Palskane said:
Boy, it sure would be swell to see some more fiction involving Cedric. At least to see how things fare with the seige.
Golly.
Unfortunately, with my campaign story hour taking all my D&D-based writing time, I haven't been doing anything more with Cedric and the siege. However, I did write the following, which is about Cedric's actual moment of becoming a paladin. This story is not purely fictional but is part of an actual campaign. As I've mentioned earlier, I'm currently running Cedric as a PC in a game run by Rolzup, author of the Chronicle of Burne in my sig. The game began before he achieved paladinhood and the moment just arrived. Since it's happening off-camera, with nobody else present, I did the following writeup for it.
A little context is required for it, since some people and events are mentioned, so here goes: Cedric, the son of a shopkeeper, was mentored by Pavane, a reformed assassin, and taught to be a warrior and a worshipper of Shar. The city-state they are in has a monotheistic religion, worshipping Shar, a solar deity. Though Cedric didn't work for the Church, he knew many people there, including Adara, one of the holy warriors of the Church (mechanically duskblades, called Dawnblades). Shortly after Cedric became an adventurer, working with the other PCs, he obtained a sentient sword called Ashad, which is actually the spirit of a worshipper of Shar who died a century ago. Only days after that, Pavane was kidnapped, tortured and brutally killed by one of Cedric's enemies. Cedric had a serious meltdown, killing the murderer and burning his gang's headquarters, and repudiating the worship of Shar. A couple of weeks after that, Adara's fiance Cadath (another Dawnblade) was also murdered. The PCs had got involved with a job which they might not survive, and so Cedric had decided to try and have a face-to-face discussion with his (former) deity, in case he never got a chance to do that again. And that's where the story begins.
Confused yet? Anyway, hope you still enjoy the story anyway. And if you recognize any touches from Terry Pratchett in there, as have been in some of the earlier pieces of fiction too, don't be surprised.
* * * * * *
The Making of a Paladin
Cedric looked around the room one more time. The door was locked and barred, and the others had been told not to disturb him. It was time.
He sat down, cross-legged, and then blew out the candle. For a moment, darkness enveloped him. Then he picked up the sword he had placed by his side, and concentrated. Instantly, orange flames ran up and down the blade, driving the shadows back into the corners. The specter of Ashad also appeared by Cedric’s side, the eternal wound on his chest looking black in the sword’s light. He looked around, puzzled, and then asked, “What are you doing, boy?”
“Quiet, Ashad.” The tone was calm, but deathly serious. The specter turned sword raised an eyebrow, opened his mouth, and then closed it.
Ignoring him, Cedric took a deep breath, looked up, and said in a loud voice, “Shar! I need answers from you.”
“What?” Ashad broke in. “Are you addled?”
Cedric didn’t answer, but continued to speak. “I am waiting, Shar. And here I will stay till you answer.”
“Whatever this is, you know it’s stupid,” insisted Ashad. “Now get up and stop making a fool of yourself.”
Cedric didn’t answer, ignoring the sword’s continuing remonstrations. He continued to sit, looking out at the darkness lit by the flames of the sword. With their upcoming visit to the House of Onyx, this was possibly the last opportunity he would have to address Shar face to face (though even he didn’t expect that would really occur, and wasn’t even sure what would). This was where he would stay. Shar would come to him, or he would go to Shar. He would wait till death, if he needed to. He would not eat, nor sleep…
* * * * *
Cedric came awake with a start, the sunlight bright on the side of his face. With a muttered groan he sat up, and then realized what had happened. Damn! Sometime during the night, after hours of sitting, he had dozed off after all. And now it was morning.
It took a couple of seconds for him to realize something was wrong. His bedroom was in the basement, with no windows. And the small fireplace, in front of him, was unlit. But he could feel the sun, behind him, on the inside of the room. Or, if not the sun, a fire of some kind. Though there was no flickering of the light as a fire would normally have, waves of heat were radiating against his back. Reflexively, Cedric began to turn, when …
“No!”
The word froze him on the spot, and it took a second to realize that he hadn’t actually heard it. Or, at least, his ears had not. It had gone straight into his mind, but as sure as he was alive, he knew someone … or some thing … behind him had spoken.
“Do not turn. You cannot look at me. No mere mortal may look at me at live.”
“Shar?”
“In a manner of speaking … yes.” The shocked Cedric didn’t realize it till a little later, but the voice had an undertone of amusement to it.
“You had something to say to me.”
Cedric’s befuddled mind raced. It couldn’t actually be true. Yes, knowing that he was going to a place that might kill him, angry and desperate for the answers he had been wanting for weeks now, he had called on Shar the previous night. But it couldn’t really be that He had answered. Could it?
“I am waiting.”
Cedric’s mind tried to formulate something approximating to an intelligent response or a question, but all he could come up with was “Why?” A small voice in his head said,
You realize you sound like a child, right? A moment later, a smaller voice said,
It’s fascinating how the smallest children and the greatest philosophers ask that question.
“Why?” echoed what Cedric was already beginning to call the Voice. To his exceeding surprise, and mild horror, there was a deep chuckle.
“Is that all?”
“Yes,” said Cedric thickly, his bewilderment slowly beginning to be joined by the anger and sense of wrongdoing that had driven him to call on Shar in the first place. “Why? Why did Pavane have to die? Why did Cadath have to be murdered? Your priests teach that Shar watches over all who worship him, and few gave their lives to you as those two did. As Adara, who was suffering now, still does. Why did these things happen?”
“Very well! I shall answer if you answer me one question too.”
“What?”
Huh?
“You think you know enough to question me. But let us be certain of that. Look down, Cedric Marne, and tell me – what do you know?”
Cedric looked down, into the large, sharply-etched shadow that he cast, silhouetted as he was by the blazing brightness behind him. His eyes roved back and forth, uncertain what the Voice meant. Wait! There was movement in the shadow. Somehow, though it did not turn any the less dark, something was forming within.
As he watched, a face swam into view. Pavane. He smiled up at Cedric, who was smiling back before he knew it. And then there was more movement in the shadow behind Pavane, whose mouth opened in a silent scream, as hands held him down and a jagged blade cut his remaining arm from his shoulder. And then, as Pavane thrashed like a newly caught fish, another blade cut his throat from ear to ear.
The shocked scream had barely begun to bubble up in Cedric’s throat as more scenes flashed into view. Cadath, slumping backwards, as blades bit into him again and again. Ashad, refusing to yield to impossible odds on a stricken field – and then going down under his foes as the kingdom he fought for fell into ruins behind him. Cedric’s father, now old and withered, weeping alone at the bedside of his dying wife. His adventuring companions – Davmorn, Beard, Quellen and Audhild – each going down to a grisly death.
As Cedric watched in uncomprehending horror, more such scenes flitted across the shadow before him. People he didn’t know, scores of them, dying in myriad painful ways. And it was not only death. Poverty, disease, every possible kind of crime, the ravages of old age, the destruction of empires, the petty cruelties and weaknesses of humankind – every possible image of the transience and vanity of human joy and hope flashed before Cedric’s eyes in the matter of moments.
The Voice speaks again, its tone now cold and hard,
“What do you know?”
This time, the words struck like hammer blows inside Cedric’s already reeling mind, and that, coupled with the strain of trying to grasp and understand all he was seeing, drove him over the edge. With a despairing gasp, Cedric’s mind retreated and fell back into itself, even as his body fell forward into the shadow.
* * * * *
The retreat into himself seemed endless, a flailing descent into a bottomless abyss, accompanied only by an endless, wordless scream.
Cedric fell, and as he did, everything that he knew or thought he could ever count on seemed to fly by him. The teachings of his mentor, the worship of Shar, the love of family, the company of friends, the belief that good must somehow prevail over evil – none of it had existence any more. He had already told himself about it, multiple times, but somewhere deep within, he had hoped that he might be wrong. But, as the Voice had just shown him, there was nothing of value, of goodness and purity, in all of human life, which would not finally come to corruption, death and nothingness. In the long run, there was only the abyss, and Cedric fell through it for what seemed to be centuries.
When he hit bottom, it was with a force that drove all the breath from his body, made the harder by the sudden return of physical life where there had been none. Cedric groaned and shook his head, as he tried to pull himself painfully to his feet.
“No,” said a voice, a strangely familiar one, “That’s not how you do it. You wait, gather your breath, and then stand up all at a go.”
Still groggy, but back on his feet, Cedric looked around. He was in what he first took to be a small pillared room, but somehow the walls always seemed a little further away than the point he looked at. Not that he really focused on them, since his attention was on the speaker, leaning against a nearby pillar. Maybe he was just past surprise at this point, but it didn’t really amaze him to be looking at himself. More precisely, an almost identical version of himself, who seemed to have a fixed smirk on his face.
“Who are you?” asked Cedric.
The other’s smirk widened. “I’m you, stupid. Specifically your Second Thoughts.”
“Second Thoughts?”
“Sure. You know whenever you’re thinking or doing something and there’s a little voice that corrects you? That’s me. Second Thoughts – to check that your First Thoughts are thinking right.” He grins. “I also create those rude quips you make.”
“Of course, he’s not really separate to you this way,” said a third voice, just like the previous two, but slightly older and more precise.
Cedric turned to see another image of himself, this one looking about thirty years older and wearing spectacles. The latter waved a hand to indicate the area around him, and continued speaking. “Just like this entire place doesn’t exist. It’s all a metaphor.”
“Third,” said Second Thoughts, shaking his head, “You always talk too much.”
“Third?”
“Yes. I’m your Third Thoughts. We don’t talk much, you and I, but I’m the bit of you that sees through things all the way. Not based on first impressions, not based on what’s smart or expedient – which was where Second comes in – but simply based on what they are. Like this was a metaphor. One that allows your mind, which doesn’t do as well with this as I think it should, to deal with this moment of self-awareness and clarity more easily.” He sniffed, a little dismissively. “Must come from reading too much of those fantasies Pavane had on the third shelf.”
“Can’t disagree with that,” said Second, who had evidently produced two flagons of beer from somewhere and was now seated at a table. “Want a drink?”
“No good,” said Third quickly. “That’s just a metaphor too.”
“And,” said Cedric slowly, “You are both inside my mind? So I’m inside my mind too?”
“No!” said Third quickly, “You’re imagining this entire process as a way of understanding the process you’re going through.”
Second, having taken a large swig of beer, nodded happily. “On a simpler and more positive side, you were just thinking ‘I’m all alone in the universe’ and ‘What can I count on’, right?”
“Err … yes.”
“Us.” Chorused both of the figures. “You can count on us. Wherever you go, there we are.”
They fell silent for a moment, but there was no response. Cedric was watching the two silently, a thoughtful look on his face. Third shrugged and continued.
“As long as you let yourself be aware of us, that is,” he said, “As well as….” Third stops, cast a look over his shoulder, yelled, “Crap!” and dived out of the way as a figure charged out of the darkness behind him.
The shape was only partly humanoid, supported mostly by its rear legs, but with front legs – or rather, long apelike arms – sometimes supporting its weight as it charged. Huge muscles covered its form, with a light coating of fur. The head was apelike and squat, pushed down between massive shoulders.
The creature rushed past Third and right up to Cedric, who backpedaled reflexively, before it came to a stop. Then it raised its head to gaze into his face. Cedric found himself looking into a visage that resembled his own, but twisted almost beyond recognition with fury. The two eyes were actually open flames, and as it opened its mouth and howled, he could see into a furnace within.
“That,” said Second conversationally, while he smirked at a slightly embarrassed looking Third, “is…”
“…the Beast,” completed another, almost identical voice, but with a steely quality to it.
Cedric looked past the Beast into the face of the figure that had stepped up behind it. This version of himself wore battered armor and had a sword strapped to his back, and one end of a long chain was held in his right hand. The other end, Cedric now noticed, ended in a large metal collar that encircled the Beast’s throat.
The armored figure nodded at Cedric, gazing at him with cold gray eyes set in a face that could be his, if carved from granite. “I am the Watchman. Where it,” he indicated the Beast, “goes, I go.”
“Though sometimes,” chuckled Second, “He arrives a little late.”
The Watchman turned to look coldly at Second, who quickly busied himself with another drink. Third, ignoring the two, said to Cedric, “The Beast was that part…”
“I know.” Third stopped and looked at him curiously. Cedric’s tone had been identical to the Watchman’s. He walked up to the Beast, to gaze directly into its face. The creature snarled, flecks of burning drool dripping from its mouth. Cedric held its flaming gaze levelly, and continued, half to himself, “I have met it before.”
Cedric felt the waves of hate and fury coming off the creature, and he thought back to the time when he walked into the lair of the Dock Blades, caring not whether he lived or died, wanting only to kill whatever stood between him and Pavane. He recalled the moment when he stood over Pavane’s corpse, and when he gazed at the flame enveloping his hand, which he could withstand only because it seemed cooler than the rage that consumed him from within. “Yes,” he said again, “I have met it.”
“Right,” said the Watchman, calmly coiling the chain around his arm.
Cedric stepped back and looked around the room. “I understand. All of you are part of me. And this was all I need to count on. And all I need to know.”
Third looked across at Second and smiled. “See – I told you he’d get it.” Second shrugged and took a sip of his drink, before asking, “So, Cedric – you sound like a man with a plan. What’s next?”
“Now I have to leave, but I’ll be taking you all with me. Always.” Cedric tapped his forehead. “Everybody get back in.” He stopped to grin at Third. “Metaphorically, of course.”
Third shook his head but walked up to Cedric, followed by a grinning Second, and then both of them seemed to merge into him. Cedric turned to the Beast. “You. I will not need you often, but sometimes I will call on your strength. And when I call, you will come to me for a time, and then you will be locked away until needed again. And you will never, ever, be completely free again. Is that understood?”
The Beast snarled in return and stepped closer, gnarled fingers flexing, but Cedric held its fiery gaze. It stopped, and after a couple of seconds, lowered its head and nodded slowly. Behind it, the Watchman’s stony face evinced mild respect, as he said, “And whenever it comes, I will be there, watching over it.”
Cedric nodded, and the two figures stepped forward together, passing into him too. He breathed deeply for a moment, and then said aloud, “The rest of you might as well come out too. I can feel you. And I need you all.”
And the various figures began to emerge from the darkness one by one…
* * * * *
Cedric opened his eyes and rose to his feet. As he did, he noticed the pain in his jaw and the taste of blood in his mouth.
Cut yourself when you fell, said a voice in his head.
Damn stupid way to have an epiphany! Cedric smiled slightly, recognizing the voices.
And then he said aloud, “Me.”
The Voice replied,
“What do you mean?”
“Me. That was your question, was it not? What do I know? I know – me.”
There was a pause, and then the Voice said, sounding slightly amused,
“That is a bold claim. Nevertheless, I will accept it. Do you want me to answer your question now?”
“No.”
This time, the Voice actually sounded curious, and even more amused.
“No? Is that not why you wished to speak to me?”
“Yes,” said Cedric calmly, “But I know the answer now. Or rather, that there is no answer you could give me.”
“Really?” The tone was dry.
“So – what will you do now?”
Cedric looked down at the shadow at his feet, within the inky depths of which scenes of horror still play back and forth. “I will do what I must.”
There was a pause and then the Voice said,
“Ah, you wish to be a hero. You think to stand against the dark. But you cannot win.” The Voice turns forbidding and stern.
“There is no victory against the dark. However glorious your deeds, in the moment of their doing they are doomed to eventual nothingness. Not a single action of yours will have lasting effect. You will lose. Finally, you will lose, and will come to darkness and death.”
Cedric shrugged. “Everybody dies.” And then he smiled. “And you’re wrong on a few counts.”
“Really?” Again, there was a hint of curiosity.
“I don’t wish to be a hero. I don’t expect to win. And I don’t expect my deeds to have a lasting effect. I simply intend to do what needs doing, here and now. Whether I’m successful – or have any chance of being successful – or not, is irrelevant.”
“So you will try to do what needs to be done, even if it cannot actually be done? Is that not … stupid?”
The response was out of Cedric’s mouth even before he consciously formulated it, “Have you
met me?” The grinning face of his Second Thoughts popped into his mind, as he continued, “It’s about what needs to be done, not whether I can win or lose.”
The Voice sounded singularly unconvinced.
“And why you?”
“Why not? Somebody needs to do it. And who should I count on other than myself?”
“So that is your decision? You will face the dark for the rest of your life, until it consumes you?”
“If need be. And I will not simply face the dark.” Cedric looked down at the shadow for a long moment, and then stepped forward. As he had expected, the shadow did not move, and a second later, his feet were inside it. “I shall stand within the dark.”
There was an even longer moment of silence, and then the Voice spoke. It was quieter, but there seemed a sense of genuine surprise to it, as well as a tinge of amusement, and perhaps … approbation?
“Within the dark? Did I not just show you that all things are consumed by the dark? Why would you stand within the dark?”
“Because now I know that the dark is also within me. And everyone else. How can I stand against the dark if I do not understand it? So I must stand within it.”
“In-teresting,” said the voice, now with a distinct tone of curiosity.
“And what do you expect of me?”
“Expect? Nothing.”
“Nothing? But you think to be a hero, to stand against – and within – the darkness. Would not the favor of Shar help you greatly? If you were a paladin of Shar, you could stand against the darkness in a way few can.”
A paladin? Damn! I hadn’t even considered that, thought Cedric, before another small – and precise – voice reminded him,
Perhaps not now, but reading the books in Pavane’s library, you did think of that at one time. Cedric nodded to himself and for a moment, silently searched his soul. And right now, there was neither desire, nor expectation – only certainty. Aloud, he said, “I’m sure it would. But that would be your decision now, wouldn’t it? And no, I do not expect it. I shall never again expect anything of you. But I will worship you.”
Again, there was a pause, and then a deep, rumbling chuckle.
“You call this worship?”
Cedric chuckled too. “Well, I didn’t say that I’d worship you like everyone else does, did I? But I will. Now I understand why we need you. It’s not because of what you can give us, though your bounty does make life easier. It’s because we need to know that there is a light which shines beyond the darkness, whether we can reach it or not, even if its existence in some ways helps create the darkness, and …,” he paused and chuckled again, “… all of that other fun stuff the theologians argue about. For me, I understand your Road now. And I shall walk it till I die, irrespective of what you do or do not – to, or for, me. This I promise. How you take that is … well, in your hands, my Lord.”
There was a longer pause this time, and then the voice said dryly, though it still sounded amused.
“Your form of reverence is positively breathtaking.” And there was an undertone of surprise again.
“Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”
A slow grin spread across Cedric’s face.
Whatever you are, whether Shar or a messenger or some figment of my imagination, you can be surprised. And I must do this, whether it kill me or no. He took a deep breath. “Nothing more, I think. But there is one thing more I must do.”
“What?”
And Cedric turned and faced into the light….
