Chapter 21: A Man Passes Through Fog and Emerges a Living Light, So Much More Than What He Was

A life worth living, one that leaves a trace, with cenotaph and captured loves and monuments behind an attic door. A life worth saving, one lived with other's hearts in mind, with verve and soul and eyes upon a goal set far too high to reach.

A tale worth telling, of sacrifice with deep meaning, with metaphor fit for ages all, a thread of constant learning and fuel for searing debate, an incendiary force that we were blissful without, but are so much better off for its writing. Its value never ends, and it cuts through us like a sword.

Is this Awondo's tale, and is his such a life? So little of him is known, other than that he lives on a mountain made of Mortal hands, or so he believes. Were not all mountains made by the Mighty?

Bronze without, and now bronze within, the Warrior of the Sun is what he needs to be to survive, and the fiery mistress who drives him thinks herself to blame. What manner of woman is Kari? See what you've observed, and ponder what others have said. She wants for love, for a man to hold, and has turned many to effigies of scars and ash in pursuit of her own satiety. Those who survived were easy prey for even worse creatures, and it was well enough for her to have them for the moment silenced. Well, here was a man she could touch, bronze without and now bronze within, able to speak with a voice she could readily discern, and could use to command the forces she also knew. But he did not embrace the voice she gave him, and fought to keep his innards soft. Would it be wasteful to offer her love to him?

Awondo rises high, closer to the Sun that birthed his power, the crown of the King he loves. He is the son of the Sun, and so he rides the winds to draw from its heat. Of those Mighty blessed with flight, those who ride on flames are of the most deadly. But Awondo is much more than a being of fire. He is a being of light, the Sun's light, golden and strong. The gift given him by the king he saw as a distant father felt not like an addition to his native essence, but a piece long missing now reunited with the whole. He strides now far above the ground, and holds power in his palms and sees it like a vapor rising from his feet. And still he is a man, Mortal in the scope of his thought and the context of his heart. The flame wielding warrior who pressed him into a full transmutation continued vexed, unable to turn him to the lord she knew he could be. Her arrows and spears and grenades are now mingled with honest rage, as well as her desire to train the man for the battle she drives him toward. She had hoped to craft him into a victor, but now she wonders if his death would really sadden her, as he has persisted in remaining small in his own eyes.

What matters to her is the death of the dark, so that forever the Sun might shine. She is glad that she kept a piece of the flame her father kept for Awondo, for its is the most important piece, the piece that contains a fragment of a Mortal soul. There the piece clung to the matter from which it was torn. Kari is glad she kept this most critical portion, though she works to stifle a thought that perhaps were the gift fully given, he might be given to the fullness of his Might. But she knows that as long as the prime material is withheld, the whole of the gift can be reclaimed, and so she keeps it to herself.

She drives him onward now, heading swiftly to catch up to their mark, training him rigorously along the way. On a day of rest she sees a thing she hoped to see, but was beginning to think that she might not. He stands as a Mighty one, his feet a cubit above the ragged ground of the northern dustlands. She was looking over the horizon for the dark bringer, who emerged southwest of where they were, when she heard a hissing sound and turned her head. Awondo had lowered to the ground, as tall he her almost and very strong. He took the dark greatsword in his hands and held it firmly, refusing to let its anger defy him. It blazes, black and cold, but the hands of bronze remain hot with the light of the Sun. It then turns to a black blaze, and it proves that the Jaguar King burns hotter than the dark one's sword. He lifts it and holds it over his head, and a beam of golden light runs down the blade, so that it appears to be a brand of black that glows with a gold and white aura. Kari looks at him through the flames that jet between her eyelids, and her ever smiling lips are glad. The piece of the gift that is tipped with a Mortal's soul gleams.

Awondo came beside her, the black sword in hand. With his eyes he peered into the distance. Through the power and radiance of Sunbeams he could see a shadow far away that grew and shrank, set against a pale fog that seemed the eye of a terrible storm. He asked what he saw, and Kari knew their task would be less daunting then she had anticipated.

"We have an ally," she told him.

"The pale fog?".

"Yes," she said.

"Another of the Mighty?"

She nodded. "A son of Selenne. His name is Sulimozifaron."

"He calls storms?". Awondo's voice boomed, even though his heart was calm.

"I would not say he calls them. Does one call tears, or anger? But he is the source of that tempest."

"He too hunts the dark bringer?"

Kari hesitated before answering. "I know little of Limo's motives. He is not known to be a rational being."

"How strong a being is Othomo?".

She hesitated again, then looked to the man Awondo. "Very. He is on a par with my father, though he is weak from a long time unconscious, severed from the source that bolsters his strength even further."

"Has that connection been restored, now that he is awake?".

She looked towards the battle and searched for the mark of the abyss. Flames are ever shifting, incendiary runes and dancers who with the movement of their bodies reveal secrets to those with minds attuned. One with the will to know sees more than the bending of light when staring into the heart of a fire. They see the weft and weave of life, the disparity that cuts between wet and dry, hot and cold, male and female, Mighty and Mortal. Kari sees the cold black sphere that is ringed with white fire above the faceless helm of Othomo.

"The link is restored," she says, reluctantly.

"And what is this source that bolsters his already considerable strength?".

She sighed. "His brother, the beast Hadeon."

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"You fear Hadeon?".

She nodded. "All fear Hadeon who know him."

"Hadeon is evil?"

She shook her head. "Hadeon is pain."

"Is pain not evil?".

She looked at her own hand, summoning flames from her fingertips. "Pain simply is.".

Awondo was silent, but Kari knew he would soon speak. She feared what he might say, but knew if she tried to prevent him she would never have his respect.

"Where is Hadeon?". He looked ahead, towards their mark. He seemed only partially aware of her.

She sighed in relief. "Locked away in a distant prison. Only through his brother's dark heart may he manifest."

Awondo stepped forward and raised a bronze hand over his brow. "There is a swirling cloud of dust, and I see, but not with my eyes, a rip in the world that bleeds a strange color."

Tension flowed between them in the manner of arrows during a battle. He doubted her, she could tell, but why he doubted her was still a puzzling matter to him. His bronze eyes glowed, and she became aware of his quickly burgeoning Might. Were she to give him the last portion of the gift, he would surely become terrible and dangerous. Her father was wise to lock it away and keep it a secret. But, many secrets had been spoken in the ongoing stupor his dream of Sulphina's death put him in. Kari had punished her for that, threatening to singe her precious long hair. The brat was too feeble in her material body to survive Kari's power, and in the great hall of Avon Lasair she was loth to summon beams from the Sun. A thought struck Kari then, as she pondered over Sulphina while stalling her answer to Awondo, hoping he would abandon his inquiry. He did not. He asked about the Nimbus Sanguine, wanting to know its name and nature and purpose.

"It's a doorway to etherium. It opens and closes, but is nothing for us to fear."

"Other Mighty could come through that door."

She shrugged, cozenly. "Perhaps, though it does not open into Titany, but a wild space where few have tread."

"Where Hadeon lives?". He turned and took her shoulder in his hand. His grip was a vise. "Do not lie to me, woman."

Her eyes blazed and she was ready to strike him, but she knew his grip was too strong to break easily, so she turned savagely hot and widened her smile. "Fear me or not, but remember whom we both serve. Would it do for a mongrel of some untended garden to lay a hand on the second daughter of Arun?".

"I will fight the one who threatens the crown of my king, and no one else. If the fight becomes unwinnable, I will depart until Othomo is alone. This is how it will be."

She wished to remind him who gave him his newfound strength, and who forced him to embrace it. It was very petty in her mind that he would be bitter toward her on that score.

"Limo is no threat to you, so long as you remain in my favor."

He let her go, but held her eyes with his. "He loves you?".

She shuddered. "All who see me love me, though they may not know it at first. Come. We may travel on the wind, but we have to hurry or we will be two and not three."

On the wind they rode, and with a flash they arrived, hoping to draw the dark one's attention skyward. But he ignored them, and by the time they came to the ground, there was only the ruin of some strange creature of a type Awondo had never seen. Wherever Othomo and the storm bringer had gone, they were beyond the sight of the children of the Sun.

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