Creusus's Arc

Chapter 11 of 21

Creusus kept his fists up. The shape had not moved. The knight had not moved. He turned his head a small degree toward the black helm beside him and spoke through his teeth. "You brought me here. You owe me why." The flame in the gauntlet did not waver. For a long breath he thought the knight would stay silent, the way he had stayed silent through every step of the walk. Then the helm turned toward him. The visor was empty inside. The voice that came out of it was flat and dry, like a board dragged over sand. "I was the squire." Creusus's jaw tightened. He kept his hands where they were. The knight went on in the same dead tone. "You knocked me down in the arena. The wave took me. It brought me here." He lifted the small flame a little, as if to show the dark around them. "There is no floor here. There is no sky. There are things that walk. I walked with them. I do not know how long. Years. More than years. I saw every thing a man can be afraid of. I saw them come for me one at a time. Then all at once." His gauntlet closed slowly. "The void let me go. It gave no reason. It set me back in your world older, and it put this armor on me, and it sent me to fight you again." Creusus said nothing. The shape behind them watched. The knight's voice did not rise. "Every hour I stood in that place, I stood there because of your fist. I wanted to kill you. I carried that want across the walk back. I carried it into the arena." The helm tilted a fraction. "I am standing next to you now and I cannot find it. Something in this place has taken it out of me. I feel nothing. I want nothing. I am telling you because you asked." He lowered the flame. "That is the answer. There is no more." Creusus lowered his fists. Not all the way. Enough. He looked at the black shape past the flame and then back at the empty visor. He had come here thinking a man had wronged him and needed answering. He saw now it ran the other way. He had knocked a boy into a hole and the hole had kept him. The tournament had done that. The thing that ran the tournament had done that. He said, "Then we go back. Both of us. And I finish what you were sent to stop." The knight did not answer. He turned toward the shape and set the flame between them like a small wall. Creusus set his feet beside the plate. Whatever came next, he would meet it with the knight on his shoulder, not across from him.