[RPG] [AT][MI] Anton Anaris ~ Eyes of Flame

[Timothy Collett]

Anton looks northward.  Curse it, it will cost us days to detour to  
the west...but it would cost more than that if we were captured.

He turns his horse back to the northwest, and urges it into a fast  
walk, catching up with the eight remaining men of the Banner of the  
Sun quickly.  They grumble, but walk on, exhausted as they must be.   
Anton himself feels tired to his very bones... Something is  
wrong...I've fought far from home before; I've lost major battles  
before, as General and as a common soldier.  What's so different  
now?  Why do I feel so tired?

He shakes his head and continues to ride.

The miles slowly fall behind, and the men fall into their long-march  
rhythm, one foot in front of another, the horse's hooves striking in  
an even beat...it is almost hypnotic.  So much so that before long,  
Anton's head is nodding.  He has slept in the saddle before, plenty  
of times...but combined with his deep weariness, this sleep leaves  
him without the usual semiconscious attention to the ride that he  
usually maintains.  After just a few minutes, he starts to slide to  
the right, little by little, until all at once he falls from the  
saddle and knocks his head on the hard ground.

Spooked, the horse runs off to the other side of Anton's troops, who  
catch the beast and calm it, while a couple of them run to see to  
their leader.  "General Anton, are you all right?" asks one.

Anton blinks muzzily, his eyes pointed straight at the sun, and gets  
an eyeful before squinting them shut again.  Behind his closed  
eyelids, he sees two burning dots...like eyes of flame, gazing at  
him, piercing his soul...filled with disappointment.

Quickly, he turns his head and opens his eyes again, focusing on the  
face of the man who had spoken.  "Yes, I'm fine...Lathan.  I guess I  
must have dozed off...it's just a little bump on the head.  Now come  
on, let's get back moving!  We need to make Shanandoah before the  
snow flies!"

He stands, and winces briefly from the pain, doing his best to hide  
it from his men.  He makes it back to his horse without more than a  
little wobble, and once he's back in the saddle, he doesn't have to  
worry about staggering about...though it would be nice if his head  
didn't throb so with every step.

***

Night falls.  The Banner of the Sun make camp, and everyone is  
quickly asleep, after a long, hard march, and knowing that they will  
need to rise early to march further.  Anton's head continues to  
throb, and sitting staring into the campfire seems to make it worse,  
as well as reminding him uncomfortably of those burning eyes... He  
stumbles off to his tent, and collapses into his bedroll.

Almost as soon as he closes his eyes, it seems, he finds himself in  
the midst of a melee.  He is fighting for his life among people he  
does not recognize, wearing colours not of any realm on Atamara.  His  
sword in his hand, he lays about him, trying desperately to determine  
who might be on his side in this fight.  It doesn't take long to  
realize that no one is: he is on his own.  He fights tirelessly,  
trying to work his way to one edge of the battlefield, but there  
doesn't seem to be an edge to it anywhere.  Eventually, he starts to  
recognize the combatants: on one side are the forces of Jilak  
Darkmoon, who have oppressed the lands near his own for decades, and  
on the other, his own people.

As soon as he realizes this, he tries not to fight them anymore, and  
to call out to them instead.  But rather than welcome him as a  
brother-in-arms, they yelled contemptuously to him, "Who are you to  
call us brother?  You fight for another now!"  When he hears that, he  
is astonished, and drops his guard for a moment...and a mace comes in  
toward his face.

In an instant, he is standing outside his manor in Lothruin, looking  
along the road leading away.  Unlike the road he remembers, which  
heads straight for the nearest town, this road forks.

Anton looks down the left fork.

He sees himself in Tarimal once again, standing outside the  
headquarters of the Acoranth, the elite border-runners, first line of  
defense against all threats...he is a Captain in their ranks.  Beside  
him stands his brother, Delvin, also a Captain, and a lovely young  
woman with fiery red hair.  In his hand is the Sunsword.  He points  
it forward, and leads two sheaves of Acoranth out to the northern  
borders of the forest.  There, they battle the forces of Darkmoon,  
human and inhuman alike, defeating them and defending their  
homeland.  On returning home, they go to the temple of Arelien, as  
they always do when returning from the field.  They kneel before the  
sacred flame, first bowing, then raising their faces to look at it.   
When Anton looks into it, he sees eyes looking back at him--the eyes  
of Arelien, eyes of flame.  They sear into his soul, questioning him  
silently: Is this your way of living up to your code of honour--my  
code of honour?

Anton looks down the right fork.

He sees his sword hanging on a wall, behind a sacred flame: it is a  
temple of Arelien.  In the congregation, he sees soldiers wearing the  
blue-and-white of Minas Ithil...and others in the blue, white and  
gold of Falasan, and the blue and yellow of Eston.  Looking down, he  
sees himself wearing the red and gold robes of a priest of Arelien.   
He speaks to the congregation, and they bow before the sacred flame.   
They walk away afire with the inner glow of Her light, and he ascends  
to an upper room, and looks on a map of Atamara.  It seems that  
Lothruin is aflame...but the map is not consumed.  The flame spreads,  
throughout Minas Ithil, into Falasan, Eston, Norland, west to Darka,  
south to Carelia and Ash Sea Islands...he descends the stairs again,  
and rather than the small temple he was preaching in before, he is in  
a cathedral, and there are many hundreds of worshippers here, all  
following the path of Arelien.  The congregants leave again, and he  
turns to the sacred flame.  Once again, he sees Her face in it, her  
eyes burning into him, asking: Is this your path, to spread your code  
of honour--my code of honour--across this new land?

He stands at the fork in the road once more, and turns south.  His  
vision speeds south, passing mountains, deserts, cities...until it  
finds a tent, at a small encampment, and flies in through the open  
tent flap, to look upon his own sleeping form.

***

Anton awakens, feeling deeply shaken, but surprisingly refreshed-- 
much more so than in recent nights.  His headache is gone, and his  
mind is remarkably clear.  Looking out of the tent, he sees that it  
is nearly dawn--time to break camp.  He startles the watchman, and  
has the soldiers pack everything up in record time.  They all seem  
much more alert than the day before, and are eager to be on the road  
again.

As they travel on northwest, Anton ponders deeply the dreams of the  
night.  The meaning is clear enough to him.  Arelien has given him  
two choices: to return to Terash, to his home in the Golden Wood, and  
fight for their freedom, or to spread Her worship here on Atamara.

If he does not choose one of these two paths, sooner or later, he  
knows that he will never find rest from the eyes of flame piercing  
deep into him, demanding of him whether he is truly living up to his  
code of honour.

--

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart."
  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://news.battlemaster.org/pipermail/rpg/attachments/20060731/94e6ca8c/attachment.htm