A Man Alone

Part Three: Mythan

"Wait a minute," Arant said. "I believe that you and Mythan were friends growing up, before he knew who you were. But why would he just let you go?"

"Why did you save my life?" Daevan asked in return. "I don't understand either. I do know that Mythan thought I could be helpful to him, though; the reason the Bladedancers have been so hard to beat is because no one knows anything about them. No one knows how they work. People who do are watched for their loyalty, anyone whose loyalty isn't assured ends up dead.

"But then there was me. I knew how it worked, I knew how it all worked, up to the highest levels. I knew how Dad thought, and how Kain thought. I knew where their fronted properties were. And I could help Ledian's secret agents, tell them where to look, what to do, how to fake orders to fuck things up...

"So I did. I did everything Mythan asked me to, under strict security. Constantly being watched... It made me crazy, but I wasn't going to fight it. I was grateful to be alive, still practically comatose from losing Mercy. The hurt... I thought it would go away with time. It didn't. It was months of feeling nothing, really, struggling through each day, telling myself I should be grateful to Mythan and Arant, for letting me live; that I should be grateful just to be alive.

"Mythan was hiding me, really, protecting me. He was making sure that Dad didn't know where to find me, especially at first, before Dad realized who was causing all of the... Disruptions. He realized it pretty soon, but Mythan kept moving me around, giving out false information... I doubt I'd have made it so long without his covering for me. He didn't want to lose his secret weapon, after all."

"Sounds to me like he didn't want to lose his best friend," Kara commented.

"What?" Daevan asked.

She shrugged. "Nothing."

He gave her an odd look and continued. "It was a long time before I could venture out on my own again. There was one night, I remember... When I woke up, I guess, it was like coming out of a dream. Mythan was there—for all he was taking care of me, in charge of me, I guess, I rarely actually saw him. He didn't want people to link us together too much, I think; if it wasn't for the fact that I was such a criminal, I would have been offended. But he was there one day, asked me how I was. I said fine, of course, and he said he didn't believe me, that I couldn't fool him.

"I wasn't trying to fool him. Not really. I just didn't feel anything... He suggested we spar, as we had back at the Academy. We had been an even match in those days, he had been good enough to challenge me, and vice versa. We were head and shoulders above our classmates... It had been over ten years since we'd last sparred, though, and I knew I could beat him in a fight. He'd trained extensively after the Academy, too, but there's a big difference between training and everything I'd been through. I didn't want to fight him. I didn't want to pick up my sword...

"The sword was special, to me at least. It's ancient, a relic from the first Bladedancer... He had two swords, legend says. One he used while he was building his Empire. The second he used after he crowned himself Emperor, and he gave the first sword to his son, who used it until he took the Empire for himself. It's a load of bullshit, but the sword spoke more about my fallen rank than anything else.

"I hadn't touched it in months. I hadn't picked up any sort of weapon. And it wasn't as though I was losing myself to the bottle or something, I just... Didn't do anything, really. I read a lot. I remember that. But I didn't work out at all, I didn't care if my skills went to hell.

"But Mythan insisted. With practice blades, he told me; he didn't want to hurt me." Daevan half-laughed. "I was still a cocky bastard at heart, told him he couldn't hurt me, but what the hell? So we sparred, with wooden practice blades, like kids.

"And he left me on my back in the dust. Repeatedly. And I couldn't understand why, I was better than he was... He told me, the fourth time he gave me a hand up, that it was because I didn't want it. Because I didn't care, I'd let myself get sloppy, and while I was the superior bladesman, he could floor me without breaking a sweat.

"He told me that was what he expected—I wasn't suicidal, I was too proud for that. But I didn't care about life any more, if I'd let my swordsmanship go to shit like that. I told him he was wrong, I was having a bad day; he pointed out I hadn't touched a sword in three months. And I just stared at him.

"It had been three months since Mercy's funeral, since my father had started trying to kill me, since I'd been working for Ledian Intelligence. I barely believed it, it felt as though no time had passed since she'd died. Days I hadn't lived, or experienced, they'd just happened despite me. And that was no way to live, and Mythan told me so.

"I didn't know how to respond. I just stood there in shock for a minute, and then... It all broke. It all came out. I started to shake, I literally collapsed—Mythan caught me. He helped me to a bench to sit, and then it all just came out. Three rotten fucking months on my own, three months without her, three months of having no one in the world who cared if I lived or died. I sat there and sobbed like a little kid—and I never cried when I was little. But I sobbed, for myself, for Mercy, for all of the deaths and pain I'd caused, for all of the death and pain still being caused by my father. It all came out."

He gave everyone a slightly embarrassed look. "It feels ridiculous to say," he admitted. "A grown man crying like a child. A disgustingly arrogant man at that. But it was... Cathartic. It was a release, it let me let go of everything, to really, truly release my past. It... It let me get through the spell Mercy had cast on me. I've never stopped loving her or missing her, but I finally stopped hoping to join her." He shrugged. "When I finally stopped shaking, I picked up the wooden practice blade again. We went back to the floor.

"And I proceeded to kick Mythan's ass. I had gotten sloppy, it took quite awhile to win back some of the technique I'd lost, but at least I cared enough to do it. Finally." He leant back in his chair calmly. "I really wonder if he let me win that match, though."

No one said anything, so he took a minute to reflect.

"Well. Mythan told me he wanted me to stay on and help for awhile; I told him I was his as long as he needed me. So we began to plot. It took awhile... I kept giving them information about how to really make my Dad wonder what the fuck had happened, how it was that his people were messing up so often, doing subtle things. But Mythan and I were working on a plan to get rid of him, once and for all.

"Plotting took a few months. My birthday passed; I turned twenty-nine. Sat in the back of the Royal Wedding when he and Breena finally got married... Felt as though I didn't belong."

"Well, you didn't belong," Arant pointed out. He had been there, too, an emissary from Ahdab, though he hadn't seen Daevan. It wasn't all that surprising that they'd missed each other, as thousands of people had been at the wedding, and Daevan had been doing his best to be inconspicuous.

"I suppose that's true. I ran in to one of my old teachers from the Academy, though, almost startled him to death." He shook his head. "It had been a long time since anyone had called me Derik, it was just as strange for me as it was for him, I imagine.

"Time passed, I got my edge back, took a more active hand in unsettling the Bladedancers. Maybe a year after I first turned myself in to Mythan, we finished our big plans, and came to, well, the first of several failed assassination attempts on Kyrvan Bladedancer's life."

"You tried to kill your own father?" Kara asked.

"A few times, yeah." He shrugged. "Trust me, if there has ever been any just murder in the history of the world, it's the Bladedancer's. Look what he did to Kaiya. He's scum, Kara, he deserves to die. I... I'll admit I'm not thrilled with killing my kin, but someone has to do it—still—and I'm probably one of the only people in the world who can."

"You haven't yet," Kaiya pointed out.

"Not for lack of trying." Daevan sighed, and paused to dig out and light a cigarette. Kara snatched it from him and extinguished it with her foot.

"Disgusting habit," she muttered.

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Kara," he sighed. They'd been having this argument for too many years now, and as soon as she relaxed in her chair, he lit another one, and this time, dodged her attempts to grab it from him.

"The first attempt on Kyrvan's life... Let's see. We managed to get him boxed in to one of the strong holds, we thought; I knew the way in, despite their defenses, after all, I had once run the damn place. I organized it, it was practically a battle siege... And we broke in, discovered about half the Squad lay in waiting for us. Kyrvan was nowhere to be found."

He took a long drag on the cigarette. "To this day, we don't know who was playing who, who found out about the other's plans first. I should have known, though. I should have... Damn it." He slumped in his chair, eyes closed tight. "Damn him. It was... It cost Mythan's agents lives. Good guys, good kids. They didn't deserve...

"It was the first time I'd ever felt guilty about wasted lives... They hadn't been mine to waste. The Squad had been different, they all were killers at heart. It was a kill or be killed world for them. Their deaths never bothered me. But... Mythan's kids were different. They were good guys, they had families, they were doing a job but didn't mean anything by it... And they died..."

He trailed off, then, suddenly angry, extinguished the cigarette against the table, leaving a small burn mark into it. "Damn it all," he muttered.

"Are you alright?" Kara asked.

"Fine. Just... Fine." He slumped in his chair a little. "After that... Mythan decided I'd done about all I could; I'd given him enough of an idea how the Bladedancers work that he figured he could get his men killed all on his own. So he sent me off."

"That's when you got pardoned in Ledian?" Arant asked.

"No, that's when Ledian unofficially promised to ignore my existence. There were a lot of people pissed at the Bladedancers, and Mythan and Breena didn't want to aggravate them by giving me a public pardon. But they promised not to send anyone looking for me, so long as I stayed out of trouble. So I told them I would, and I left.

"I had a small plot of land set aside for me in northern Gaba, they'd done that much so I'd have a place to go—a place they could reach me if they needed me. I hadn't promised them I'd stay there, but I said I'd check in there often enough to find out if they did need me. This would have been, oh..." he smirked. "Seven years ago or so.

"I had only been to the cabin for a few days when I got bored and started looking around at the locals... I was in the middle of fucking nowhere, the woods up in Northern Gaba—"

"Hey!" Kara snapped.

"What? It is the middle of nowhere up there," he argued.

She rolled her eyes. "You just don't appreciate the forest."

"Damn straight. Give me a nice, large city any day."

"And the filth that goes with it?"

"That's where I'm in my element." He grinned. "So there were a few villages about a day away; mostly just serfs trying to survive out there. I heard that Duke Karliss was surveying the area and wanted to watch but decided to do it from a distance. I didn't see much of him, though—I mostly watched a girl with a bow and arrow try and kill him, fail, and run like hell. I had nothing to do, figured what the hell, and followed her.

"She did a better job at escaping than I'd expected; even I had some difficulty tracking her. But eventually I did catch up with her—not far from my humble hutch—and after a brief, ehrm... Argument, she agreed to tell me what had happened."

Kaiya rolled her eyes. "So you met Kara."

"Yeah... I met Kara."