Page 1 of Grimdark Magazine Issue 48

The Last Fire-Bearer of Angtíl

By Alex Fox

They call me “mad king”. Mad king, bad king, sad king. As if they know the yoke which I bear. A man cannot fight what he is. We are but puppets pulled by strings. This world keens its death rattle. The new world remains hidden but I, and only I, may glimpse it through the flame. I, High King Thothnik, the Last Fire-Bearer of Angtíl. Heir to fire and flame.

My seven sons joined me this evening for the Feast of Saint Cadris, and all are asleep now beneath my roof. From their bones shall this world be reborn.

The torches flicker. Flicker. I roam my keep, seeking out my sons. The fire speaks to me, its shadows whisper across the naked steel of my sword.

The fire says: they cannot hold the flame as you but they will try to take it.

I walk the black stone halls; the Old Guard flanks me, they do not question. They are loyal to me, the heir. Not to my sons, for they are not heirs until I die.

And I will not die, but transcend.

“My liege?” questions the guard outside my eldest son’s room. He is my son’s personal guard, not a man of my keep. I beckon the captain of the Old Guard forth. In one hand, he bears the torch; in the other, his blade, aglow in the firelight.

My captain thrusts his sword into the new guard’s throat. The body falls so softly. Once here and now gone. This is all we are, sacks of meat and blood. No, no, this is all they are, for I am something greater.

I ease the oaken door open. Only darkness greets me and for a moment, I am fearful. “Bring me the flame,” I hiss.

My captain shuffles into the room and thrusts out the torch. Muted orange light pools along the dark stone walls. It reassures me. I was always meant to be here on this fateful night, the eve of a world reborn, and none else can usher its coming but me.

My son stirs. My eldest, Rovan. His hands are curled beneath his jaw and he sleeps just as he did when he was a boy. He’s a man of thirty summers now. You would think he is the rightful heir to fire because his hair is the color of burnished copper and it shines brilliantly in the torchlight.

But there is no heir to fire but me.

“Father?” he mutters.

The traitor the false seed of your loins he would sooner see you die before our work is done, the fire flares. In it I can see my son’s fate, my fate. Such a thing we cannot escape. We are but puppets pulled by strings.

I leap onto his bed and thrust my blade beneath his ribs. Blood spreads like a blight through his white linens; he looks at me, mouth agape. I hold him; he coughs, once, twice, and warm blood freckles my face. He shudders and stills. My eldest boy, dead. Dead. I cry out.

You know what he wished to do, the flames sigh. It’s true, I saw our fates in the fire. All seven of my sons stood around my bed, swords poised. The halls lay littered with the dead of the Old Guard. For every fate there is a fate twinned, a false choice. If not this, then that. If not me, then them. If not flame, then the same blackened shroud coiled about the world, tight as a noose.

This world has gone beyond all reckoning. We are accustomed to it because we were whelped here; we know naught else. But the heir’s eyes–my eyes–can see the truth. Base instinct drives us all, a tightly bound distaff from which we cannot unwind. A mistake of nature, we are but animals awoken, brought to heel by false masters. This world was clean when it was born, for it was born of fire. But we have dirtied it. And only the heir can return the world to its primal glory. Only fire can cleanse it.

Only me.

All night I walk the halls of my keep, the swift footfalls of the Old Guard like war drums against the cold stone. If my wife were alive to weep, oh how her calls would echo in these corridors; mangled and strained. I swear I can hear them now, or is that my own voice, shrill as a beaten dog?

My sword grows darker with each room visited. Three sons dead: Rovan, Mihlhal, Gengrut. Four sons dead: Rovan, Mihlhal, Gengrut, Kywin.

My fifth son, Young Borz, has woken. Stands ready in the threshold of his chambers, eyes igniting like cold, twin moons in the light of the torch. A sparse beard bristles on his chin.

“What have you done, Father?” he says, his voice a shade above a whisper. The torch held by my Old Guard flares bright, so bright the hall is awash in daylight for a moment. Young Borz flinches at the light, raises his sword.

“Do not fear the fire, Borz,” I say, circling him, my blood-dirtied blade poised and brandished. “Do not fear the fate of the world.”

“Speak plain, old man,” he seethes. “Your mind has rotted with your heart.” His steel finds mine. I parry, downward sweep; the blade knicks his bare wrist and he yelps but does not surrender. He rushes me, our blades lock and we seek dominance, our faces so close I can see his mother’s likeness in his eyes, I can smell his sleep-laced breath.

“Do not do this, Father,” he urges through gritted teeth, straining, knees buckling. Blood weeping from his wounded wrist to pattern the floor, to slick my grip and his own. I wish to hug him, to cradle him to my chest as when he was a babe. To show him what I know is true.

Kill him kill him kill him now now NOW NOW NOW, the fire twists at the edge of my gaze.

I shunt Borz away, step once, twice, parry then lunge, spearing him through the chest. As he stumbles I cast my blade aside. I catch and hold him.

“Know that I do this for you,” I say, my voice cracking. I push his matted hair away from his face. “You will never have to bear the flame.”