A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body. -Andre Maurois
Chapter 20: The Deceit
Past
Chander pushed himself up onto his hands, his head splitting with sharp repetitive pains like daggers through his skull. The muscles of his arms ached as if he had been battling for days but he could not even remember the battle beforehand.
And there had to have been a battle.
He stood in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of Demons. As far as he could see, his army was laid out beneath the sun rising just over the trees now, engulfing the plain in the dawn light. But he could not remember. The last thing in his mind was preparing the army to strike at the Dragons at dawn. What had happened during the night?
Walking slowly and letting his sword drag behind him, he moved through the masses, a lone life among the dead. He knew many of those deceased by name some had even been his cousins.
"Sharda, Byan, Mirae…"
He cried out and ran through the corpses to her body, pulling her into his lap as he fell to his knees.
"Prashanti," he cried, tears springing to his eyes.
Standing, he held her body in his arms. "Show me…Show me the Dragon that did this!"
A step from behind alerted him to another's presence and he laid her down before turning.
"Rudrani, what are you doing here?" he asked the priestess as she worked her way towards him.
Stopping, she smiled at him. "Look, Prince Chander. It was not a Dragon's claws that killed your army."
He shook his head. "I don't…remember…What happened, Rudrani?"
Her smile grew wider. "Please address me by my proper name, Prince Chander?'
He turned away from her, placing a hand on his head, golden locks stained by blood. Then he stopped and lowered his hand. It was bathed in dried blood. Black blood.
Dragon blood was red.
"And look at your sword, Prince."
He did so. From point to hilt it was caked in black blood, Demon blood.
"No…"
Rudrani began laughing. "At last, I have effectively destroyed the royal family and all who would oppose me. Me, Mandhatri, the bane of the Demon race!"
Chander fell to his knees, staring at his hands. Slowly, the memories were forcing their way back into his mind. He could feel the power of those he loved coursing through his veins, power taken only through death.
And he screamed.
Present
Hessair scratched his chin thoughtfully.
(Mandhatri? If I'm correct, she was a Demoness that tried to overthrow Emperor Kusagra his second year ruling. She failed miserably. Why?)
Zuko shrugged from where he reclined on the grass. "I had a dream last night but all I can remember is that name."
Aang jumped lightly from the balcony overhead down into the courtyard where Hessair and Zuko were talking.
"Have either of you seen Akierin? I haven't seen her since late last night."
Zuko shook his head. "No, I haven't. In speaking of missing persons, the infirmary seems to have misplaced Asvathama."
Hessair shook his great head. (That Demon gives me a strange feeling. He doesn't smell like other Demons and he doesn't act like other Demons.)
Aang frowned. "What happened back then? Other than the Demons and Dragons wanting to kill each other, what Akierin and Asvathama said last night really confused me. Who's Saitrie?"
Hessair frowned and seemed to settle deeper into his reclining position.
(Saitrie is the female Dragon who led the Dragons against the Demons in the final battle. She was also the first Dragon to Bond.)
"What made her special?"
(Saitrie didn't have much power in the way of Sorcery but she was fast. Her Bond took care of the rest.)
"I thought humans weren't alive then."
(She Bonded with a Demon.)
"A Demon?" Aang cried, startled.
Hessair nodded. (My mother told me the story, long ago. The Slayer of One Thousand Demons they called him. His name was Chander and he was a prince among the Demons. That is, until Mandhatri took over."
"But I thought you said,"
(She failed the first time. She succeeded after Chander slew his own army and sided with the Dragons. Saitrie bonded with Chander and together they destroyed the Demons.)
Aang frowned. "What would make Chander betray his own like that? It doesn't make sense."
Zuko nodded. "It doesn't. What happened after the Dragons won?"
(Saitrie disappeared and Chander committed suicide. It was believed all the Demons were dead.)
Zuko shook his head and stared at the ground before him. Though he knew Hessair wouldn't lie, the story didn't make sense at all. There was much left out of it but he knew Hessair didn't know anymore. He could feel the Dragon's honesty.
(Perhaps it has to do with the legend of the Prince of the Moon and the Princess of the Sun.)
"What is that?" Aang asked.
(Just a legend in Dragon lore that said the Prince of the Moon and the Princes of the Sun would rise and end the war between the Races.)
Just then, a white blur passed over the courtyard and Akierin landed roughly, Asvathama pinned beneath her great foreclaw. From the scratches and bruises on them both, they had been fighting all night.
"Akierin!" Aang shouted and Zuko leapt to his feet.
Akierin was smirking. (A magical property of Dragon Fire, it dispels all illusions…)
Asvathama growled ferally, meeting her glare and matching it just before she engulfed him in flames.
The guard blinked at the blind man now tapping his way towards the palace. The man obviously was no threat but he seemed to know where he was going. There was a woman with him but they were both cloaked and hooded.
"Sir?" the guard addressed the man and he stopped, turning his head.
"Can I ask you where you are going?"
"I'm seeking my brother. I believe he might be staying here."
The guard swallowed. Something about the man made him uneasy. Perhaps the fact the he could discern nothing about the man's physical features beneath the cloak. So much had been going on recently that he was inclined to be more than usually cautious.
"Give us his name and I'll send a servant for him."
"His name?" The man seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Oh yes, I believe he's calling himself Asvathama."
The guard nodded and as he had said, sent a servant to the infirmary. He remembered that name and he knew the man before him wasn't lying but what did he want with the man called Asvathama?
Past
Syperis stepped forward, her eyes gleaming wickedly as she viewed the fallen prince and her teacher standing just beyond.
Mandhatri motioned for her apprentice to move closer to the prince. He was kneeling in the field, no longer aware of their presence.
"Take his power, my child." Mandhatri instructed her. "He has no use for it anymore."
Syperis stepped forward and placed a hand on the prince's head, drawing the power of his fallen comrades into herself. And she laughed.
He fell unconscious and she let him fall at her feet. The two then swept away in a whirl of wind, back to Shihai.
Saitrie watched it all unfold from the tower of the Dragon stronghold. Slowly, she leapt from the tower and glided to the ground, landing just in front of the blond Demon.
"Please kill me," he whispered.
Saitrie tilted her great head and raised his head to meet her gaze with one talon.
"Why?" she asked.
"Can you not see? Everything I lived for, everyone I loved, destroyed by my own hand."
He shoved her hand away, lunged and grabbed his sword. "If you won't kill me, then I'll do it myself."
Raising the sword, he brought it down swiftly towards his own chest when she stopped him again. She gave a huge sigh and picked him up, lifting into the air with one sweep of her wings.
"Put me down!" he screamed. "Let me go!"
"No." she said calmly. "For dead you can do nothing to avenge the deaths of those you love."
"Avenge them? I killed them!"
"No. You were tricked. Those female Demons tricked you into killing them so they could steal your power. But your power comes from the Moon, not from death."
He fell silent. She knew he was listening as she landed on the tower once more. Gazing at him through azure orbs, she felt his pain as if it were her own, his love as if it were her own, his triumph to come, his empty victory, his immortality, as if it were her own.
"You are the Prince of the Moon and I am the Princess of the Sun. Together we shall end this War of Races."
He closed his eyes and sank to the stone floor, his sword clattering against the rock. He buried his face in his hands and began to weep.
Saitrie drew him close to her against the warmth of her chest and covered him with a wing.
Akierin stepped back and Asvathama stood, unharmed by the flames. In truth, he stood before them pure. As Akierin had said, Dragon Fire was blessed with the ability to dispel any illusion, and so Asvathama stood before them unable to hide his past any longer.
Brown hair turned the gold of a new coin.
Black eyes turned the blue of a morning sea.
A silver birthmark appeared in the shape of a crescent moon on the back of a pale shoulder.
"So I lied," the man said to them all. "My name isn't Asvathama and it never has been."
Hessair took a sharp breath as the man stepped forward out of the ash and Akierin reared her head triumphantly. Aang's eyes widened and Zuko's brow furrowed.
"My name is Chander and I am the Prince of the Moon."