Hard Press

After sleeping and breaking camp, the group resumes down the river.

Weeks pass, adventuring through more treacherous lands. The trappings of peace and normality found in such places as the lake, or the meadow, fade totally as the group breaches further into the depths, replaced with such horrid environments as molten fields, plains of ice, the innards and pelts of great filthy beasts, thick voids of leashed ‘natives’, ghoul hives, dead strangling vines, all infested with spacial rifts that make stepping off the river treacherous.

The air, too, grows clammy, thick with the humidity of rot. Half their food is poisoned, their tent turns into a stomach, their boat has attacked them — it is only through prodigious use of witchbane they wrangle even their most basic supplies back into obedience, and even then, they forfeit most of it.

All of it suggests they are reaching nearer the core of this place, and nearer the den of the viper. But there is trembling doubt within Renard that knows, they could very well travel a thousand leagues, they could very well face horrors unimaginable — and there would still be a thousand of a thousand more steps to travel, and a thousand of a thousand deeper horrors even worse. It is the kind of place where, the longer you go, the more you realise how shallow you stand.

It is the kind of effect that would have utterly broken his spirit had Renard not come to see the serpent always in front of him, mocking, vicious, insidious, and cowardly. And the brainless rage of always seeing that detestable enemy, too, would have surely burned him from inside out into ashes, were he not able to channel that drive into the gentler vision of Fidel.

Which is not to say, there is a particular zeal in his heart when he imagines, he came all this way with a blade in his hand just to heal Lacren.

It is rather the knowing that someone close to him has such a desire, and naturally feeling eager to see that desire succeed. Perhaps they will reach a method for that success as they proceed on their course — and, perhaps they will not — but it feels more realistic that the positive hopes of Fidel would be acknowledged, and rewarded, than Renard’s ambitions on this venture.

When facing terrible ghouls, when the way is twisted, when the dark is thick, when the food is dwindling, when the silence is deadening, when every comfort is stripped away, there always remains that anchoring thought: I must succeed, and press forward, that Fidel can succeed, and press forward.

Speaking of Fidel, his demeanour has shifted. In peaceful moments, on the boat or idle at camp, his attitude has become one predominantly of dreamy, but positive, aspiration, as he is clearly fantasising almost constantly on that vision of a healed Lacren. Even outside those moments, he is no longer so carelessly nonchalant (though a foundation of it still wafts through), and especially no longer so fascinated with the environment of Nix or the changes to his own body. Indeed, Renard has not caught him removing the witchbane from his leg-brace even once since learning of Verdan’s ‘flowers’, and actually has only seen him cringe or tense at his own leg as if disgusted or scared — a painful to witness, but relievingly normal response.

In fact, there is nothing Fidel seems to like about Nix anymore. As they have ventured deeper, and the air has grown more thick with rot, and the darkness more viscous and tangible as they walk, even the corrupt part of him has grown plainly uncomfortable. ‘Wait, this is for things a whole lot worse than me. What am I doing here?’, with just enough human compassion to know that striving to grow and acclimatize, and become such a thing that could subsist here, would be in no way desirable. That prospect, this place, this growing darkness — all it evokes is oppressive fear, that has left the boy weeping on the floor of their tent more than once.

Even Verdan has changed. The morale-boosting quips and jokes and cheerleading have steadily been swallowed by silence, and the optimistic camaraderie that was so annoying but so heartening before has cooled into a subtle, and likely not wholly intentional, resentment. He still claps and crows and says, ‘good job Renard!’, but does so with that dry enthusiasm that can only leave Renard wondering if Verdan hates him, but certain that Verdan is, at the very least, angry with him.

It is a couple days after the poisoning of their food — (“No worries! Ooh, so we’re getting so close!" he chirped in the moment) — that Verdan finally pulls Renard aside and instructs him, with no misdirections or pussyfooting, that Renard must use a wish from the flowers.

Though a topic Renard has been braced to confront for several weeks, he still cannot help but grit his teeth at hearing it, before releasing that tension with a sigh.

Truthfully, Verdan has been angling for this. Some part of Renard has always recognised it, from the moment Verdan first mentioned the flowers. Don’t try to face the serpent head-on. Use a wish, or a miracle, from Camille, to fight it. So has Renard always heard Verdan’s implicit desire. But there are serious objections boiling deep in Renard’s heart that he cannot dare to let surface, or admit before Verdan, even at this moment.

“Why must it be I, Verdan?" Saying even this feels so pathetic. “You are here, as much."

“Well, I am beginning to doubt my prospects of how far I might go!" Verdan snaps. “I know what I’d ask, the boy knows what he’d ask, but what about you, Sir Renard? If it came down to you, what would you do about all of this?"

Kill the snake, of course. But there unease wavers in the pit of his gut. Killing the snake is something he would have to do with his blades. To do it through a wish, or a flower… to let his desires flow straight from the root of his heart to the world. Is there anything he could desire with so much conviction that wouldn’t be, in the end, a mistake?

Verdan’s pendant hums like strained glass, loud and constant enough at this level to be a constant noise filling any gully of silence.

“It’s rather frustrating!" Verdan chirps, absentmindedly cupping his hand over his pendant. “To think we get so far, just to rebuild one little kingdom. You can have a thousand Lacrens, Sir Renard. Your children will make them for you. But some misty fantasy of a little boy looking backwards…!" Verdan hisses, teeth grit and inhumanly sharp. His hand goes to his temple as if nauseous, and his glare to Renard is ferocious. “You know, if I killed that boy, I bet that would shape you up quick!"

A prince may not die by one cup of poison — but by two cups, or three, or four, even the most sterling guts of iron will strain.

“I would break your legs and leave you to die, Verdan." But even as Renard speaks these words, his heart screams with misgivings.

Verdan grins precariously, as if ready to challenge that statement, but tempers himself with a harsh sigh and looks away. His pendant sings — again, he cups it. When it seems he might end the talk, he closes his eyes as if emboldening himself, and again speaks. “What do you want? What do you really, reaaaally want?"

What bursts out of Renard’s mouth is the truth: “I do not know."

Verdan closes his eyes, claps his hands together, and smiles pointedly. “That’s ridiculous." His levity drains. “How could you not know? Well, Sir Renard, if that’s all the case, maybe we should stay put for a while until you decide. How would you fix things? And not just piggybacking off of that boy!"

Piggybacking off “that boy" is how I have come to this distance at all. “Are my choices anything so dire?" Deeming this conversation done, Renard shoulders past Verdan to return to the riverside, where Fidel has brought up their boat and supplies.

“Please, surely they are," Verdan murmurs behind him.

Renard glances behind him, seeing Verdan has not moved, and spares a weak smile. Though cold hatred and resentment teem off of the man like steam from boiling water, he smooths his expression down to agreeableness, sighs at himself, and nods to follow Renard. Vague impatience and irritation yet waft around him like a smell, as he settles in to break food and take watch in the crippling silence, but even he, when he gazes into the dark, looks a little misty-faced too.

It’s all fear.

The degradation of the group’s morale, Verdan’s growing urgency, and Fidel’s weeping, are all products of the tyranny of fear. As much as the darkness is becoming solid, and the air is becoming thick, the further that they go, fear itself is becoming a force as physical and as encompassing as the bitter winter cold. There is not any specific sensation of the flesh or the nerves, however, that corresponds to this fear, but rather a sensation of the heart: for, like the cold, the fear saps the warmth of the heart into itself and kills it, leaving behind only a hollow husk, and dregs, frantic to cling to their casing but too weak to counter the tide.

This exquisite fear is also closing its grip on Renard.

Certainly, the hopeful dreams of Fidel have stabilised Renard now for weeks. It has always been in his nature, and in a very deep part of his nature, to strive through any odds and any impossibility to see the greatest hopes of those who trust him fulfilled. And Fidel surely does still have great hope. But now it is only great hope in Renard. Gone is that air of a glorious future painted directly in front of his eyes; rather he has become like a dirty stray kitten in the alley. As the ground loses its roughness and planes of earth twist upon each other discordantly, in towers that are pits, in chutes that are fields, as even the ghouls turn to slop, as the natives crow and pester, Fidel’s eyes widen: ‘God, get us out of this…’. The one he looks to with these wide pleading eyes is Renard.

Renard is a far thing from God. For when Fidel is unable to hold to his positive hope, so also is Renard. The gumption to jut out his jaw and grin with an audacious flourish, and step forth into these troubles with facile confidence as his armour shining like fool’s gold, already left him when they entered Nix. But now, having taken every threat seriously, addressed them seriously, and surpassed them seriously, although uncertainly, he finds himself losing the spirit to believe he can conquer what’s before them at all.

Verdan’s pendant has been shrieking so horribly, even in Kingslayer’s proximity, it has become hard to sleep. When he does sleep, there are only nightmares. The rations are thin; even if he eats well now, he can only think of tomorrow, where there will be only crumbs. Masses of roiling shadows bulging with the silhouettes of people thrash about the dome of the black sky like a gale, each one nefarious, curious, jeering, and hungry. Verdan is quiet and despondent. Fidel is desperate and shivering.

Enemies, threats, attacks, things Renard can and does hate — but when he wakes that ‘morning’, and sees the blank bright trapezoids jutting onto and through each other, upon and within the hold of which they have rested, for this is all there is, there is no energy even in hatred.

Anger is conceived, lit, withers, and dies, as a flame set upon a wet candle-wick.

From the inside out, it is like being stamped into a fossil. Because when Renard wakes that morning, the most sincere desire of his heart is to do a thing he has not once in his life done before: stop.

As though it would be its own form of victory, to keep their own terms of surrender…

As though they may lay here, and be eroded like rocks…

That Renard instead stands, and takes to hand the oars, and settles himself in to row the boat, despite the absolute lack of emotional impetus powering him to do anything, is an incredible demonstration of willpower. Verdan is slow to follow, as though proceeding is a thing of poor taste. Fidel, trembling like a lost fawn, almost does not board at all.

This shall be the end, Renard decides, as his body falls into the repetitive, meditative, and now habitual motion of rowing.

Forward, and back, and forward, and back, in cycles, over and over…

So monotonous and so unbreaking; where they cease today shall be where they stop. This shall be the end.

But in cycles, simply cycles, this motion has taken its own, growing, momentum…

This shall be the end: is this not what he thought upon waking this very day? Is this not what he thought when he took the oar? And yet why, when espousing surrender, is he failing these benchmarks of failure. Why is this progress up the river so constant, and by being constant, so great? This shall be the end! Declare it as a prayer, and the more the reverse becomes true. This shall be the end! I will throw overboard all our rations, drown Verdan and Fidel in the river, break apart that stupid amulet myself, and snap my own Kingslayer over my knee, so that it may be made sure like an oath, This shall be the end!

And yet doing any one of those things sounds so cumbersome.

A strange chortle chokes in Renard’s throat. Backwards to go forwards; fail failure to succeed; do not dare to think and do not strive for much; but do adopt the joke and the misery; state proudly, We stop here! To guarantee you will go forward tomorrow.

So it is, knowing that the shore he touches today shall be the end, that Renard paddles for longer, not by greater fervour but by greater consistency, than he has any other day of this journey. A niggling pride grins quietly in his breast, under the mechanical, rote blankness of the rowing motion. To minimise one’s own self exposes the shin of the riddle.

Kingslayer jerks in its scabbard, jolting Renard like a static bolt. Snapped out of the meditation, he glances down and sees that the wood of the boat has joined around his ankle, not like a grasping tendril, but in the way that flesh swaddles over a bone. Intuition tells that, in his meditation, he had, as is Nix’s way, begun to become part of the boat, and would have merged with it had he continued. Only the intervention of Kingslayer has spared him from this fate.

And moreover, Kingslayer is, very minutely, humming in its scabbard.

Furious, Renard paddles against the water as if trying to beat the river to death. Though the burst of energy is dramatic and volcanic in its explosiveness, and though his ankle does separate effortlessly from the wood, with water splashing everywhere, their actual progress cuts to that of a drowning dog, flailing, and only carried more than an inch forward by sheer lucky chance. The impotency of his efforts only inflames Renard to push harder, more frantically—

“Stop spending your energy. You’ll kill us with this rain," Verdan chides.

—With one last, heavy slap of the oars against the river as protest, he gives up on the effort.

The gentle current of the river is pushing the boat slowly back downstream. With a smoky grunt, aware that Verdan’s criticism has aggravated him too severely to reclaim that mindless rhythm in any short fashion, he pushes an oar against the riverbed and heaves the boat onto shore. Are you pleased, Verdan! I will press myself further tomorrow, He thinks, but knows instantly this is the wrong mindset.

Verdan and Fidel disembark. Renard, with a sigh, tries to fix his head as he drags the boat up. Let his soul and thoughts recede quietly: the misery of this depth hits then like a sweeping black wave, and the futility of surrender seeps in to the vacant corners. Indeed… why bother even to unload their packs, to cut the rations, to bring up the boat, why bother to do anything but sit, and why bother to sit when he could lie…

There is no point going forward; surely, this shall be the end.

Sparing only a wisp of a smile in his heart for having reclaimed the paradox, he turns and looks up.

And feels even those wisps of brightness freeze into lead, as it sinks with finality: This is the end.