"You both," Esras says, "are much slower than I thought."
"Esras!" yells Redire. "Where's the lord? What did you do to him!"
"'The lord'...?" Esras muses. "Oh... Are you talking about Rian? I don't know if you are qualified to ask me about the well-being of 'the lord'."
"Answer my question! Where's my lord?"
"Hahahaha.... Since you seem desperate to find out, here, I'll give you an answer.
…You are looking at the new Lord of Emain Macha. I've been the Lord of Emain Macha for quite some time now.
And soon... the lord of Erinn..."
You suspected this. When you stood in the throne room and it was Esras, not Rian, who answered your questions, even though it was the lord you addressed... that was when you began to suspect. That was when you started to think that Rian was lord in name only.
But Redire seems surprised.
"What?" he asks. "You must be out of your mind..."
"You sound confident as usual, Redire..." says Esras. "However…that only holds true if you have power to back it up. Let me show you an example of what that means."
You are not familiar with Esras's arts, but you can feel the power in the air, the mana that gathers around Esras.
You start to move forward -striking a spellcaster ends the spell, right?
Then the golem appears.
Gold? A golem made of gold...?
You have heard of this! There was a legend...
"…This Golem..." whispers Redire. "No…no way... Is it Tabhartas....?"
"No wonder you were the leader of Paladins," Esras answers. "You instantly recognized this Golem… Yes. This is Tabhartas. The gatekeeper of the Ancient Wisdom... and now, a loyal servant of mine."
"The whole body is covered in Gold..." murmurs Redire. "I didn't know you'd resort to this…"
"Well…" Esras adds, "this is all thanks to the Paladin trainees. As you might already know, Tabhartas is the prototype for all Golems... It took me a while to control him myself.
So please… have some respect for him. He's not just another ordinary Golem."
...This explains a few things. Those miners... they were harmless. The medicine they spoke of, it was real, not some trick they played...
You have no time for guilt. You put it aside for now.
"Do not leave my side!" Redire calls to you.
"Tabhartas..." Esras intones, "I will now give you an order. Show your loyalty by crushing those invaders!"
You ready your weapons and prepare for battle.
Redire collapses.
"My leg..." he mutters, "It's broken... I can't believe this..."
"Even a so-called Paladin like you is rendered useless in front of a monster like Tabhartas," laughs Esras.
"Do not say the name Paladin with your serpent tongue!" cries Redire. "A real Paladin... The Knight of Light… shall be invincible!"
"So…" Esras drawls, "this proves that you are not a true Paladin. Then where is this true Paladin that should come riiight about now… to save you?"
"Tabhartas," she orders, "finish him!"
The golem slowly raises one foot to crush Redire.
No!
You sheath your weapons and move.
You are between Tabhartas and Redire now, holding up the golem's foot.
It is quite heavy.
"Oh..." says Esras, "that was either very brave… or very very unnecessary. Most humans don't even stand a chance against a regular Golem..."
"…Move over!" Redire yells. "Save yourself! We do not need to create more casualties!"
You will not let him die. You cannot let him die. It is against all you have learned about teamwork... about friends.
What hero saves his life at the cost of another's?
Not one you want to be.
You stay where you are, straining against Tabhartas.
There was an old song that you learned when you were a child, in the world beyond the Soul Stream. It echoes through your mind now.
'If you hear the cry of the poor'
A Milletian and a beggar at the edge of Emain Macha square.
"I take it," Esras muses, "that you can take some more pounding. That's a lot longer than I expected. However, you are only human, which means the end is near.
…Your destiny has been decided... Death by Tabhartas. It was your call, not mine."
"No..." Redire whispers. "Forget about me… just run!"
'if you feed the hungry'
"Do you have any food? It's an emergency!"
"Just some steamed corn I made..."
"That's perfect! "
"What happened, anyway?"
"I drank from the fountain and it made me starving!"
"...Here."
'if you loosen the bonds of oppression...'
You will not leave Redire.
You will protect.
You will not fail!
You feel something growing in you.
It feels warm. It feels like light.
It feels like power.
'Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your wounds be healed...'
Light shines out, centered on you. You can feel yourself growing, as if you are becoming an adult all at once. The light seems to gather around you and grow solid.
Armor. The armor you forged from mythril, the armor Aer blessed, the armor that took you to the white wolf in Ciar. You wondered where it went.
It seems it was inside you.
"What is that!" Esras yelps.
"This…cannot be..." Redire whispers. "The Knight of Light… The true power of the Knight of Light…?"
"This is not happening!" Esras insists. "A kid like you cannot and should not be a true Paladin!
....Ahhhh...
…Tabhartas, I am giving you an order. Annihilate the kid so the kid will never see the light again!"
All right, so you are technically a child, but you are older than you look. Does she really have to emphasize your apparent youth?
You are rather annoyed now. You have just received a rather large power boost. And you have a giant golem threatening to kill you.
Your course of action seems obvious.
Kill Tabhartas.
"I can't believe this..." Esras mumbles. "T... Tabhartas... gone… just like that… You…must…be... the... Knight of Light...?"
"No…" She shakes her head. "It's just an urban legend. No…"
A dark-armored man enters the room. He looks familiar somehow.
"Paladin...?" he murmurs, seeming to speak more to himself than anyone else. "…And Tabhartas?
…So it is you... who caused all that chaos in the dungeon..."
He walks over to examine the slain Tabhartas.
"It looks like one of those ancient Golems…
…Wait a minute… then this must be controlled by the kind of magic that isn't proper by any means…"
You have no idea what the dark knight is talking about, though you note that he is attacking Tabhartas's inert body with a sword.
You nearly forget about the dark knight when Rian appears from within the golem.
"I knew it," says the dark knight. "So it would use a human sacrifice to control this Golem..."
Human... sacrifice...?
No. No...
Rian is...
Ruairi appears from the same direction as the dark knight.
Ruairi...? And a dark knight...?
That dream you had!
"Rian...?" he calls. "Rian? Rian! Rian!"
...Rian is Ruairi's younger brother... you had forgotten that.
Irrelevantly, you wonder why Rian was the lord if Ruairi is the elder brother.
"Who did this to Rian?" Ruairi demands. "Tell me! Who was it?"
"Don't look at me!" Esras cries, pointing to you. "It was that Paladin!"
"No!" you yell. "Ruairi! Do not listen to her!"
Or you try to. But your voice locks in your throat, and you cannot speak as Esras lies.
You feel the power that infused you fading.
You return to your former size, the armor that encased you vanishing.
You are no longer a Paladin, but only yourself once more.
Ruairi looks at you.
"You're... that paladin...!"
And your heart seems to stop as you realize he remembers you, and the memory is not a pleasant one.
You remember that day as well as he must. The day you were sent to raid Math Dungeon.
The day you stopped training under Craig.
They told you there were doppelgangers. But you had strange dreams, and you wondered if they might be wrong.
So you were cautious. You hung back, knowing that if this was the true Ruairi, you could not win and would not want to.
Then one of the other trainees with you attacked that girl.
Triona. That was her name.
Ruairi looks at you, and that gaze is painful to see.
Because Ruairi, one you honored as a hero, looks at you with hatred.
You stand in the lobby of Barri for a long time. The voices of your guildmates swirl around you, speaking of quests and crafting, but you ignore them for now.
You became a paladin. You slew Tabhartas. Esras attacked you, and her you slew as well.
But it means nothing.
Because Ruairi, one you honored, hates you.
Because the quiet young lord you had come to like, if only a little, was never truly there at all -was dead before you met him.
Because you know that Emain Macha is corrupted.
Because Ruairi has seen evil in people who claim to serve the Goddess, and so he has come to believe that the Goddess is evil.
You look at the statue of the Goddess. You place one hand on the cold stone, and you pray.
Morrighan... why must it come to this? Why must those you call suffer so in that calling?
Morrighan... I do not fear. I am not of this world, and so I cannot truly die.
But what of the ones who belong in Erinn? They die once and then are gone, never to return.
Goddess Morrighan, am I ever doomed to failure? I saved you, but each Milletian must save the Goddess for themselves. You were trapped into an endless cycle of being sealed and being saved, calling another to aid you each time. I tried to save Lord Rian, but before I ever came to Erinn, he was already beyond saving.
Morrighan... I have slain in your name. I have fought, and died, and stood up from death. I have lived when I should have died, through nothing more than will. Goddess, hear my prayer. Goddess, answer me. What have I done? What am I doing? What should I do now?
Morrighan gives you no answer. But then, she has already spoken to you, there in the dungeon once Esras was slain. This image of her you stand before is no more than a statue, a stone idol before an altar, path and portal many-branched.
You killed the miners, you went to Math, all in the quest to become a paladin. What is it when one unknowingly does evil in seeking to do good?
You remember a story you heard long ago, beyond the Soul Stream.
'He who does good in Tash's name in truth honors Aslan; and he who does evil in Aslan's name in truth honors Tash.'
...Morrighan... In seeking to serve you, have I served Cichol?
But that does not make sense, does it. Cichol is god of Fomors; to slay a Fomor opposes him... right?
<I became a paladin,> you tell your guildmates.
<Congratulations!>
<Welcome to the ranks.>
<Are you going to switch over?>
<I have some extra rainbow trout, if you want it.>
<How do you do that, anyway?>
Their voices swirl around you, expressing congratulations, offering assistance with the next quest, the newer members asking questions.
It feels... hollow, somehow. As though you are being congratulated for success when you have failed.
Because even though you slew Tabhartas, you were too late to save Rian.
Because Ruairi has betrayed the goddess to seek vengeance.
That thought brings you pause. Morrighan is goddess of war and vengeance. So would seeking vengeance be honoring her?
An odd sort of irony, to seek vengeance against the goddess of vengeance.
Then you begin to wonder. You serve Morrighan, goddess of war and vengeance. Does that oblige you to make war and seek vengeance?
You shake your head. You serve Morrighan, but you do not serve war or vengeance. You have nothing to avenge.
You want to stop this cycle of revenge.
But you do not know if you can stop it.
You think of Tarlach, cursed to become a bear by day because as a human he is allergic to the herbs he needs to live. Bound in Sidhe Sneachta, but not by any spell. Bound to the druid's altar by a guilt stronger than any magic, that guilt a heavier burden upon him than any you have borne.
You think of Mari, and of what she became.
You think of Ruairi, and of what he chose.
What happened? What happened to the young warrior who dreamed of a goddess and set out to save her?
Ruairi, Mari, and Tarlach sit around a campfire. Tarlach is helping Mari bandage her wounds.
"Sorry," says Ruairi. "I'd help, but I don't have any bandages."
"What kind of warrior goes into a dungeon and doesn't bring any bandages?!" demands Mari.
"...I'm a reckless warrior?" Ruairi suggests weakly.
"You're certainly reckless," Mari huffs.
What happened to that?
You know, of course. You saw.
Betrayal happened. Treachery happened. Death and gods and necromancy, and a dark knight's daughter.