Chapter 2: Ecstazia

    One moment chases another and bleeds into the next, in which the mud from my feet splashes against the sky beside me, indigo melting to night, senses wrought with tension. Something is chasing me, something without form. A shadow as pervasive as the darkness that encapsulates mountains after the sun sets. The inevitability of it grips me. Even if I had wings, I would be a prey to this entity. Still, I find myself sprinting.

    After reaching the top of a hillock overlooking the bog I emerged from, a dilapidated mansion shrouded by thick trees, whose roots have latched onto it like veins around a heart, beckons me with its refuge. I run harder, feeling that presence nearing. It frosts the ground, freezes my breath, transmutes all that is behind me into stillness. Should I turn and face it, it will undoubtedly be my end.

    A gate with hundreds of horizontal, blackened teeth that once closed it intricately is now a pair of rusted jaws with protruding fangs. I burst through, suffering gashes where the rotted metal cut my forearms as I used them to shield my head.

The gate clangs backwards from the force, ringing, before it is forced open again by my pursuer, causing another reverberation of knells that follow me inside the mansion’s gaping doors.

    With closed eyes, I turn and slam the entrance shut. To my surprise, no banging or attempts to enter follows. Whatever was chasing me made no attempt to throw its weight against the door. Still, my hands scramble for several latches and pull them shut.

    Only, as I turn towards a graveyard of furniture, shattered glass and scattered silverware, the looming windows of the home are swallowed by a blackness without shades. Dust fills my lungs as I pant, sweat dots the floorboards overgrown with fungus. What hues of a setting sun that should have bled through the cracked glass are snuffed swiftly by that same shadow consuming all. In my limited senses of molded wood and silence, I stumble up a spiral staircase, following a light leaking like melted silver down its steps.

    I follow the trail, towards another door, its frame illuminated stark against the pitch, and enter.

    A small chamber with walls made entirely of mirrors reflects an orb of light in its center. Despite it being the only source of light in the blackness, my eyes are unperturbed by its soft glow. I shut the door behind me and walk closer to the silvery orb, cradling the warmth before clutching it close, embracing it like you would a child you’d lost.

    It slips through my hands, and upon meeting the ground, shatters.

    A silver hue lingers in the air and colors my vision, but the dread returns.

Spawning from each mirror are shadows whose smokey outlines wave as they drift towards me, each one bearing a mask depicting an emotion. They stare, closing in soundlessly, the details more lifelike the longer I look. Seemingly harmless, yet terrifying all the same, I cannot suppress the tremors that start in my body. The phantoms surround me in rage, grief, trepidation, contentment, ecstasy, boredom, envy, terror, anxiety, patience, lust, and some that blend between others, their illustrations a masterful depiction of expression, yet, the epitome of torment.

    One mask pushes itself through the others. Humor: laughing inaudibly through cracked, faded paint and chipped stone. It turns itself to its hallow end and latches onto my face. Before I can attempt to pry it off, the rest follow suit, fading into one another as they crowd my head.

As the terror peaks to spasms in my chest, I look through the eyes of the mask, into the mirror directly facing me.

    While some of the guises had faded, seven or six remain, forming a rotating circle around my head. When I attempt to pull one of them off, a bolt of pain sparks through my body. I cease moving, succumbing to their possession. The carousel of masks spin, swifter each blink, until the emotions blur, wherein I am imprisoned within a chaos reflected in every possible peripheral of my vision: a mirrored maelstrom of me.

    I gasped. There was a puddle of drool beneath my mouth where my face had been pressed directly against the pillow, nearly suffocating me. I squinted partly in confusion, partly in annoyance, recalling glimpses of the nightmare as I wiped my chin and lips before sitting up.

    In the mirror across my bedchamber, I found my bright, dirtied gold eyes staring back at me, some of the view obscured by waves of burnt, umber hair. Even in the late morning, or perhaps midday light, I could still see glimpses of the phantoms circling my head, remnants of the nightmare lingering in reality.

In the journal by my bed, I confined the memories.

    After opening the terrace doors in the center of the room, a warm gust of summer air breathed into the room, brightening my senses as I puzzled over the dream’s meaning. Immediately, the nightmare’s grip relinquished itself. It had been a long while since Portsworth felt a forgiving breath of air. All to often does snow fall here in the late spring.

    I walked onto the terrace and let my arms rest against the marble guardrails. Far, far beneath me, Portsworth was a seemingly incongruous city thriving in its harried business. The northern docks were packed with sailors, merchants and workers carrying goods and bartering services, while others streamed onto barges for travel. The ports seemed as packed with variously sized vessels as it was with people. Across from the river where ships departed and unfurled their sails in response to wry commands, Addorian hills rolled upwards, intermittently cut by sea rivulets, arching towards mountains dotted by hamlets and villages, and farmlands flourishing beneath the three suns of summer. To the far east, where fewer and fewer villages sprouted up, the Sea of Gold shivered in the midday light. Though it wasn’t a sea at all, rather a forest, with leaves that took on the color of that metal men kill one another for. In the autumn it transforms into the Sea of Blood with bright, scarlet tones. And as winter descends, the leaves dry to a muddied burgundy, true to the metaphor.

    Where the paths that led to the ports wound back into the city, the streets twisted and tangled, packed in too closely between wooden structures that seem to slant towards the cobblestone in the poorer districts, and rise too high in more blessed areas.

The Northern Square breathed less crowded air, with a statue of Nocturos in the center, each of his arms draped with cloaks in the shape of massive doorways. Above him, his runic symbol blazed silver. After the sun would set, it would paint the surrounding stones in tranquil hues of pulsing violet. Much of the south, west and eastern parts of Portsworth weren’t in view from my chamber in the Foxfeather Castle, but I knew many of their streets as well as I did my own clothes and hair.

    “Lord Casimir,” a servant called through the doorway after a few knocks.

    I sighed. How many times must I ask them not to call me 'Lord'? “Yes?” I replied, but the realization had already struck me. I rushed towards my wardrobe, cursing myself.

    “Lady Zakora sent me, said you had training this afternoon. Said you were late … ‘again’.”

    “Yes, yes. Thank you! You can send her an apology and tell her I’ll join her shortly,” I said as I tripped on my britches, smashing my head against one of the legs of my desk. “Fek!”

    “What was that, my lord?”

    “Nothing!’

    The small bump on my head still forming, I licked the blood on my bottom lip, trying to ignore the pelting heat on my neck, the sting of sweat in my eyes, the sharp-scented herbs surrounding the grassy courtyard we had been sparring in for the last two hours.

    “Were you drinking last night?” she asked me in that thickened, Zorrian accent I could barely understand half of the time, swinging around a wooden broadsword while she waited for me to recover.

   “A poor swordsman, perhaps, but a drunkard? You hurt me, Zakora. No, I wasn’t.” It was the truth. “I had a nightmare that didn’t seem to let go.”

    “You are lying to me. I have other pupils, you know. I cannot waste time with the likes of you. Always, always late.” She snapped her head to the side, refusing to look at me. Her straight, auburn hair bordered her face and stopped just below her chin. Above her sharp nose and tight cheekbones, her grey eyes scrutinized me. When I didn't say anything, she advanced on me swiftly, retribution sparking in her movements. “Disarm me!” she commanded, pairing that with a heavy-handed attack.

    I threw up my longsword to parry, only for the force of her swing to obliterate my defenses, sending both me and my sword somersaulting backwards. She clouted me on the head with a gloved fist as she walked passed almost lazily. It was precisely where the desk had hit, too. I swallowed a scream.

    “Surely I did not wait all morning for this!” she huffed. “You’ve improved little since our last session. If anything, you are worse. What am I to tell your sire, hmm? He will think he is wasting his coin on me.”

    “Kuilmore dek,” I cursed in my native tongue, massaging the fresh welt on my thumb where her blade had slid past the guard. “You don’t need to tell William anything, Zakora. I asked for these lessons myself.”

    “Fine. But you are too small for longsword,” she noted aloud. “We will need something else.” Her accent replaced the ‘th’s with ’z’s.

    “Not necessary,” I said as I stood back up. My arms protested the weight of the longsword, but I raised it back to a fighting stance all the same. “Once more."

    She continued digging out some dirt from her nails as her brows furrowed in contemplation.

    "Oh, come on, then. Again!" I said, just as frustrated as she was to see little improvement.

    She wagged her finger at me. “We have been doing this for weeks, for nothing. You are far too little for longsword. We’re done with it, forget it. Time to change tactics.”

    “But …”

    “End of story, Casimir,” she sang, smiling with an undeniable air of mockery and enjoyment. It didn’t help my pride that her rich, oak-colored skin glanced off the sun without a single bead of sweat, while I had tasted a nearly permanent line of salt on my upper lip since the last half hour. “You are a halfbreed, yes? Elf and man?”

    As I have explained countless times. She, as well as many others, seemed to find endless intrigue in this topic. “My mother was a Qalmorian elf, but my father was from here, Addoran.”

    “From my observation,” she said, tapping her finger against her chin, “you have gained all clumsiness of Addoran man and all tiny of Qalmorian elf.”

    Her lacking vocabulary in the common tongue made it only more frustrating to be insulted by her. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to swallow my pride. ‘Short’ might have been technically correct but ‘tiny’ was another word entirely.

“How observant of you,” I said dryly.

    Zakora seemed thin at first glance, but every scrap of her spoke for itself. Hidden beneath the stringency of her impeccable stature and the tightness of her gait, was more technique in swordplay than most men could ever hope to possess, that made strength seem like a pitiable attribute to foster. Her height was, however, only a half a head above mine, which is better than the one or two I am used to looking up at.

   I sprang to my feet, determined not to look so ‘tiny’ and ‘clumsy’ in front of a woman who seemed to walk into flawless confidence every morning, as easily as she slipped on her cloak. She was, down to the fibers of her boiled leather raiment, comfortable in her own example of perfection. “Then again, why put a sword in the hands of a marksman? I am a fine bowman. Do you not have fighting techniques that involve a bow in close combat? I will not disappoint you there.”

    She was evidently lost in her own thought process, but stopped to shake her finger at me again. Her words quickened, as if making up for lost time. “Bows have no place in swordplay. You are nothing if you are not a fighter. Archers are good for war and archery tournaments, but close combat is … another thing entirely. You need to be fluent in blade language.”

    Her arrogance wasn’t unmerited. I’d seen Zakora outmatch some of the best fighters and swordsmen in the castle upon her arrival in the country, after William had hired her following my request. If I could glean a fiber of her skill, it could mean the difference between breathing and being dumped in one of Portsworth’s more popular, impromptu graveyards: the sea. “Fair enough. I will become fluent in the ’blade language'.”

    “Indeed!” she exclaimed, waving away her poor grammar, all too aware that she was not conveying herself perfectly, but far too enthused to care. “The problem is not the man, but the sword, in this case. How rare. You will not hear me say that often. Count yourself lucky, jester. Ever heard of ecstazia?” Zakora walked to a large satchel with training blades spilling out of its stretched seams. She brought out two other weapons. One was smaller than the other, the size of a dagger, the other, a shortsword.

    I managed to keep them from falling to the ground after she tossed them to me. “Can’t say that I have,” I admitted, quirking an eyebrow at the pair of sparring weapons. "Who or what is it?"

    Several servants carrying platters of food passed by the outer ring of the training grounds. They slowed and eyed us before continuing into one of the many floors of the castle, whispering to themselves between snickers. The training grounds were not far beneath my own chamber, and from the edge of it, you could see the eastern sea ports. Even from here, the tolling of bells and commands echoed up the salt-sprayed cliffside.

    “It is a fighting technique from my own country, taught by few,” she explained with a glint in her eye. “If it is mastered, it is perhaps one of the best. Not my … what you say? Cup of caffek? But it works for a few, and I think,” she said, prodding my chest, “you belong to that ‘few’. Some say the Shadow Syndicate trains their thieves in this fighting style.”

    “You’re not being serious, are you? Duel wielding daggers …” I shook my head. “What happens if some brute with a broadsword swings sideways at me while I hold these? I'll be lamb's meat! No, I'll be worse. I'll be me meat! There is no way to defend myself with these, either, they are too short."

    “Oh?” Zakora folded her arms, let her weight fall on one side of her hips, and tilted her head with a feigned look of interest. "So you fail with longsword and now you know other fighting styles? It appears my training has taught you well."

     I ignored her comment and continued my argument. “It may seem rather menacing, I suppose, but it simply isn’t practical. Give me a rapier, instead, something light. Something I can duel with properly. This is folly.”

    Zakora threw up her head and started laughing until a few birds enjoying nectar nearby fluttered off. “You mock ecstazia and ask for a ‘rapier’. What will you do then, fight the enemy with your prick? The rapier is a sword of status, used for competitions, not true fighting. It has no place in combat. Here,” she motioned for the daggers, and I handed them back. “Take a lighter sword, something you can lift. Then throw yourself at me. We’ll see if this is folly or if you are the fool.”

    I dug through her weapons bag until I found a sword that suited my height and strength, then began to walk back.

    “Ah-ah!” she snapped before repeating “Shield, shield, shield,” and pointed to a bulwark leaning against one of the benches in the courtyard. “I want you to have every advantage.”

    Begrudgingly, I took it up and faced her.

    Without warning, as they often did, the bout started. Zakora coaxed for my attacks with a cunning patience, and I gave them to her, pressing my advantage in defense as much as I could. Her stance was different from anything that I’d seen before, relying on the balls of her feet more than anything, the spring of her legs to switch from attack to defense within half steps. It lacked structure, predictability, or cadence. And for every attack I gave, she used the dagger in her left hand to parry, the sword in her right to attack simultaneously. She manipulated my blade with both of hers when I gave her enough length or time to, using them like hands to shove it from harm’s way to open up attacks, flowing from defense to offense in seamless movements.

    Before long, I was the one retreating, my heels catching on the grass. What seemed like the uselessness of two small, mismatched blades, had turned into the overwhelming possibility of being vulnerable every time she deflected one of my strikes.

    Zakora knocked my sword back after one of my unsuccessful swings, jabbing my gut with her fist before wrenching the shield from my hand. I backpedalled in gasps, gaining some distance as she readied herself to spring on me.

    She lunged. I braced the sword to parry one of her daggers, managing to catch it and deflect its arc. With the other blade, she went for my stomach, but I dodged its point. She leapt from the ground as soon as the strikes proved unsuccessful, pivoting off a nearby pillar woven with ivy before landing on my sword arm and kicking me to the ground. The bruise on my head was hit for the second time that day as it slammed into the grass.

Through dizzied vision I found Zakora above me, her warm thighs straddling my chest, smiling with a wooden blade pushed against my throat.

    I coughed, only brief indulging my mind’s instinct to imagine something other than swordplay with her. “Fine, fine. I didn’t know what I was saying. I am the fool. What demon taught you that, anyways?”

    She just shook her head and laughed. “Yes, you are, but not for long—I’ll be sure of that. Ecstazia is more than dual wielding,” she explained as she helped me to my feet. “You use the dagger for parrying, the sword for striking, and switch, if needed, to overcome your opponent.” She demonstrated a few maneuvers slowly, swiping aside imaginary attacks and striking at the air in response.

    “That is why one blade is smaller than the other?” I asked, more intrigued.

    “Exactly! We call it the ’trink'. Think of it has a shield, but you don’t take their hits, you turn them. Some ecstazia fighters use a something called eh … ‘blade breakers’ instead of a trink. Daggers with cuts in edge to trap and break enemy weapons. Of course, I would have one made for you if you wished.”

    “And you have seen men use this technique successfully?” I asked, rather stupidly.

    “Success does not describe a master in the art of ecstazia. Men in armor are slow, men with longswords, predictable. But men with ecstazia, ruthless.” She smiled at me, my excitement now rivaling hers.

    After nearly a month of feeble, bruised, and embarrassing practice, I stared at the pair of weapons in my hands. They were a gateway to proving myself in those situations where steel becomes a more honest style of conversation.

    “I think we found your style, jester,” she smirked at me. “I should have known you were a dirty fighter.”

    Our laughter echoed around the courtyard. “How else is someone as short as me supposed to best their opponent?”

    “As my father told me, honor and pride is no use to dead men. I will drill you later on ecstazia footwork, technique, thinking. For now, get used to the feeling of wielding two weapons. Enjoy yourself,” she winked, “this will take some time.”

    I tested the weight of their swing against the air, already feeling more comfortable. Longswords have history, tradition. When I picked one up, I felt centuries of technique and expectation breathing down my back. This felt like territory waiting for me to discover it, capable of showing me things just as I was willing to explore it.

    “Lost in thought again? Come on, then, Casimir!” she coaxed.

    “Come on, then, traitor!” a guardsman jeered at me as he bashed the hilt of his sword against his steel chest plate.

    I’d barred the door behind me, the result of that being the countless fists pounding on it at this moment. In front of me, however, it appeared guards from other parts of the castle had heard the commotion in the dining hall and pieced together what’d happened. They stood, blocking me from my route to the uppermost floors. From what little I could see of them beneath their visors, I thought I recognized their faces. So why would they avenge the corpse of a madman? Hadn’t they heard the stories?

    “How can loyalty blind you like this?” I asked them as droplets of blood pattered the floor from my blades. “You saw what he was like, how he killed without thinking! Someone had to do it!” I shouted, not caring who heard me. “Step aside! I have little time, and I’ll not have some armored idiots squandering it.”

    Spittle sprayed out of one of the visors at me. I sidestepped it.

    “You choose death, then?” I asked. “Is your life so meaningless that I must give it value by killing you?” I flourished my blades and readied myself.

    “I’ll not be killed by a fool,” the one in the middle taunted back, his voice muddled from his helm.

    “Loyalty has not blinded me, Casimir,” the guard on the right said, “you’ve just lost mine. The godsdamned murderer you are ... the King trusted you.” 

    The impending skirmish tightened the air. To each of us, the banging of the door, the incessant shouts for vengeance, the stampeding of boots throughout the castle, were drowned by the adrenaline in our ears. Torchlight flickered against our bodies, cast our shadow in dark spasms all around the room. 

   To them, the outcome was obvious. I stood alone, defended only by two daggers and some leather that would give to their sharpened blades. But to me, it was a challenge, another game of wit, of not rolling unfavorable odds, but finding that opportunity in which there are none at all: only certainty. And should it be my end, what of it? I deserve only what I earn, but never shy from what luck may offer. 

    “Always strike first when it is not suicide,” Zakora once told me. “Death enjoys a little arrogance, now and then.”

   I went for the one on the right, catching the flinch of fear in his eyes as I did, whetting my boldness as my daggers found their rhythm, flashing against his panicked defenses. When I broke through, I was not surprised to find my blades, now for the fourth time since I killed the king, tasting blood again, and all too willing to consume more.