Little Moment: The Sorceress And The Knight

By Eric 'Erico' Lawson

Epilogue: And The World Froze Around Him

"...in a single day and night of misfortune, the land of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea." -Plato, Timaeus, 360 B.C.

Her Name Was Bezel

And He Protected Her

She Made Him Her Knight

And He Gave Her The World

She Lived In His Heart

And He Lived For Her Smile

She Crafted Wonders

And He Broke His Vow

She Begged For Peace

And He Brought Forth War

She Went to Him to Die…

His scream pierced the air too late to save her, and everyone jerked their heads up in surprise. Even Callens, who was ripping her sword out of Bezel. His own sword, thrown perfectly, buried itself in the woman's chest and knocked her away from his beloved, and the women's wheezing cries of pain matched.

The other three lieutenants stumbled back, dropping their swords in shock as the Knight raced into their midst and grabbed for Bezel. She was slumped forward on the ground, shaking and coughing up blood. Nobody moved to Callens, slumped feet away and gasping as she bled out too fast to save.

"No. No, please, no. Bezel!" The Knight gasped, looking at the entrance wound and feeling his panic rise. Too deep. Too perfectly placed. Callens had grazed her spine at an angle, and when he turned her over and saw bubbles in the blood on her lips and more pouring out of the exit wound…

She couldn't move, the Knight realized. "No! HEALER!" He screamed out, and her labored breathing grew shallower as none answered him. There were no healers present. Even had there been, he cursed himself, there would have been nothing they could do. It didn't stop him from flaring his magic out in a swirl of blue that grasped for her, and her own magic burst forth, a soft pink that reached to his. But it pulsed and wavered, and to his horror, went from pink to blue. He hadn't seen her magic that color since she'd been a girl, and it had been violet since she'd been an adult. Why would it...

"My king, why did you kill…"

"NOT YOUR KING!" The Knight shrieked at them, pulling Bezel tighter into his arms, and his three surviving knights stepped back further away, fearful of him.

Why had they done it? Why hadn't they accepted his wishes?! She wasn't supposed to die here, it was supposed to be him! Yet she lay in his arms, paralyzed and coughing up blood the color of her hair, fading fast.

"Bezel." He whispered, and saw recognition light up her eyes long enough to make the pain fade for a few seconds. He stroked her hair back, feeling so many things rattle in his head. All the things he had wanted to say to her, all the things he'd wanted to scream at her. All the answers he'd tried to think of if she would ever ask him questions of her own.

All useless now. Just like he was.

"It's over." He said, and cursed himself for how stupid it sounded.

"Y - yes." Bezel wheezed, seizing up for a moment by some reflex before she collapsed bonelessly in his arms. It was all she could do to even turn her neck just a little bit. Those beautiful green eyes of hers were so dull now, so deadened by pain.

"The Charms." The Knight whispered. "Come on, Bezel. Heal yourself. Heal yourself, I watched you do it before! Come on!"

She might have tried to laugh then, but it came out as another exhausted cough that spattered his armor with her blood. "Can't." Her magic was now the same deep blue of his own, but while his rose and fell in time with his breathing, hers kept shrinking. She was dying. Her magic was dying with her.

"Then give them to me!" The Knight pleaded. "I can save you! I can save everyone!"

"Can't…" She started out, another spasm stopping her for a second before she gasped again. "Can't. Give you what. I. Don't. Have."

"What?" The Knight whispered incredulously, and his eyes looked to the Charms on her collar. He reached out and touched one, waiting for the spark of power and connection, but he felt nothing. Nothing but cold stone that revealed it as a forgery. They were all forgeries. And her neck lay bare, no choker. No Heartstone. "Where are they?!"

"Taken." She breathed, her eyes fluttering shut. "Stolen. Lost." His heart thundered in his chest. The Charms of Bezel? The most powerful magical artifacts to ever exist, whisked away from her? Stolen from the mage who had forged them, whose mastery of magic was so great that she had tried - almost succeeded - in changing the world? Stolen?! Who could steal from Bezel, that which was hers?

"Lies!" The Knight rebuked her, not believing it. Not wanting to believe it. "They were attuned to you!" She was crying, he realized too late. Crying because she was dying? Because she felt regret? Because she was afraid of death? He was too lost in his own head to place it.

"They were." She eked out. "They were." She tried to say more, but her voice started to fail her. His hands cupped her head, tilting her face up to look into his own. The gray skies had broken open, and dirty snow started to fall around them as winter came early. Traces of it fell in her hair and didn't melt, flakes fell on her face and left spots of ash.

"This wasn't supposed to happen." He told her, breaking into pieces all around her. "It should have been me." She huffed a little, and tears pricked his eyes. "I - I don't know how to fix this. I can't fix this." He whispered, and his magic wrapped around them tighter, wavering as her own failed. "The Charms, if I had the Charms, I…"

But they were gone. Gone and taken, and she had accepted their loss. The Knight couldn't.

"Sir." Lieutenant Douli approached him warily. "The wound is too deep. She - she isn't going to make it."

"Bezel." Her eyes were drifting shut, and he shook her, startling her back to awareness. "Bezel! Where is she? Where is our daughter?! Please!"

Another labored breath full of blood came, and her voice came back faintly. "Gone. Away. Safe." Her eyes started to close again. "Loved."

"No. Nonono, NO! Bezel, please! Stay with me, you can't go!" The Knight begged, holding her and feeling her body grow cold. His magic burned as he screamed in his mind. Why couldn't he save her? Why couldn't he save anyone he cared about?! It all turned to grief and dust around him, and save for her hair that was speckled with snow and ash, it seemed like everything turned gray around him. His knights gasped.

"Sir, your - your aura!" Words he heard and ignored. His magic was failing too. It sank into him and burned as it froze him to the bone, and he didn't care. He couldn't save Bezel. He…
He didn't have time.

She found the energy somehow to smile at him, her attention focused on his face as everything else slowed down. Those warm emerald eyes of hers that had always sparkled with life and a joke he'd never understood were so dull now. So dull and so full of pain. She couldn't speak, but she mouthed three words, and they tore him apart.

I. Love. You.

In the silence of a steadily increasing snowfall of gray and white, there was no sound but her fading breathing, and the soft sobs of his last bit of life left her with an exhale that stole the last bit of warmth from her. Bezel's eyes went dark as her body went still. The Knight pulled her tightly against his chest, weeping...

...And The World Froze Around Him.

Author's Note: There was a Tumblr post once about how authors sometimes begin a story with a single scene in mind, and then flesh out the rest of the tale to weave the story to get to that point. For me, this story began on June 19th, 2019, when I was talking to Shadows about Bezel and I came up with this last scene. It's taken me a year to tell the story, just to end up where I began.

I know that some of you will not be happy with how it ended, but Stone In The River was clear that the fall of Atlantis didn't come with a happy ending. As a character from a semi-famous fantasy novel once said, "There are no happy endings, because the story never ends." But the pieces are in play. The Charms of Bezel exist and are scattered. A time travel spell that Gwendolyn Tennyson will one day find as part of the Sirocco Expedition is tested and lost to history. And in a world behind a dimensional veil, the land of Legerdomain is inhabited by people who will grow and evolve along a different path from the rest of humanity.

It's been a hard story to tell, but a good story. A rewarding one. Thank you for taking this journey with me. Thank you for sticking it out to the end. We'll see you for the next story in the LM-Verse.

-Erico