Chapter 10: Randall’s Great Love

 

 

IT DIDN’T take him as long as I thought it would. I tried not to focus on how many times he turned the page so I wouldn’t be able to figure out specifically what he was reading in any given moment. I almost grabbed the damn thing out of his hands once or twice, intent on throwing it in the fire so he couldn’t read any more.

Because it was all there.

Everything I’d learned since this started. All my secrets.

And the bird.

My biggest secret of all.

It felt almost… wrong that it was him and not Morgan. Or Ryan. Or Gary and Tiggy. There were so many people who deserved to know everything more than Randall did.

Was that fair?

I didn’t know.

But somehow I stayed where I was.

Randall, for his part, kept a mostly blank look on his face the four hours it took for him to get through what I’d spent the past few days writing. Once, an eyebrow rose, and his mouth thinned a little somewhere around hour two, but I didn’t try to sneak a peek at what he was reading, absolutely sure that I didn’t want to know.

The fire kept up as it always had. I didn’t know if it was Randall’s magic or Castle Freesias that kept it going. Maybe I’d find out the answer one day.

Finally he closed my Grimoire, keeping it in his lap. He shut his eyes for a little while, and I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. Which, of course, I tried desperately not to feel disappointed by, seeing as how I’d just essentially bared everything and Randall’s response was to take a fucking nap? How dare he, that old asshole—

“The bird,” he said.

I started choking.

He opened his eyes, glaring at me.

“Sorry,” I gasped. “Swallowed spit.”

“Must you always be awkward at everything you do?”

I nodded furiously. “Probably. It’s my gift. It’s also my curse. Sorry.”

He waited until I’d gained at least some semblance of control again before continuing. “Have you done anything similar since?”

“Bringing something back to life?”

“Yes,” he said.

I shook my head.

“And any time before.”

“No. That… that was it. The one time.”

“And the earth. The grass, the trees. The Dark Woods. That spot. Have you been back there since?”

I hesitated, considering lying about that. But I’d come this far already. Might as well go all-in. “Yes.”

“And?”

“And it looks the same.”

“Meaning the forest has regrown or it’s still black?”

“Black.”

“Do you know why?”

I shrugged nervously. “Maybe? I get why more than the how.”

“We’ll get to that. Tell me why.”

“I took life to give life. Once taken, it can’t be given back unless I take from something else.”

“And had there been someone with you, what do you think would have happened?”

“I don’t… know?”

He sighed. “It’s resurrection.”

“What?”

“What you did. Like the consumption of magic, it is… theory. Nothing more. Many have tried, at the cost of their lives or the lives of others. None have succeeded.”

“Until me.”

“Until you,” he agreed. “Always you. Do you know what death is, Sam?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“No.”

“It’s the end.”

“Is it? You don’t believe in something after death?”

“Honestly? I’ve… never really thought about it.”

That made him smile, and it was startling to see. “Ah, youth. How I remember being the same. Death is a cleansing. It breaks you free of the shackles of life and all its burdens.”

“You’ve been shackled a long time.” Then, “That came out wrong. I’m—”

He waved my apology away. “It’s true. I have.”

“Why?” I asked, feeling brave. “You’ve done things more remarkable than any other wizard in existence. The things you must have seen. Everything you’ve been through. Why do you…”

“Persist?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

“Uh. Sure.”

“Because I have to. Because I’m not done with what I’ve set out to do. I am not yet able to be free of my shackles. Why do you think that is?”

“Myrin?”

“Partially. Maybe even a large part. But then there’s Morgan. And you.”

“Me? Why me?”

He shook his head. “Surely you don’t even have to ask that after everything you’ve shown me in your Grimoire, Sam of Wilds. You know why. I must admit I did not expect to read what you have written here. I—you’re more than what you show. I don’t know why I fail to see that.”

“That sounded dangerously close to a compliment.”

“The bird.”

“What about it?”

“You said that you took life to give it life.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it was the same, after?”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

He was strangely patient. “The bird had died. Either it moved on to wherever birds go after they die, or if you’d rather believe, it was snuffed out like a candle in the dark, leaving behind only a wisp of its former self. In this case, a body. But then you took life to give it life. Was the bird the same?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t either, Sam. I am learning that even after all these centuries, I don’t know many, many things. And most of them have to do with you.”

“Oops?” I said, chuckling weakly. “My bad.”

“I loved him.”

I fell silent.

Randall looked toward the fire. “Myrin. I loved him. Maybe more than I’d ever loved anything in this world, before and after. He was… this light. This beautiful light that I thought I could be consumed by. That’s what he felt like anyway. Maybe it’s the old romantic in me that still thinks so. I’m sure anyone in love for the very first time feels the same way. Before him, I hadn’t time for something as trivial as love. I was young—well, younger—and on a set path to become the greatest wizard the world had ever known. Nothing was going to stop me. I took my time. I thought it would be better if I did. That way I could take a look at everything there was to see. I was an architect, and my magic would be my greatest work. And when I was ready, when I was ready to build, I would find my cornerstone and the world would be in awe of me.

“I sowed my oats, sure. Men and women. It was easier to lie next to a stranger than to form attachments. I didn’t need more of those. I had my mentor. I had my studies. Those were all I needed.”

His smile took on a melancholic curve. “I wasn’t ready when I met him. But it didn’t matter. He rolled in like a storm, and nothing I could have done would have stopped everything that followed. I didn’t want to stop him. He was devilishly handsome. He could charm anyone out of anything. He had this… this laugh that when you heard it, you would just stop and listen to it. It was loud and boisterous and oh-so contagious. Do you know what the first thing he ever said to me was?”

I shook my head, unable to speak.

“He said, ‘Well, well, well. What do we have here?’” Randall’s hands were trembling. “And I was just so perplexed as to why he was speaking to me at all in the first place. Everyone knew to leave me alone, but here he was, forcing his way in, brash and kinetic, and I just… let him.

“If I could have you know one thing, Sam, it would be this: there was a time when he was good. There was good in him. I will always believe that. I saw it. For a long time, for many, many days, I saw it. He was good. But sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes good can give way to the darkness in all of us until it blocks out all of the light.”

He looked back to me. “To answer your question, yes. We did what we did in hopes that one day we would find a way to bring him back to the light. To banish the darkness that had consumed him. Maybe it was naïve, but when you love someone so completely, you tell yourself that you would do anything for them. That you would do what it took to keep them safe. And if they were lost to you, well. That you would find some way to bring them back home.”

I saw where this was headed. “You called death a cleansing.”

He waited for me to continue.

“You think… that if he were to die, I could bring him back. And he would be… cleansed?”

“Yes,” he said, voice cracking. “But I am wrong about that, Sam. We were wrong. To keep him trapped in the shadow realm, to not have ended this when we had the chance.”

“You knew,” I said quietly. “About the bird. You already knew. And… what? You were going to use me?”

Randall looked far older than I’d ever seen him. “The briefest of thoughts. But yes, Sam. It did cross my mind. Then I remembered the truth of all things. Myrin has chosen his path, and he will continue upon it, no matter what we do. And I realized that death is final. Death is the end. It is the cleansing of life, the breaking of the shackles. It is an ending. You cannot course-correct that ending, even though your heart is aching.”

“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “What are you saying?”

“This… end. This sacrifice. Your vision.”

Ryan.

I hadn’t even—

I could.

Oh my gods, I could—

“No,” he snapped, suddenly leaning forward, placing his gnarled hands on my knees, squeezing tightly. My Grimoire fell off his lap onto the ground. “You cannot, Sam. If that is to be his ending, then it must be the end. Should the Knight Commander fall, he will have had his shackles removed and he will be free. You cannot bind him to this life again. You cannot bring him back. The amount of energy for a bird destroyed part of the forest for good. What would it take to bring back a human with all his memories and all his thoughts, if that were even possible? What would the cost be?”

Worth it, a little voice whispered. Any price. I would pay any price.

“You can say that,” I said hoarsely. “You can say what I can and can’t do, because you’re not me. You can sit there and tell me what to do, resting easy in the knowledge that I am the one paying for your mistakes. That I have to be the one to kill Myrin or have him take everything. Not you. Yes, he’ll die. But I think for you, he died a long time ago. This man, he’s nothing but a shadow of what he once was. But Ryan… he—” My breath hitched in my chest. “—he would pay for your mistakes too. Only with his life. You can’t tell me that I can’t do anything to—”

His fingers dug into my knees. I was sure there’d be bruises there tomorrow. “I am sorry for what we’ve done, for all the mistakes that we have made. But Sam, you must heed my warning. It would change him. He would not be the same person he was before.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “You said that this was only ever theory before me. You don’t know what could happen.”

“Think about it! A bird, the smallest of birds, burned the life out of the earth. If this were to be a human, if this were Ryan, what would the end result be? If it were to work, what would you burn in order to save him? Your parents? The King? Gary and Tiggy?”

I recoiled away from him in shock. “Stop.”

“Stone crumbles, Sam. A path may be set, but stone crumbles. Zero was right to tell you this. Vadoma can say what she will. The damn gods can write the future in the stars, but I am telling you right here and now that stone crumbles, and we will do everything we can to help you, to help all of us.”

“But what if it’s not enough?”

He slumped back into his chair. “You have to have hope.”

Gods, that sounded so fucking trite. “Do you?” I retorted.

“I have to,” he said tiredly. “It’s all I have left. This hope. This belief that one day, the mistakes that I have made as a man who loved another will be washed clean and forgiven. That the world will continue to exist in the light long after my own candle has been snuffed out and I am but a wisp of smoke. I have made mistakes, Sam. So many mistakes. I am sorry for them. That you and yours have to live with the actions of an old man who thought he was doing the right thing. If I could relieve you of this burden, I would. More than anything else, that is what I wish when I look upon the stars. That you would be free from all of this, able to live the life you deserve. I have been… harsh with you, only because I see myself in you. Your strength, your attitude, rough though it may be, reminds me of how I acted for a very long time. And that’s not to say that you’re doing anything wrong. You’re not; you are living your life just as well as you should. Or at least you were before all of this.”

“Did you know?” I asked him quietly. “When Kevin came. That all of this was beginning?”

He nodded slowly. “It was a sign.”

“And you said you didn’t know it would be Myrin.”

“No.”

“The bird.”

“What you’re really asking is if I planned on using you all this time.”

I stared straight at him. “Yes.”

“At first.”

I swallowed thickly. “What changed your mind?”

“You did. You were me. And even if you weren’t, Sam, I’d like to think that I wouldn’t have done anything. When I say at first, I mean that it was the briefest of thoughts, done so in passing. Something considered in the dead of night when I couldn’t sleep. It was… dark. It was dark, but I am not.”

“How did you stop him the first time?”

“Containment. Compression.”

“Morgan.”

“Yes.”

“How is it that you can’t do that?”

“How is it that Morgan cannot travel as I can? How is it that I do not have a lightning-struck heart as you do? It’s…. Magic is a fingerprint, Sam. It’s unique to the person. You can do things that I have never thought possible. There are things that I can do that you might never achieve, but I can’t be sure of that. You are… different. Than all of us that have come before you.”

“But you said that we’re the same, you and I.”

His smile was a fragile thing. “We were.”

“But not anymore?”

“I am far too old to have the wonder you carry for the world. And I don’t want to see that wonder burned from you.”

He fell silent after that, allowing me to process everything that had been said. I didn’t know what to do with most of it. I didn’t know what to say. I was angry at him yet again, but the anger was muted by the fact that I understood. I couldn’t blame him too much if I thought I’d have done the same thing had I been in his shoes.

We were human. We breathed. We lived. We laughed. We broke. And in the end, we loved each other down to our very souls. We moved with a strange grace, the dance of life that pushed us together, and didn’t we just cling to each other? Didn’t we just hold on as tightly as we could in fear that at any possible moment, we’d be torn away?

We did.

Randall had danced his life. He had made his choices. And now he sat across from me, slouched and weary.

“I don’t want to live forever,” I finally said.

“You won’t.”

“I don’t want to live as long as you.”

“You won’t. My heart beats because I am forcing it to. Apparently I can be quite stubborn when I need to be.”

“Or as long as Morgan.”

He closed his eyes. “Sam—”

“I don’t want longevity. I want—”

“Your magic will keep you alive.”

“Then maybe I don’t want it.”

His eyes snapped open. “How can you—”

For the first time in my life, I said, “I want to be normal.”

“Sam, if there is one thing you are not, it is normal. Normal does not have its fate written in the stars.”

“I can’t leave him,” I said. “I won’t. If stone crumbles, then I want to crumble right along with it. If we… survive this. If we defeat Myrin, I want to age like a human. I want to live a normal life.”

“You are meant to be the King’s Wizard,” Randall said, sitting up higher. He squared his shoulders. “You have a duty to the people of Verania. To the Crown.”

“I will find a way,” I said. “I will help you with your mistakes, but I will find a way.”

“Why?” he breathed, shaking his head.

I threw his words back in his face. “I love him. Maybe more than I’ve ever loved anything in this world, before and after. He is this light. This beautiful light that I think I can be consumed by. That’s what he—”

“Stop.”

I did.

“Love,” Randall said after taking a deep breath, “can be an undoing. It can destroy a man.”

“It can,” I agreed. “Or it can lift him up and carry him when things go dark.”

There was a pause. Then, “You are, without a doubt, the biggest idiot that I’ve ever had the misfortune to have met.”

“Hey!”

“I’m being completely serious. How are you even still alive? Forget what I said about you and I being the same. You are this… this gushy—”

“I’m not gushy, what the hell—”

“—sappy little boy who is talking out his ass. You are going to get eaten by a dragon, mark my words. The mated pair is going to take one look at you and snap you in half like a little tenderloin.”

“If they do, the world will end so it doesn’t matter anyway.”

Randall sighed. “Why do I even bother?”

“I ask that about you all the time too,” I said. “Something else we have in common.”

“Can you please keep that I said that to yourself?”

“Absolutely not. I’m telling everyone. Even people I don’t know. I’m going to stop them in the streets and tell them that you basically said that you love me because I’m exactly like you.”

“I didn’t say anything like that—”

“We should probably hug now,” I demanded. “For at least three minutes.” I stood up.

“Don’t you dare,” he warned as he dropped his hands. His eyes narrowed. “If you even remotely think about—godsdammit.”

“Shh,” I whispered from where I was bent over, resting my head on his shoulder, arms wrapped around him, holding on tight. “Just let it happen. It feels so good if you just let it happen. And I know how that sounded, but I was just talking about a hug.”

“Are you done yet?”

“Everyone knows hugs should last at least a minute. It’s only been fifteen seconds. Just let me do this. Has anyone ever told you that you smell like mothballs and cherry-flavored hard candies? You’re my cherry-flavored mothball hard candy—”

“That’s it,” he snarled, shoving me away. He was surprisingly strong for being so old. I almost stumbled directly into the fire but was able to save myself from certain death.

“We should do that more,” I decided.

“We will never do that again,” he said. “You got one, Sam of Wilds. That was it. Try that again and I will magically castrate you.”

“My boys,” I whispered, taking a step back. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try and hug me again.”

I reached down and picked up the Grimoire. One of the pages was bent, and I smoothed it out. A few words caught my eye.

…you are not ready.

“You forgot one thing,” I said, feeling a headache coming on.

“What?” he asked from behind me, sounding grumpy.

“The Great White.” I turned slowly. Randall was looking back at the fire. “It said I wasn’t ready.”

“Yes. That. I commend you for keeping it a secret for this long. However, if you do something like that again, you won’t like the consequences. Do we understand each other?”

Yikes. “Uh. Completely. Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He smoothed out his beard, which had gotten ruffled during our one and only hug (or so he thought). “As for the Great White, either it was speaking the truth or it wasn’t. Either the path has been set or it hasn’t. Stone crumbles, Sam. You need to prove to the Great White that you are ready. So when you stand before it, you are able to look it in the eye and be judged worthy. Having collected the other four dragons will go a long way toward convincing it. I believe in you. Above all things, I believe that if anyone can do it, it will be you.”

“Why?” I asked, swallowing past the strange lump in my throat. “Why do you believe in me? Because you have no other choice?”

For the second time, he smiled at me. “No, Sam. Because I know who you are and what you’re capable of. And I’m going to make sure that you’re ready.”

That wasn’t comforting in the slightest. “That sounded almost like a threat.”

The smile widened. I no longer liked the look of it. “Oh. It was.”

“Eep,” I said.