There wasn’t really much that could possibly be more depressing than this funeral, Corvin thought. Palom’s funeral.
No, that wasn’t quite correct. There was one thing that could be more depressing. Which was why he wasn’t at a different funeral, a funeral held in a different nation on the opposite side of the earth.
His eyes were reddened from crying. Had been red for four days, now. He woke each morning with tears in his eyes, and bedded down each evening with the same. His fault, all of it. If he could have turned his blade at the critical moment, his sister would be alive, now. She had been bound, to Vashin, and died with him. Corvin hadn’t touched her with his own steel, but the fault was his just the same.
Logic dictated otherwise. Memory gave him the explanation for the thousandth time.
"When the sword turns black, like it did for you...that only happens when you hate your enemy so much that only blood will satisfy the hate. And when it’s like that, you can’t hold back. It can only end in death. Conscious will has nothing to do with it...hatred can’t be faked, and neither can its lack.
"In short, you killed him because you had no other choice. The sword’s will supplanted your own. I don’t blame you, and you shouldn’t blame yourself, because it is not your fault. If anything, it’s mine, for giving you the sword in the first place."
Logic wasn’t very comforting, but it was the only thing Corvin had to hang on to. So he did.
Hundreds of wizards sat in the huge stone amphitheater, located just south of the foot of Mount Ordeals. A hundred feet tall, six hundred in diameter, it was used only for the funerals of the greatest wizards of Mysidia.
Palom lay on a simple stone platform at the very center. His body, which had been nearly unrecognizable when recovered, was now perfectly and completely healed. His own sister’s work? Maybe. Corvin wasn’t sure. No wood was included for his funeral pyre; it wasn’t needed. He would go as he had lived, by magic.
Why am I here? he thought. Why here, and not in Eblan? Shouldn’t I be at home, at Eblan, to see Caitlin committed to the earth? Don’t I owe her at least that much?
Does it matter? he responded to his own thought. Does it? She’d dead; she won’t be offended. But if I go there, if I see it, I’ll remember her that way, remember her as an enemy who fell by my own hand. I don’t want that. She deserves more than that, a different kind of memory. I’d rather remember the training, the magic, the laughter in corners and the sneaking around behind Mom and Dad’s backs. That’ll be destroyed, if I see her there....
Maybe so. But you still owe her the respect, even if you would be unhappy with it.
Corvin shrugged uncomfortably. His thoughts always reached this point, when he thought about it for any length of time greater than a few seconds. And with the events so recent, it was difficult not to think about it. He tried, though.
"Are you all right?" Ophelia asked him, concerned.
"No," he said simply. And it was true. He wasn’t.
She sighed, and put an arm around him. He returned the embrace as if he held to her for support, and maybe he did. Certainly, it seemed that she was all that had kept him sane these last few days.
Edward’s pyre had been lit the night before, thousands of miles away. Corvin hadn’t been there for it. Cecil had, though. So had Kain. He knew, because they had left Baron on the same ship that carried Edward’s body.
His mother and father had gone back to Eblan. As I should have, he thought, but forced it down. His sister would be buried with the others of the royal family, deep in the caverns that had become a refuge for his people, long before he was born. The same would be done for him, someday.
"They’re starting," Ophelia whispered.
And indeed they were. The Elder, dressed in robes of pure white and holding a six foot gnarled wooden staff in one ancient hand, had begun speaking.
We are gathered here, today, Corvin thought along with the words, to honor and give back to the elements a wizard of the highest order, Palom of Mysidia, and to comfort those still living after his death. We are here to watch over his return to the elements.
From up here, near the top of the amphitheater, the words ought to have been nearly inaudible. But they weren’t; carried by magic, they could be heard from the farthest reaches. But Corvin didn’t hear them, not really. He heard the sound of battle, swords and spears and arrows and magic clashing upon the fields before Baron.
Baron, he thought. For all purposes, now a dead nation. There were a few outlying towns - Lenae, Verreneer, Denn, a couple others - but with the people of the capital city and Castle Baron itself nearly exterminated, it was a nation without a heart. Of the people that had lived there, barely a thousand remained. The nation could be rebuilt, but Corvin doubted he would see it within his lifetime.
...and in time of need, his magic was the first called for and the first provided. Though in his youth, and indeed throughout his life, he gave a pretense of being less than idealistic, in the end he proved himself otherwise. And though it killed him, he would have...
Corvin stopped listening, let the words flow over him like water. At the very least, he could tell himself that this death was not his fault, and believe it. But that didn’t help much; he had known Palom since childhood, and the loss was yet another support pulled from beneath his feet.
He wondered how Porom must be taking it. They had both lost a sibling, now.
She would be the one to light the pyre, with her own magic. How she intended to make fire with white magic, Corvin neither knew nor cared. But he could understand a little bit of her pain. Not all of it, but a little.
...for, at the last, he gave his own lifeblood to do the right. May we spend a few moments, in thoughts and speech, to remember his sacrifice.
It was an indication that, for a few minutes at least, the mourners could discuss the dead wizard’s life and death, or life and death in general. It was for remembrance; but remembering was the very last thing Corvin wanted to do. Infinitely easier, if he could just...forget....
He looked down at his left hand - or rather, where his left hand should have been. No...he would never be able to forget. That missing limb would be a reminder every day of his life. A fitting punishment.
"I wonder what he thought of it?" Ophelia asked softly.
"Hmm?"
"Of what he did. With his magic, his power. What did he think, when he killed somebody? He could handle it, couldn’t he?"
And I couldn’t, Corvin finished for her in his mind. He remembered a single shared glance, between him and Palom, as he held Ophelia in his arms, and she cried over the body of a man she had killed. And I couldn’t.
"Somehow," Corvin whispered, "I think he understood."
"Did he? Did he really? Does anyone undenfulnd? Do I understand? I don’t know, I don’t know...."
She wept against his shoulder for a few moments, but it didn’t stand out, or bother anyone. More than enough of those gathered now shed tears.
"I won’t be able to kill anymore, will I?" she said at last.
"No," Corvin said, "I suppose not."
"Can’t say I’ll regret the inability."
Thinking of the moment it had ended, of the moment that black blade had cleaved Vashin’s skull in two, Corvin nodded. "No...I suppose not," he said again.
The few moments before the ceremony began, seemed an hour and a second. And then it was over; all were silent.
Hundreds of white and black-robed wizards, a few in violet for those that could use both sides, focused their eyes and their thoughts on a single, similarly robed figure who exited a gate in the side of the north end of the amphitheater. Porom’s hair, normally tied back in a ponytail, was now let down. The hood of her robe was tossed back to bare her head. She wore no shoes, not for this. How much must it hurt, Corvin thought, to perform the funeral rites of one’s own brother?
He hadn’t even found the strength to attend Caitlin’s. How much would it take to actually do it? He didn’t know. More strength than he had, certainly.
She had difficulty standing, beneath that gate; Velerin was there to support her. But when Porom stepped out, he stayed back. The Elder had vanished, by the power of some magic. She approached the stone pyre alone.
She raised her voice to speak, but it wasn’t to address the mourners; it was a spell. Head tilted back, looking at the sky, she threw her arms up to the stars and chanted in a voice to shake the stone beneath her feet. There was sorrow in that voice, terrible sorrow, yet determination.
Corvin watched Palom’s face. The face that soon would not be there, would not exist except as ashes in the wind.
He wished he’d sat closer to the front. He could have seen better. But he wasn’t sure he would have chosen to, if he’d had the chance.
I shouldn’t be here, he thought yet again.
No. But I am.
The thought crossed his mind that perhaps this inner dialogue, endlessly repeating over the last few days, was an indication of insanity. He couldn’t bring himself to care if it was.
White fire, White magic, leaped up around the pedestal, a roaring blaze of power that caught on Palom’s clothing and burned. Corvin couldn’t tear his eyes away. It took only seconds, heartbeats. But it seemed like forever as Palom’s body slowly burned to ash, and a warm wind brought by magic came to draw the ash up into the arms of the sky.
It’s my fault, he thought. Not this death, though. Hers. In his mind’s eye, the burning body on the pyre was not Palom’s, but Caitlin’s. It is my fault.
A remembered voice. The Elder’s, from four days beforehand. It is not your fault. There is no fault.
He didn’t believe it. But, he thought as the white flame consumed Palom’s body, that doesn’t make it any less true.