Who Lives By The Sword
by Alicia McKenzie
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel, and are used without permission for entertainment purposes only.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Very experimental on my part, just to warn you. ;)
Sunlight glinted off steel as he turned the blade in his hand. His eyes followed each ripple, a meditation exercise in and of itself.
So archaic, the blade he held in his hand; such a redundant weapon in the world of this century. Yet the blade he held in his hand had drunk its fill, time and time again. Baptized with blood as it spilled out the life of the boy who had made the mistake of challenging his leadership for a third time; sated on the battlefield when guns and psimitar had failed, and all that had been left to do was make the blade dance on his behalf.
He'd never fenced, in this century. He could have. He could have fenced like this century had never seen. She had taught him how to dance with this blade, like she'd taught him how to dance with the psimitar.
They'd never seen him dance, not once. They saw what he wanted them to see; the mercenary, whose fighting style was a brutal, practical thing.
Put your opponent down before he put you down.
There was no beauty in the way he fought as the man he'd become, and that sometimes drew a protest from the man he'd been.
False duality. He drew the blade through the air, tilting it back and forth. Sunlight and shadow, he thought; the two sides of him. The man who loved too much and the man who knew too much.
Faith and fanaticism.
The psimitar was for the Chosen One. The gun was for Cable. But the sword was for the leader of the Clan Chosen, the man he'd never been intended to be.
So maybe the duet was a trio after all. The dark and the light and the middle grund he'd never been allowed to walk.
***
"It is refreshing to see you so calm."
He'd misplaced the sword, somewhere. A pity. He should have kept it, could have used it on the voice.
The cold, implacable Voice.
"It makes things easier for all of us."
Movement around him. Adjustments made, readings taken. A hum of machinery that was really a gospel choir somewhere out there in the darkness. Humming something softly.
Amazing grace. Amazing grace--
He opened his eyes and let the dark shine in. It was always dark when the Voice came, which sometimes made him laugh, because he knew the Voice knew he knew who the Voice was, and what the Voice wanted.
But then, the Voice only wanted him to see what the Voice wanted him to see, so maybe it made sense after all.
"Do I take this to mean you've accepted your lot?" An edge of amusement in the Voice. "I should have known. I AM giving you your heart's desire."
Pain, stabbing pain in his arm. The same as the time before, and the time before that, and back as long as he had been here and the Voice had been here. It pulsed through his body like purifying fire.
The light that burned, not the light that warmed. He felt it drawing him into its embrace, changing every cell in his body.
"Excellent," the Voice pronounced. "Everything is proceeding well, Nathan."
No, not Nathan. This wasn't Nathan. Nathan wasn't the fire. Nathan was human, hopeful or jaded, strong or simply hard.
This was what was beyond Nathan.
***
He'd found it again. He'd known he would, once the pain stopped and he could concentrate, could remember the feel of it in his hand. The cool weight, its song as it cut the air.
Two slashes, intersecting each other, slicing the air open. He saw the X hang there for a moment and then fade as the air healed from its wounds.
Dreams faded, or died screaming on the sands. As soon as he thought it, the dream walked up and look him right in the eye. It was a sad dream, he thought, watching it run its hand through brown hair and adjust ruby-quartz glasses.
Sad dreams, dark dreams, dreams that hurt too much not to be real. Those were Cable's, and Cable was who had gotten him here, after all. Interesting. Maybe he didn't like being both Nathans. Maybe Cable was as bad as the fire, in the end.
The dream reached out a hand to him.
He cut it off at the wrist. The dream sighed and bent over, retrieving its hand and shaking it at him almost ruefully.
"Manners, Nathan Christopher."
***
"I said manners," the Voice continued calmly. "If you can't behave, I'll have you put in restraints."
Something was lying on the floor, screaming, clutching at its midsection, but the blood was already spreading in a puddle beneath it. He watched impassively as the others dragged it away.
Too bad. He'd been saving the knife for the Voice. Well, it hadn't been a knife, it had been his fist. But he'd been practicing, and his fist could be a knife if he tried hard enough.
"It's dead."
"It doesn't matter. I'll grow a new one. But I see we need to increase your dosage."
Increase his dosage. The words made no sense. Very little of what the Voice said, did. He supposed it meant everything would go back to the way it had been before, distant and unimportant.
Another one of the things he had killed would be grown, and it and the others would come back. He wondered if the Voice knew what its things did when the Voice wasn't here. Probably. He wondered when it had ceased to matter to him. It had at the beginning, hadn't it? He remembered fighting until he couldn't fight anymore. Now he just walked away from his body and came back when it was over.
Easier that way. There was no pride left here, no reason to fight. The Voice had stripped all his defenses bare back at the beginning, peeled away all the shields, all the defenses that were too deep and instinctive to be shields, until everything he was, everything he had been, was open and raw and bleeding.
The blood was still on the floor. He reached out and dipped his hand in it. The blood didn't want to let go of his hand, but he pulled determinedly, and it subsided back into its puddle with a snarl. He nodded slowly, and trace the symbols on his face.
"Really, Nathan." The Voice sounded exasperated.
Three lines on his cheek. The bird on his forehead. It flew away as soon as he drew it, beating bloody wings and crying out in the voices of the dead. He watched it go, licking the rest of the blood off his hand thoughtfully.
Salt. They'd salted the earth, hadn't they? Using modern chemicals, of course. Defoliants. Horrors like that. But nothing had grown there, after.
Dirt could be as bad as sand when it was dead. But when it was alive--after the rain, in the spring, when you could smell the life in its, it was different. He reached down and took some of it in his hand, squeezing it tightly.
A little bit of earth. Earth and fire didn't mix. Maybe that was why the two hims had hated each other, why one had had to die.
"I'm afraid I'll need you to give that back, Nathan." The Voice was sounding amused again. "Clever of you, but I can't allow you to damage yourself. Hand it over."
He threw the star to the floor at the Voice's feet. Odd that a star would make a noise like that when it hit the ground, a metal-against-metal noise that echoed in the silence. He'd always thought a falling star would cry when it hit the earth.
"Better." The star floated up to sleep trustingly in the Voice's hand.
No stars for him. No moon, no stars. Only the sun over the desert, harsh and unforgiving.
"Hold him down," the Voice said, and they pinned him down, down against the cold ground, the dead earth, and smothered him with the starless night.
***
The forest came looking for him when it was over. He wanted to tell it he was grateful, but it wasn't there for conversation, it told him. It only wanted to watch.
So he danced for it, there in the clearing, leaf-dappled light playing off the sword. He danced until his legs wouldn't hold him and he sank to the mossy ground.
He laid the sword across his knees and listened to the wind.
Hands fell on his shoulders, slim and graceful hands, hands he knew from the days when they'd held him and guided him and never let him fall. He reached up to take her hands in his, but as soon as he let go of the sword, it disappeared.
He cried out in rage, grabbing her hands and throwing her to the ground, pinning her there.
Her mouth opened, but all that came out was the whispering of the wind. Tears slid down her cheeks, pooling like crystal drops in her hair.
Stop. Stop.
He leaned back, let her sit up, and her hair fell across her face like a curtain as she wept. A curtain of fire.
He reached out to draw it back, and flinched as he saw the change in her. Green eyes had turned flat and feral, highlighted in shimmering black circles. Blood-red lips curved in a smile, showing sharp teeth.
She lunged forward, bearing him to the ground. He laid there and stared up at her as she sat calmly on his chest.
Her hands were moving fluidly, like a dancer's, and her smile grew as she pulled the knife out of her sleeve.
It flashed in the sunlight, and she raised it high, bringing it down with all of her strength.
It shattered like glass, splitting into twelve crystal birds that flew away, calling mockingly.
She smiled down at him, and reached into his chest, nimble fingers seeking, probing for his heart.
***
"I've brought you something, Nathan." The Voice held it out to him. It glimmered gold in the dark, dangling from the Voice's hand. "Do you remember this?"
So that was where his heart had gone. How typical. He'd laid there while she'd searched for it, until she'd gotten frustrated enough to open up his chest, peeling away skin and muscle and bone until it was open so that everyone could see the dark where his heart had been.
They'd all laughed and then gone about their business, laughing at her. She'd stood there in the corner and watched, waiting until they were gone.
He could still feel her kiss on his forehead, where the bird had been. She'd kissed him and promised she'd come back for him, told him that she knew where he was now and nothing would get in her way.
He wished she'd save him or kill him, one or the other. It was so flonqing confusing when she did both. Like she was two different people. But then, he knew all about that, didn't he?
"Nathan. Pay attention to me when I'm talking to you." The Voice tossed his heart to him, and he caught it without thinking. "You do remember that, I trust."
"It's my heart," he said in the rusty voice that wasn't his.
The Voice was silent for a moment. "Your heart," the Voice said, sounding skeptical. "Interesting."
He picked it up, held it in its hand. A cold heart. They'd always said that, hadn't they? He opened his mouth to laugh, and then closed it again.
He wasn't supposed to laugh. Or smile. Or love. He was supposed to fight and hate and kill and burn down the universe so that it could rise again from its own ashes.
So maybe his heart could never have been anything but cold.
He cursed, and the words came out music as he hurled his heart back at the Voice. "Keep it," he sang.
"Interesting," the Voice said again. "Maybe this, then?" Something that was gold, but larger. Gold and red. Eyes. A vision. The Voice was holding a vision.
The Voice wasn't supposed to touch that vision.
"You wore this for him. Do you remember that?"
He remembered, and snatched it from the Voice's hand, holding it to himself, rocking back and forth. "It was on the sand," he croaked, the music gone. "I picked it up."
"And you wore it as part of your uniform. A bizarre sort of tribute, but touching, I suppose." The Voice knelt down in front of him, reaching out and tilting his face upwards, staring into his eyes measuringly.
He didn't like that. He looked sideways, down and away, anywhere but into the doorways that were the Voice's eyes.
"Look at me, Nathan."
He didn't want to.
"Very well." The things came forward and picked him up, carried him on their shoulders to the pyre and threw him on.
"Is it so hard, Nathan?" The Voice asked from the other side of the fire. "It's what you want. It's what you were born to do. All I'm doing is helping you."
The flames danced around him. He held tightly to the visor, as the other him walked out of the forest, carrying the sword, and cut his way through the fire.
"You don't have to do this," that him said to him.
"I have to do this."
"It's not your choice."
"I never had a choice."
"Yes," he said contemptuously, "you did." He lifted the sword, and the light playing off it was morning light, not firelight. "You could have fought."
"There were too many." They had torn him apart, and fought over the bloody scraps.
"They aren't real," he said, lifting the sword again. "This is real. You never really wanted anything but this. This was your world, and you LET them take it away from you."
The dream was standing where the Voice had been. It stepped through the flames and stood there, waiting. Both hands were intact once more, and it reached out with them, mouth moving silently.
He sat up on the pyre and took off the dream's glasses.
It smiled at him. "I can see you," it said. "Nathan, wait."
***
"WAIT! Nathan, no!"
"Go, Nathan," the Voice said calmly as the scream faded. "You can leave now."
There was no sword. No psimitar, no gun. He looked around, frowning. He couldn't go without one of them. His hands were empty, and they shouldn't be.
"Any time you're ready, Nathan," the Voice said. "Look at me, and step through."
The doors yawned open in the Voice's eyes, beckoningly.
"Get out of my way or I'll kill you!" that other voice snarled. "NATHAN!" The voice was full of tears and rage. They went together almost as well as tears and blood.
"I need--" His voice creaked like a door that hadn't been opened in a very long time.
"No, you don't," the Voice said, patiently. "I already explained that to you."
The dream was bending over him, speaking to him in a low, urgent voice. Telling him to stay.
#Nathan, don't listen to him! Stay!#
Hands. Hands and hands and hands. He lifted his hand and the dream reached out to take it, clasping it tightly, smiling with relief and joy.
And then the dream was a sword, light as a feather, light as his heart. He rose, and turned in the dance. Blade raised to the moon, sweeping down through the stars, straight into the Voice's throat.
And the doors that were the Voice's eyes screamed, lava bubbling up from its depths, molten hate and rage that screamed at him and burned him and slashed him to pieces.
Someone was screaming his name in a hopeless, anguished voice. He felt himself pulled away from the fire by strong arms, heard another voice cursing desperately.
Burning. Still burning. But did he have to burn? No light lasted forever. The leaves fell, the trees died, the sun turned cold.
But all winters passed, and spring was a gentle season. He could close his eyes and wake up the man he wanted to be once more, if he had faith.
He didn't have to burn.
"Nathan," the dream breathed, and he was looking up at it from the floor. From the warm, soft earth.
Blood and earth. Not nearly so antithetical.
The sword was in his hands, warm and weightless. He held it tightly. His world. The only one he wanted.
Someone was bending over him, someone who was weeping and shouldn't be. Her hand touched his where it rested on the hilt of the sword. The dream fell to its knees on his other side and did the same.
"Stay," it said. "I need to know that you're all right."
#Nathan, stay awake,# she was crying. #Stay with me.#
There were flowers pushing up out of the earth all around him, tiny white flowers like stars.
The moon and the stars. Gentler light.
They sang to him, and he closed his eyes to listen.
fin