Duel by the First Wall, 3 of 3

### # ###

His dagger had been deflected, landing on the dirty pavement of the alleyway.

“Where are you going to, Alessar?” said a voice in the darkness of the narrow street where he had thrown it, aiming at a stalker invisible to him. “Why take the short route towards the outskirts of the city? Are you in a hurry to depart for some reason?”

The voice was familiar. He was filled with terror.

He turned around to run away, but the entrance to the alleyway was closed; men wrapped in black clothes waited there, steelswords naked. His terror turned to desperation: he turned again and ran toward the darkness ahead, his other dagger already in his hand. He saw the outline of a man; he raised his armed hand; he lowered it to stab. A powerful grip on his wrist signaled excruciating pain; he dropped the dagger. A quick punch doubled him up: he fell to the ground, moaning. A booted foot kicked him flat on his back.

“Pity,” the man over him said; middle-aged but well-standing, he possessed rough facial characteristics with clever small eyes over a hooked nose and a kempt beard. “Such insolence from one of my best students. I’m sorrowful.”

“Master Aposperus--” he was kicked, his sentence unfinished as oxygen left his lungs.

“You will speak no more. You will fight tomorrow against your lover, the Mediator--“

“She isn’t--”

“Your lover? Oh, but I know all, my student,” Aposperus said with an arrogant tone. “The Pale Flame knows! That’s what we do, that’s our duty.”

Alessar moved to grab a pouch of his belt but his master’s angry gaze froze him.

“This is enough! Tie him!”

The four swordsmen were over Alessar in no time; they tied and gagged him.

“The Pale Flame has existed since this Colony’s birth,” spoke Aposperus. “We are the eyes and ears of the Colonial Council, and sometimes even more than that. And once a century, we get a chance to improve our political position; do you really think your foolish sentiments can destroy such a chance?”

The leader of the Order of the Pale Flame grabbed Alessar from the chin, shaking his head. “No, Alessar,” he emphasized. “You will fight tomorrow, by your will-- or without it.”

####  ####

Dalleya saw the dagger her mind powers had deflected. She grabbed and removed it from the wall. Her attacker, his eyes full of hate, ducked behind a pile of stones.

She smiled.

She thought a series of words and spoke them. The Median crystal shone again as the words were uttered; the stones that concealed her opponent rose in mid-air. Swift movements of her hands; the stones flew toward her enemy.

A dive and a roll; he avoided them all. He stood on his feet, his hateful gaze at her. For an instant, she thought of a different gaze, familiar and warm. Something else was there, too; a conversation with her father, perhaps? Everything was misty.

## ## # ## ##

“Would you be my companion for life, Dalleya?” he had asked her, his eyes full of expectation and resonance.

“I would be, by Artzaan and Holos,” she had answered with honesty and decisiveness, exchanging a last passionate kiss with him. Then they had parted, leaving their secret hideout to prepare their escape.

Dalleya’s mind returned to the present. She looked around her in the dark and then tread slowly on the stone floor of the Mediators’ Pteroen Room, watching her steps. She was full of thoughts as she headed --her backpack full of sustenance-- towards the artificial light one of the Pteroens was releasing: that light was a soft green, the common green of the flying machine’s idling crystal-powered engine.

She pulled a lever at a wall near the active Pteroen and the roof just over it opened; the starlight reflected on the metal surface of the elegant metallic craft, making its crystal-tipped wing --which formed a triangle around its spherical cabin-- shine in the night.

She smiled and prepared to enter the cabin, but then the room suddenly lightened; four men came out of their hiding spots and surrounded her, robed, crystal-bearing.

“Why are you leaving us, Dalleya?” the oldest of the four asked, a tall, slim man wearing a red robe, thick bearded with blue eyes like Dalleya’s.

Dalleya sighed and let her backpack drop. “Oh, father, I can’t.”

The old man frowned. “These are unfitting words for the next Archteacher of the Mediators, daughter,” he said. “You must fight and win! That is your duty!”

“I never desired such a duty,” Dalleya counterposed. “It was appointed to me, and I do not want it.”

“It is an honor.”

“It is a curse for me.”

“You love that man? You know whom I speak of: That Alessar.”

“With all my heart.”

“Then my foe wasn’t trying to deceive me,” the old man said. “Oh, my daughter, how deluded you have been!”

“What happened?” she asked. “Who spoke to you? What did he tell you?”

“The Grandmaster of the Order of the Pale Flame, Aposperus of Cydonea. He told me that you and one of his students had an affair. How long has this been happening?”

“Not long enough to be considered illegal,” she answered, “but long enough for us to know we were made for each other.”

“But it cannot be!” the old man burst. “You are enemies! We are enemies with them!”

“I do not care about the Mediators, or the Order, or the politics of power, father!” Dalleya exclaimed. “He is as honest as any man, and he would travel to the Spirit Worlds to save my life if he had to!”

“Nonsense!” he retorted. “Tomorrow that man will try to kill you so that his Order gets the rule of the Secret Council, Dalleya; you do not understand the danger you’re in!”

“We have given vows.”

“What? You’re surely lying!”

“We have. We are a pair, with your blessing or not.”

The old man shook his head in disbelief. “You cannot yet understand the importance of this all,” he said, “and I will not try to persuade you otherwise; you are too unwise for it, too stubborn to accept its reality. But rest assured that you will fight your paramour, my daughter; you see, in face of the unpleasant surprise you and your lover had in store for us, Grandmaster Aposperus and I reached an agreement.”

#### ## ####

This woman is dangerous. I must be careful, thought Alessar as he stood on his feet.

Her crystal shining and vibrating, his opponent began chanting.

I must hit her before she finishes her wretched spell!

He took a stone from the ground and aimed it at her. He threw it.

A short flight. Her hand was hit, the crystal dropped, the chant broken.

Alessar dashed toward her, wild joy drawn on his face, weapon posed to strike.

She pulled her sword from its scabbard.

Alessar saw it. A steelsword.

His steelsword.

Dalleya? he thought in hesitation, having reached her, his dagger descending to strike.

The sword skewered him, piercing his gut, coming out from his back; his own blood filled his mouth; he fell.

Fool, a rogue thought echoed in his mind. Stupid amateur! You disgraced us!

The woman backed, Alessar’s dagger having grazed her shoulder.

“Dalleya?” he said.

“Who- who are you?” she asked. His face was familiar, yet unknown.

“I-I am your twin moons…” he said, his words mixed with blood, and collapsed.

“What?” Dalleya yelled, wide-eyed.

A cataract of memories flooded her mind, her wall of amnesia brought down.

Black, piercing eyes, ponytail. “Alessar”. Secret meetings. Embracing. Endless conversations without a reason yet so important. Kisses. Love.

The Clandestine Duel; Fate’s decision, a choice by lot. Another lot, elsewhere, deciding her opponent.

Shock.

A last meeting. A sword given to her, a decision made. The exchange of vows, the promise of unending companionship; of love. A plan.

Then: caught! The plan foiled. Then? Nothing. Emptiness. Until now.

“What have I done?” she keened, ignoring her wound, kneeling by her fallen lover.

He was having spasms.

“What walls of deceit did they impose upon us?” she whispered.

His convulsions were decreasing. He was dying; his blood was all over him; all over her.

She caressed his hair, his forehead, his cheeks. He looked at her for a moment; then his gaze went blank.

Weeping, Dalleya shut his eyes. She rose to her feet.

“What did you do, father?” she howled, looking up, her arms raised.

What had to be done, my daughter, a voice in her mind said.

“You manipulated my mind,” she whispered.

“You tricked me,” she said.

“You beguiled me!” she roared.

Her mind a fiery volcano, her heart a gust of sorrowful wind, her actions fueled by avenging rage: she picked the Median Crystal. With a quick move she dipped it in her dead lover’s blood.

“It’s power that you wanted, father?” she screamed.

She held the blooded crystal high. Angry words of the Firsttongue left her mouth, uttered like stabs, reeking of fury. The Median ore hummed and released a dark, red glow that made the other crystals in the cave tremble.

The cavern shook from its foundations; debris started falling.

A blood ritual? Daughter, stop at once! a thought attacked, but was drown in the sea of pure anger that dominated Dalleya’s spirit.

“The First Wall?” she yelled. “It will be no more!”

She motioned as if grasping something with her free hand and the wall at the center of the room collapsed in a heap; a cloud of dust rose, enveloping her.

“All of this will be no more! Let it be the tomb of your vanity, Pale Flames and Mediators alike! I denounce the victory of the Fighters of the Mind!” she shouted. The Median Crystal vibrated and exploded, releasing an almost-visible thrust wave. Crystals all around the room exploded as well; the whole roof of the cavern fell.

**

Thus the last Clandestine Duel between the two opposing factions ended a stalemate, as Dalleya denied her victory. Neither the Order of the Pale Flame nor the Mediators would rule the Secret Council of the Colonies during the final period of the Era of Wisdom.

The First Wall, a monument of the planet’s colonization, was destroyed, as was the Academy of Mediators over the cavern that housed it. The body of Dalleya was never found; Alessar’s body was cremated according to the Pale Flame tradition.

A soldier of the City Guard would swear that she saw a woman strikingly resembling the daughter of the Mediators’ Archteacher leaving for the Caspian Valley with a mining caravan; Alcemidorus, desperate to find his daughter, sent Pale Flame spies to seek her, having a strand of hope to cling on. Quite a lot of things happened after that, related or unrelated to the events narrated in this tale, things which led the Era of Wisdom to an apocalyptic end.

But that’s another story.

END