairs of the father..." Rayleen said, trembling. "How are you alive, Ian?!"

"SCARED now, are you? You should be! You couldn't beat me back then. You can't beat me today! And today, I'm planning to KILL you, Commander, for what you did to me!"

"That wasn't my FAULT, Ian! It was Valakov! It was he who cut you in half! It was HE who defiled your wife! I had NOTHING to do with it."

"Aye, but if you had cut the rigging like I TOLD you, I would have avenged her honor and killed that royal bastard. Instead, you had your eyes on a promotion and the biggest purse you ever saw!

"Ian, I'm sorry. B-but... this is all in the past! I don't have time for this. If I don't apprehend James now, Von Richtor will–"

"All in the past? You want me to forget the past? Every reason that I am HERE is because of the past!"

Every vein in his body flared with fury. Commander Rayleen, rattled, shrouded herself behind her men, all of whom were completely oblivious to the tornado of terror that was about to be unleashed.

"Defense! B-Bucklers up!" she cried.

Then, Ian shoved his helmet back on. A sword in one hand, and an axe in his other, his legs propelled him across the burning waters in a single, great stride, where upon he rained the blood of his adversaries like a storm on a raging sea, and drunk deep in the screams that followed.

________________________________________

Aria careened through the darkness. Without a torch in hand, she could see nary an arm's length ahead. But the walls were narrow and smooth to the touch. And she could hear the breaths of James just ahead. Still soaked to the bone, she briefly slipped on the floor and skinned her knee in pain she barely felt. Rising in a panic, she felt James's hand reach for her's.

"Are you okay, Aria?!" he asked.

"Yes...!"

The sound of Ian's battle could be heard far behind. Screams, the clashing of metal, and the sparks that came with it, echoed in the narrow passage. Sprinting as she did, Aria could not fathom how far she had run, nor could she see any end to the tunnel. The light of James's sword had already dissipated, and their torches lay back in the chamber, sunk under the water.

"Will Ian be okay?" Aria panted. "I can't believe we left him behind!"

"Ian is the most resilient person I know! If anyone can get out of there, it's him!"

"Are you out of your mind?! No one can get out of that!"

James declined to answer; it was all he could do to keep from turning back.

"There! Ahead!" he shouted.

What could only be sunlight lay at the end of the tunnel. And when Aria reached it, the sheer drop beyond nearly ended her before James caught her by the collar. The stream at her feet spilled off the cliff like a waterfall, and Aria understood now why this path was a one-way trip.

But she could also see, just a giant leap away, the great fields of lavender and bluegrass that swayed in the breeze. They had finally reached the outside of the city, to the great countryside of Devlan that Aria loved so much. There was nary a building nor guard in sight—only the winding trunk of a willow tree against the crimson sunset.

Below, a rushing pool of fresh water ran—far cleaner than the sewage that caked her body and hair.

"I'm looking forward to the wash far more than the jump," Aria said, craning her neck.

"We'll jump together!" James said, holding her hand.

Nodding, she let James count to three. In her heart, she said goodbye to the life of the city, and welcomed that of the wanderer, the rebel, and the lover. But Aria knew she would return; she had to, as there was much work to be done.

They jumped, and disappeared with a splash.

Epilogue I: The Red Bay

HE FELT his head hit the sea floor as a great plume of his blood dispersed into the murky waters. He struggled, again and again, knowing that he wasn't going to make it, but trying nonetheless, until his brain felt it was going to explode.

Then, he died.

He died, and felt the weight lift from his body. He saw the angels of the firmament–he remembered not what they looked like–coming down to retrieve him. They appeared warm and kind. But still he struggled. He looked at their visages, and shouted "No!" He said no, and darted off into the skies, for his revenge was not yet complete.

For five days and nights, the angels chased his spirit across the land. He knew not where he was going. Then, he came upon a man in the twilight who hung by the noose, his life nearly snuffed out. His body was alive, but his soul had given up. Within that brief period between his life and death, he took his body whose heart still pumped fresh blood. Its eyes—now his eyes–snapped open, and he tore the noose asunder with every ounce of his will. And when his new body tumbled to the platform, night had already fallen.