Chapter 30

30.
         There was a strange feeling in the air around him, a stillness, a tense silence, as if something was holding its breath, as if the rock around him was watching him intently, waiting for the one crucial moment where a decision would have to be reached. The flickering lights from the candles danced in his vision and their wispy burnings were the only other sounds in the hallowed place.
         Tristian stared at the Agent, who was sitting with one leg calmly crossed over the other, his robes brushing gently against the floor, hands folded daintily over his knee. His head was cocked just a touch to the side, awaiting what Tristian had to say.
         Sometimes it's best to be direct. "What the hell are you doing here?" Tristian asked, hearing the raggedness in his own voice. He had been running himself too far down lately, running without pause, without rest. The shower he had taken in the castle felt a million years old, the dirt and blood and grime from a thousand battles heaping themselves back on him like he was a magnet for the stuff. Blood attracted itself to him and he couldn't resist it, a vampire for battle.
         "Would you believe waiting a thousand years for you?" Agent One answered quite seriously. Upon seeing Tristian's shocked expression, the Agent quickly amended himself. "No, no, actually that's not quite right, I really just got here a few minutes ago. Fortunately things always seem to work out that way."
         "But . . . but what happened to you. I saw you vanish and Johan and Michelle said they saw you . . ." saying the names of his companions reminded him that they were still outside, that they were still in grave danger. The pressures amounted on him from all sides, a million jabbering voices calling for his attention, pulling him in different directions. There were different duties for different people and he didn't know what to do. "We have to save them!" he said suddenly, "they're still outside, with the Dark Riders."
         "They'll be fine," Agent One replied and his voice was oddly somber. He blinked and seemed to sigh. "The elf has rather formidable powers and Michelle can augment his power with her magic. Even Johan has enough magic in him to hold off long enough." Then his voice turned dark. "And if we don't succeed here, then they'll be better off anyway."
         "What are you talking about?" Tristian whispered, trying to figure out at what point his world had gone crazy. A single night in an alley where two strange beings who looked like him saved his life from a group of muggers. That was the pivotal night right there and nothing since then had made it get any better. "What are we supposed to do?"
         "All in good time," Agent One said, waving a hand dismissively. He stood up and his chair vanished in a display of flickering crimson motes, dotting the air briefly before fading away. Arms clasped behind his back he came over to Tristian, staring him right in the face.
         He stared at Tristian for a few moments before nodding to himself and turning away, pacing around, hands clasped behind his back. "First things first, I guess. You were wondering what happened to me." Stopping and turning back around, he explained, "The Shadow dispersed me, and changed me so that when I went to reform, instead of being pure energy, I reformed as heat." He made a face at that. "Not only unpleasant but just a bit embarressing, to say the least." Then he gave Tristian a small smile. "Now do you believe me when I say I'm not perfect? But it took me a while before I could get the frame of mind to get back together." He held his arms out, his robes draped around him like a curtain. "And here I am."
         "Okay," Tristian said slowly, "but now what?" Then his voice turned firm and angry, perhaps out of confusion and frustration. He didn't know what was going on and he hated that. "And I get the feeling you haven't been entirely truthful with me."
         "Oh I'm not entirely truthful with anyone. Don't take it personally. Old habit, I'm afraid," Agent One said airily.
         "Yeah, well, why were those elves talking to me like they knew me . . ." Tristian said, pointing to the blank rock wall and beyond to where the elf was. "And why am I the only one who could enter here, why can't anyone else get in?" He looked around, narrowing his eyes as he stared around. "And just what is this place, it looks like a tomb but the elf said we were supposed to return the true king to life so we could fight the last battle." His tone showed that he wasn't sure how much of that he believed.
         "That's not what the elf said," Agent One said, and there was a darkening tone to his voice. "Michelle believed that the true king was going to return to life."
         Tristian shot the Agent a look. "So what is that supposed to mean? And how do you know that?" The Agent was pacing around the room again, crossing past him, walking to the other side of the room where some weapon racks were. Apparently he was ignoring Tristian's questions, which irritated him to no end. He hated feeling like he was some kind of pawn, that the Agents were just moving him around to do their bidding and he was expected to go along with it like some good soldier.
         "That's not it at all," Agent One murmured and something brushed against his thoughts. "If anything, we do your bidding."
         "Get the hell out of my head," Tristian nearly snarled, but the voice came out more like hysterical. He was starting to lose it, he knew. Too much strain, too much to take care of, too much all around, it all added up and here he was, hanging on by a thread, trying to help everyone and ultimately failing everyone. There had to be a better way.
         He started after the Agent, meaning to grab him and shake the answers out of him, not caring whether he was a god or not. Something was going on that involved him and he was tired of being kept in the dark, tired of being spoonfed information because they felt he didn't need to know, or it wasn't the right time to tell him. His whole life had been like that so far and maybe because he had been feeling indecisive lately, coming down harder on himself, maybe that was why he didn't make the demands that needed to be made. But now he was, with his back against the wall and no other choice left, he felt he had to do it.
         Tristian started to cross the room, but he stopped when something caught his eye on the altar like structure that was in the center of the room. Pausing, he was aware of the Agent's eyes on him as he regarded it. It was simple, with a few dried flowers covering the base of it, which was black and seemed to be carved from marble. It was what was on top of it that interested him the most.
         There was a body on top, and Tristian figured that it was the true king. He was dressed in finery, though it was far different from anything he would have imagined, not even anything like what people in the castle were wearing. Fashions had probably changed over the centuries. The armor gleamed and shone like it had been newly polished, reflecting the flickering lights set around the room. Tristian felt like he was violating something staring at the body like this but something was bothering him about it. He had expected some sort of sword in the king's hands but there were merely folded across his chest, the armored fingers intertwined. Most of the body was covered in the armor, and Tristian expected after a thousand years that the corpse would be reduced to a skeleton. Alas, it wasn't and as Tristian stared at the face, he felt his heart grow cold.
         The face. He recognized it, even as he felt his breathing becoming more rapid. He couldn't seem to get enough air suddenly and he staggering, unable to take his eyes off the face. He knew it. He knew the face. Even with the eyes closed, the skin having a pale cast, the face far older than him, he still knew the face.
         It was his.
         "Oh . . . oh my . . . God!" he screamed finally, forcing breath into his lungs, tearing his gaze away from the damned face and spinning, not stopping until he reached the wall on the other side and even then he wasn't far enough. Leaning heavily against it he turned his body back to face the Agent, who was standing ramrod straight on the other side of the room from him.
         Tristian heard his breathing echoing deeply in the tomb. In a voice that didn't sound like his own anymore, he heard, "You knew?" That was all he could bear to say.
         Agent One merely stared at him, and then just nodded silently.
         Tristian felt his world start to unravel, become unreal. Something seemed to mock him in his head and his legs wouldn't support him. Clutching the rock wall for dear life, feeling the sharp cracks biting at the skin of his hands, he tried to keep standing and only succeeded halfway. Closing his eyes tightly, he leaned his head against the cool rock, trying to capture some of the serenity of the inanimate object. It wasn't his face it wasn't his face it wasn't his face he tried to tell himself but he couldn't make himself believe. The face he saw was far older than his, probably twice his age, and touched by the ravages of a different world then he had ever known but it was still his face. As much as he tried to deny it, he couldn't.
         "Damn you," he whispered, trying to block the world out, trying to block everything out. He didn't want to accept this, didn't even want to admit to himself the possibilities.
         Faint footsteps near him warned him of the coming of the Agent. They were soft, unhurried, like they had all the time in the world. Like people weren't dying as they spoke. Can't save them all, the footsteps said to him, can't stop all the death in the world even if you spent every waking moment working on it.
         "What exactly are you afraid of, Tristian?" Agent One asked him, and his words were gentle probes in his unconscious. "What is it that frightens you the most?"
         "He has my face," Tristian said, hearing the shakiness in his voice, trying to stand, trying to clear his head. Nothing seemed to be helping.
         "And I have yours," Agent One replied simply. "Is that such a horrible thing? I happen to think it's a rather nice face, as far as humans go." There was only the vaguest hint of amusement in his voice. He was still being quite serious.
         "Is he an Agent too?" Tristian asked, his voice sounding unnaturally sharp in the general quiet. The stillness that he had felt before was even greater now, the world holding its breath and turning blue while doing so. The last gasps.
         "Him?" Agent One turned to briefly regard the dead king. "Oh no, just a man, same as any other."
         "Then it's not the same thing when he has my face. You can have any face you want, you're not mine. He . . . he has . . ." he couldn't bring himself to say it. He turned himself around completely and braced himself against the wall, feeling it to be his only support. And he kept falling. "Who was he?" Tristian asked finally.
         "The king," Agent One said calmly. "The first one as it turns out. He united most of the lands under his rule and had us put Cloudion up in the air, among other things."
         "Is he me?" Tristian found himself asking, trying to wrestle with the concept, trying to throw it down and away and forget about all of this. "Do I . . . do I go back in time and become him? Is this how it all turns out? Is . . . this . . ." and he pointed at the altar with the king on it, at the entire room itself, "where I end up, in the end? Carried down to this land by a fairy and my body locked in some tomb where centuries later my younger self will come and see it and nearly have a nervous breakdown." Tristian heard himself give a brittle laugh but it all felt so far away. "Because that'll just be the perfect end to this day, let me tell you. Really it will be."
         "Get a hold on yourself, Tristian," Agent One said in a abnormally stern voice. His voice cracked out like a whip, snapping Tristian across the face, seeping into his brain, trying to wake him up. "The king over there is not you, and your destiny as of this moment remains wide open. What you do here is not predetermined by other influences from the past, your present remains completely unrestrained."
         Tristian gazed tiredly at the altar, part of him crazily wondered what it would be like to lie there himself. Probably cooler and you'd get used to the hard slab in time, he thought. No different than anything anyone else got eventually. Something clicked in his head and a stray thought capered in front of him. For lack of anything else to do, he reached out and grasped it. "You said . . ." and his voice was warped and old, "you said once, to the king, that you only would advise the true king, that you served only him." Tristian glanced at the Agent and paused, letting the thought roll around in his head and gather moss. "Was he your host?"
         "In a way, yes," Agent One replied, crossing the room and placing one hand on the altar, staring down at the man there, dead so long. "In a way, no. It didn't work quite that way here, so we did the best we could." He grimaced. "Alas, we couldn't spend as much time here as we liked, our own Universe was becoming more crowded and busy and needed our attention. He was the first and last host we had here." He stared back at Tristian, a faint smile curling his lips. "I know your next question, but you might as well ask it anyway, for peace of mind."          
         Tristian knew that the Agent probably knew, he had a feeling that everything he said was written down in some script somewhere and he was just reciting his own lines. But he said it anyway because in the end he didn't know what else to do. Hearing his own voice grounded him, gave him something solid to fall back on, gave the world a dose of reality, even if what he was saying didn't seem to make any logical sense.
         "If you served the true king . . . and he might have been your host . . ." Tristian's words were a train wreck waiting to happen, barreling down the hill and there was nothing to stop them, ". . . and I'm your host, does that . . ." he coughed, trying to get his voice right, trying to keep it from fading but his mind was shrieking at the very concept, "am I the true king?" After spitting the words out, he felt a hollow feeling inside, as if something had ripped the emotion out of him.
         "Oh I think not," Agent One replied, bending down and running his hands along the flowers, stroking them with his hands, reviving them back to life. All the flowers burst into bloom, and no matter what color they had been before, now they were a deep rich red. Crimson danced along the Agent's hands as he got up and strode back over to Tristian. "You don't have the right mentality for a king, they have to sit back and give orders and you always want to be up in the front, always want to stick your head into danger."
         "Then what the hell is going on here!" Tristian screamed, feeling his voice falling apart at the edges, feeling his body flare up with heat from the anger. Heedless of what he was doing, he reached forward and grabbed the Agent by the front of his robes. He seemed feather light as he lifted him into the air. "Tell me that, huh? What is this all about, explain that to me, just explain it? What am I supposed to be, what do you want me to be?"
         Agent One slipped out of his hands like he was made of liquid and floated into the air, crossing his leg and leaning forward, his face intent. "What I want is rather immaterial, Tristian. It's what you want that matters." He straightened up, fixing Tristian with a cold gaze. Tristian, still borne on by the fire of his anger, didn't shrink from it. "And lately you've been denying what you are and telling yourself that doing that is exactly what you to be."
         "Bull," Tristian retorted. He lifted himself from the wall and staggered back over to the altar, forcing himself to confront of the reality of this. "I'm here aren't I? Playing your silly games, isn't that what you wanted? Isn't it?"
         The Agent floated over to him, until he was hovering over the body of the king. His face was unreadable. "The things I want Tristian can't be put into human terms. But I know what you want, because I imagine you're the same Tristian deep down inside that first met us." The Agent pointed at Tristian, punctuating his words with that simple gesture. "That Tristian had the simple desire of helping people, that's what he wanted."
         Tristian took a deep breath, placing both his hands on the altar, leaning heavily on it, bowing his head so all he could see was the floor. "Maybe he found that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be."
         "Or he lied to himself because he thought it would make the pain go away," Agent One said, floating backwards a step and touching down lightly behind the altar. He faced Tristian again, his eyes hard. "And he told himself every day that he really didn't care, to hide that the fact that he did care very deeply, and one day he told himself that lie too many times and woke up and started believing it." Tristian didn't reply but a sharply indrawn breath was all the answer the Agent needed. "But it's not true, Tristian, I can see your thoughts-"
         "Then why don't you tell me what the hell I'm thinking?" he gasped, breathing seeming to be trouble again. He didn't look at the Agent. The Agent glanced at him sadly and sighed.
         "Very well," came the quiet answer. "There's confusion and there's pain and there's fear. It radiates from you like a gaping wound, without even trying. And in your head . . ." Agent One narrowed his eyes, as if staring deeper at something beyond sight. "And out there now are two friends of yours that might get hurt and you're afraid that they'll get hurt because of you, that no matter what you do they're going to get hurt anyway because you feel that's the way the world works." Tristian was trembling now but the Agent pressed on. "And you wonder why you bother. Why you don't just curl into a ball somewhere and block the world out and forget about everything. Because you have to help people, it's in your blood from the moment you were born and there's not a force in the Universe that could make you blend into a crowd and not do anything when someone needs help. That's just not you, I can tell that-"
         "Shut up," Tristian whispered and his voice was harsh. His eyes were tightly closed and his body was visibly shaking. "Just stop. Please."
         "You can't hide from the world, Tristian, but neither can you make it conform to fit your own views of reality. You can only accept it and just do what needs to be done."
         "Sure," Tristian replied bitterly, raising a terribly afraid face to the Agent. His eyes were red for some reason. "I'll just be your lapdog, as usual, running over to where you point and just start killing people until there's no one left."
         "Don't seek to place your responsibilities on us," Agent One said firmly, a hint of anger coloring his voice for the first time. "We've sought to stay as far out of your life as possible, but . . ." and he leaned forward and stared him right in the face, "you are our host, Tristian and nothing can ever change that." He hesitated suddenly, and then crossed his arms over his chest, turning to the side and looking down. "And . . . we need you here, Tristian, you are needed."
         "To be a savior?" Tristian asked in the same tired voice as before. He shook his head, still not completely accepting everything. "I never asked for any of this, you know."
         "Neither did I," Agent One replied with a slight smile, glancing at the ceiling. His smile faded and he stared at Tristian again, his voice intent. "But you have to face what you are, Tristian and not become embroiled in self doubt. There are enough stumbling blocks in this life that you shouldn't to place more in your own path."
         "And what I am, Agent?" Tristian asked soberly, honestly. "A savior, a puppet, what am I? Can you tell me that?"
         "A man," Agent One said replied simply. "And in his own way, a hero. You know the feelings inside you, even as you seek to deny them, try to pretend that they don't exist anymore."
         "Delusion," Tristian said grimly, waving his hand and turning away. He stalked over to the other end of the room, staring at the weapons, seeing old swords and armor, running his hand along them, remembering how much he hated such things. "That's all it ever was."
         "Really?" Agent One asked and Tristian could hear the arched eyebrow. "Was delusion what propelled you out of the castle and into mid air to save a young mage? Was delusion what caused you to singlehandedly attack the Dark Lord without any weapons? Was delusion what forced you to stand in front of the Shadow and scream for him to cease even when others were cowering in his presence? Was it delusion when you saved a young man walking along the road for no other reason then he was in trouble?"
         Tristian said nothing, pulling a sword out from the rack, seeing that it was covered in rust, that it wasn't even that good for cutting cheese. Not that he really wanted to use it but he had to look, he had to do something, had to get his mind off these things.
         "There's one thing that connects all of these," Agent One continued, sure that Tristian was listening. "And that's hope. And deep down inside, the core of Tristian Jacart is made up of a man not wanting to see anyone hurt and hoping that things will someday be better." He lowered his voice. "And that somehow, he can make a difference."
         "But he can't!" Tristian shouted, casting the sword to the ground, hearing it shatter with a dull clang into a million piece, hearing his voice caught and echoed around the room. "I'm ineffectual and useless-"
         "Only because you refuse to activate your role in events!" Agent One shouted back at him, stepping forward and then back. "Out there, people are dying, your friends are out there Tristian and all the people you've met here are in mortal danger and you stand here arguing with me over what is the right thing to do." He slashed his hand across the air vertically, stabbing his speech. "So you're not perfect, neither am I, nobody is." He crossed his arms again. "Maybe I've had three billion years to get used to it, but when you're as powerful as I am, you don't want to accept your limitations, as real as they are."
         Tristian glanced down at the broken sword on the floor and the eyes that stared back at the Agent a second later were filled with pain. "But what if I fail? How will I stand it?"
         "By knowing that you made the attempt." Agent One glanced toward the wall where Tristian had come in. "But if you stand here and debate with me, the entire world might end and then how will you live with yourself?" He snapped his fingers. "The way lies open before you, all you have to do is take the first step, and not stand and wallow in pointless indecision."
         "I wanted to find magic," Tristian said sadly, pacing around the room aimlessly. "Not more death."
         "Death is around whether you feel it just or not," Agent One said a bit coldly. "And magic, well . . . magic is what we tend to call the unknown. Magic is merely the energy within all of us and just because here it takes on pretty colors doesn't mean that it exists in any less potent a form back home. You just don't see it. Or have grown so used to it that you aren't surprised by it."
         Tristian nodded slowly. "But what do the colors mean?"
         "Come again?" Agent One asked, surprised by the question. Tristian was wandering around the room now, more toward the back where it was darker, where they really hadn't wandered into.
         Tristian paused for a second and looked back at the Agent and there was the ghost of something old there. "The colors. Every person who uses magic seems to be a different color. Why is that?"
         "Oh, that." Agent One shrugged. "Merely a power curve, the different colors merely represents your ability." Offhandedly, he commented, "Red seems to be the strongest."
         "I see," Tristian said. He was conscious of the fact that he had been in here for too long, that people were counting on him from everywhere, that he had to do something. But he didn't know what to do, was he supposed to find power here, perhaps finally tap into this thing they called magic? He felt no different. Stalking around the room, he looked for something that might help him.
         "The wielder make the weapon," Agent One intoned from somewhere and Tristian couldn't see him anymore. "Sometimes we rely on them too much and forget that they are only tools."
         Tristian was only paying half attention to the Agent. Something caught his eye at the very back of the room. It was a small, about waist high, cube, as black as the altar and absolutely featureless. Sticking out of it was what seemed to be a slim black tube. Memory tickled at the back of his head and drew him to the cube. Staring at it, he found himself becoming unaware of everything else. Just him and the cube.
         An image formed in his head, blurred and unclear but he ignored it. A rash action seized him and he stalked at the cube. Reaching out, he went to grab the tube but stopped just before his hand closed around it. This was crazy, he was just being stupid.
         He heard a noise from outside and glanced at the rock wall, not knowing what was going on out there. Events where pushing him in directions that he wasn't sure he wanted to go in. He didn't want to feel like he had no choice. There always had to be alternatives.
         In a second he decided. Shoving all other doubts aside, he firmly gripped the tube and lifted. It was too light, he lifted it all too easily. Immediately his face was awash with a red glow and in surprise, as if he was detached, he watched a red blade emerge from the black cube. Slowly, dreamlike, he pulled the sword out completely, staring at it with wide eyes that reflected its red light, so long forgotten that he had barely remembered what it had felt like.
         He heard a small noise near him and turned, holding the sword upright, the red glow bathing everything, to see the Agent standing in the corner, sheathed in shadows, his eyes vaguely glowing. His arms were crossed and hidden in his robe and his entire body faintly pulsed red as well.
         He didn't look like the Agent anymore. For the first time to Tristian, he looked like a Magent.
         Words didn't want to come to him, they just wouldn't come. He opened his mouth a few times, failed to find those words and then just stared first at the Agent and then at the sword itself.
         "I think you know what to do with it," was all Agent One said and his voice was triumphant.